Wort chiller

[trbig]

Just wondering about this... Every wort chiller I see gets some sort of cooler immersed into the wort and cold water run through the cooler. Why couldn't you immerse the cooler in an icy bath in an ice chest and slowly siphon the wort through that into the ferment bucket? It'd be done in just a few minutes. That's the same type of way we we get steam converted to liquid on a still?

 

[lumpher]

wow.. what a concept... you mean use a pre-chiller, then a chiller? i MUST report this to the homebrew community...

 

[bobeer]

I've thought about doing this myself. It's sort of how a jockey box works so why not? If you have an auto siphon you could just pump it through. I'm interested to see if any one has tried it.

 

[TallDan]

wow.. what a concept... you mean use a pre-chiller, then a chiller? i MUST report this to the homebrew community...

a) that's not what he's suggesting

b) that's not a helpful response

 

[TallDan]

Just wondering about this... Every wort chiller I see gets some sort of cooler immersed into the wort and cold water run through the cooler. Why couldn't you immerse the cooler in an icy bath in an ice chest and slowly siphon the wort through that into the ferment bucket? It'd be done in just a few minutes. That's the same type of way we we get steam converted to liquid on a still?

That would certainly work. I see three potential issues:

1) Siphoning may not get wort through the whole chiller. You might need a pump. Try a test run with water first to see if that would work.

2) You'll leave a fair amount of wort in the chiller

3) cleaning the outside of an immersion chiller is a lot easier than cleaning the inside, and you would also need to sanitize the inside before running the wort through it.

 

[chickens4life]

i have done this, it requires an ungodly amount of ice in the water bath to do so. also the cooling water tends to stratify, then it doesn't cool as well. It could definitely work if you have a large enough container (would need to be bigger than your batch size) and had some stirring with in the cooling container. I think a true counterflow chiller would be a little more effective.

 

[Keith66]

That would certainly work. I see three potential issues:

1) Siphoning may not get wort through the whole chiller. You might need a pump. Try a test run with water first to see if that would work.

2) You'll leave a fair amount of wort in the chiller

3) cleaning the outside of an immersion chiller is a lot easier than cleaning the inside, and you would also need to sanitize the inside before running the wort through it.

+1, and careful not to clog it with trub (if you brew as dirty as I do).

 

[Exportjo]

Sounds like a counter flow chiller. The only problem with this concept is that you essentially get only one chance to cool your wort. Once you run it through, whatever you can get it chilled to is what you're stuck with. With an immersion chiller you can get it down to essentially as cool as you can get your water.

 

[jstclair05]

That's how I do it. I use 20' of 3/8" OD copper tube and I stick it in a 5gal bucket and cover it with about 21lb ( 3 7lb bags) of ice. I do have to add one extra bag towards the end of the siphon but it comes out right around 75-80f. I lose about 1-1.5qt in the coil though which you can either adjust for before you brew or just live with it like I do. You don't lose any gravity, just volume.
You do need to be careful of too much Trub but if you use a hop bag you shouldn't have any trouble.
It was a fun project to get into (as I did all the heat transfer calcs and built it myself) although a counter flow chiller is a much more efficient cooling system but costs a bit more to get into.

 

[Schol-R-LEA]

I used a system much like this until quite recently, made up of just a simple 20' coil of copper tubing and a 5 gallon plastic bucket. It was not a tremendously effective system - I often needed to run the wort through twice to get it down to 70* F - but it certainly worked. If you have enough ice on hand, and use a slightly longer coil (30' should do), I think you could do very well. The one thing you want to be especially careful of is sanitation; it isn't difficult to keep it clean, but you do want to clean and sanitize it thoroughly both before and after use. I would backflush the tubing and then run 5 gallons of water prepared with Starsan as soon as I was finished, and I never had any sanitation worries.

You also would want to top off the ice with some cold water, as using ice alone won't work; with just ice, you have too many gaps between the chiller and the ice at the start, so adding water ensures the whole system stays in contact.

It's a simple, cheap and effective means of cooling the wort, so yes, you can do this quite easily. That having been said, I have to say that my recent purchase of a Blichmann Therminator plate chiller was well worth the hefty price tag - $200 for the chiller itself, another $200 for a high-temperature pump, and about $100 for connections and tubing - though I would recommend testing it thoroughly before trying to use it, as getting the connections right is a serious headache the first time through. If you can afford a plate chiller, get one; but if money is a concern, the system you describe can be quite cost-effective.

 

[TallDan]

That's how I do it. I use 20' of 3/8" OD copper tube and I stick it in a 5gal bucket and cover it with about 21lb ( 3 7lb bags) of ice. I do have to add one extra bag towards the end of the siphon but it comes out right around 75-80f. I lose about 1-1.5qt in the coil though which you can either adjust for before you brew or just live with it like I do. You don't lose any gravity, just volume.
You do need to be careful of too much Trub but if you use a hop bag you shouldn't have any trouble.
It was a fun project to get into (as I did all the heat transfer calcs and built it myself) although a counter flow chiller is a much more efficient cooling system but costs a bit more to get into.

It seems like the cost of ice would really add up over time for this, depending on how often you brew, some other chiller would probably end up more cost effective in the long run. What do you pay for 28lb of ice?

 

[VonAle]

Buy a fountain / pond pump, and pump the ice water thru the chiller, which is submersed in your wort.

The ice water entering the chiller, is +/-35 degrees. Stir the wort while chilling.

With this method, I cool 5-5.5 gals to 62 degrees in 15 min.
Only takes 2-20# bags of ice, and will have ice left over.
$.99 / bag at the local gas station.


This is the pump I use

 

[TallDan]

Only takes 2-20# bags of ice, and will have ice left over.
$.99 / bag at the local gas station.

Well, nevermind the cost of ice comment then, clearly I don't buy ice often, if i did i would have known that.

 

[lionnusmb]

Buy a fountain / pond pump, and pump the ice water thru the chiller, which is submersed in your wort. The ice water entering the chiller, is +/-35 degrees. Stir the wort while chilling. With this method, I cool 5-5.5 gals to 62 degrees in 15 min. Only takes 2-20# bags of ice, and will have ice left over. $.99 / bag at the local gas station. This is the pump I use

This is what I do except that a bag of ice is not nearly as cheap where I live. I, however, empty the ice machine in our fridge (also refreshes the old ice in the fridge... Two birds, one stone) and use that as well as putting a few iced 2-liter bottles filled with water, for heat sinks. This makes the cubed ice last longer and cool the whole wort at a minimal cost. This is the most cost efficient system for me but I will take suggestions if anyone has them for making this more efficient and cost effective.

 

[grem135]

Buy a fountain / pond pump, and pump the ice water thru the chiller, which is submersed in your wort.

The ice water entering the chiller, is +/-35 degrees. Stir the wort while chilling.

I use this method in the summer after running tap water through it to get it to about 80f. In the winter I have to be careful to not over chill my wort just using tap water.

 

[trbig]

It seems like the cost of ice would really add up over time for this, depending on how often you brew, some other chiller would probably end up more cost effective in the long run. What do you pay for 28lb of ice?

Nothing. Well, next to nothing. I've got a couple fridges with good ice makers. It'd only take 2-3 days to get that much. Plus I keep several bags in the big freezer for ice chests.

The bags I use for my grains are pretty tightly woven and not much gets by.. just a little fine silt in the bottom. I was thinking of using probably much more than 30 feet since I had planned on coiling it around a big ice chest several times. I've got an end table I can set it on, so the pot on the stove, siphon through the ice chest on the end table and into the ferment bucket on the floor. A piece of hose over to the end of my Jet bottle washer and fit over the copper line.. then a power flush, followed by a sanitizer. The copper line is free for me, so that's not an issue, but I just thought this would be a much more efficient cooling method, since like was mentioned. We get steam to liquid easily in one pass like this.

Thank you to the ones with actually helpful posts.

 

[b-boy]

Buy a fountain / pond pump, and pump the ice water thru the chiller, which is submersed in your wort.

The ice water entering the chiller, is +/-35 degrees. Stir the wort while chilling.

With this method, I cool 5-5.5 gals to 62 degrees in 15 min.
Only takes 2-20# bags of ice, and will have ice left over.
$.99 / bag at the local gas station.


This is the pump I use

I pay way more than .99 for a bag of ice. Try 6 bucks for 20lbs of ice where I live.

 

[Yooper]

I pay way more than .99 for a bag of ice. Try 6 bucks for 20lbs of ice where I live.

Yes, me too.

I tried this once. Once.

It took 42 pounds of ice to chill the wort to 75 degrees (and I prefer to pitch at 62 degrees) so it wasn't worth it to me. It was heavy work, freezing and hauling all that ice. I have a friend who does it all the time, but instead puts his kettle in a huge cooler full of ice. he's big and strong, and doesn't mind spending $12 on ice to chill his wort.

I do have a counterflow chiller now- very similar in principle but far more effective since the cold water and wort counter flow each other. I get to pitching temperatures quickly now, using tap water and buying no ice.

 

[raysmithtx]

I use empty milk jugs. Fill them with water and freeze them.

When it's time to chill the wort I beat the jugs with a hammer to break up the frozen jug. Cut them up with a box cutter and dump the pieces in a few gallons of water in a tub.

Basically free ice. I use a tub with tap water to get the temp down to about 120 degrees then I use another tub to dump the ice in. I keep the hot water from the first tub to use for cleaning the equipment.

I use 5 gallons of my 'free ice' and can get the wort down to 55 degrees in about 15 minutes.