Mini-fridge + plate chiller = no more trips to store for ice?

[skoodog]

Hey all,

I'm working on finding a more efficient way to chill wort as currently I put it in my keezer until it's cold and usually pitch the next day as I find the coil method to be horribly inefficient and ends up wasting a ton of water and ice. I came across the Koolatron Coca Cola fridge and was wondering if I ran hose in through the side (or top, depending where the coolant lives in that little bugger), put a plate chiller inside the fridge and recirculated regular water out of a bucket, would I be able to efficiently cool faster?

(I don't kno9w the HBT policy on links to retail sites or I'd link it - it's about $50 retail.)

 

[Roboutwest]

I'm afraid not mate. I had these kind of ideas for chilling as my ground water is hot and I hate buying ice too. A fridge is a heat pump that is designed to keep the interior cool by steadily and slowly pumping the heat out of the chamber. This means they can't chill quickly enough to remove all that heat from hot wort. You would get good chilling from your cold plate for a minute, then the plate would become hot and the fridge wouldn't be able to cool it. You could store a lot of water in a fridge and use that to chill the wort. I tried this as a second stage after ground water by having a cold water supply in my keezer and a pond pump in it to pump it through my chiller. It works ok, but you get SO MUCH more efficient chilling from an ice water bath that I ended up just filling the 4 deg C water with ice anyway.

 

[skoodog]

Blast! Ah well, thanks for the tip! Saved me $50