Given that immersion chillers are held prisoner of the inlet temperature, it occurs to me that there might be a way to counteract that. If you put two immersion chillers in-line, and submerge the first in a bucket packed in ice and water, you could likely reduce the inlet temperature by as much as 20 or 30 degrees. Maybe more. This could cool the wort quite fast, an get it to a lower temp than without. Is there any real gain in an approach like this?
Serialized immersion chillers
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dogtailale
Well-Known Member
kind of sorta ya.
better to cool down with tap water to about 100.
then pump (pond pump) ice water into the chiller.
better to cool down with tap water to about 100.
then pump (pond pump) ice water into the chiller.
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
thats kind of a good idea but it could be cheaper if you just run the vinyl tubing through a bucket with cold water. which kind of gives me an idea. how about a bucket with holes drilled on each side to the diameter of the tubing. run the tubing through both ends and fill with ice water. that way your tap water has to run through the ice water before entering wort. would something like that work?
You mean a prechiller? sure, those work if you have warm tap water. My tap water is cold (45 degrees!) so I've never needed one, but plenty of brewers use them.
kpr121
Well-Known Member
I have a cheap pond pump connected to my chiller that I put in a container. I run my hose to fill that container, and turn the pump on. I try to have the hose spigot turned on at about the same rate as the output, but the container is large enough that it doesnt have to be perfect.
I run it with straight spigot water until I get down to about 100 F, then I add a bag of ice to the container. If I make sure to stir the wort frequently, I can get 5 gallons down to pitching temp in about a half hour (IC chiller is 20 feet 3/8 ID copper btw).
The pond pump (harbor freight) is much cheaper than building another IC chiller IMO.
I run it with straight spigot water until I get down to about 100 F, then I add a bag of ice to the container. If I make sure to stir the wort frequently, I can get 5 gallons down to pitching temp in about a half hour (IC chiller is 20 feet 3/8 ID copper btw).
The pond pump (harbor freight) is much cheaper than building another IC chiller IMO.
I did some theoretical analysis of a prechiller vs. recirculating ice water which showed that recirculation is superior. (Yeah, I know, "In theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice, they ain't.") 
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/immersion-chiller-whats-best-prechiller-recirculation-191100/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/immersion-chiller-whats-best-prechiller-recirculation-191100/
Well, it's probably hard to come up with a totally unique idea. Some innovative homebrewer, somewhere, has usually come up with it first.
However, we have tons of examples where another person has come up with a big improvement so it's always good to run it by some experienced homebrewers.
Wellshooter
Well-Known Member
I've done exactly that and it helps but it is not THAT much better. It didn't help as much as I expected or wanted.
The estimate of dropping the incoming water by 20 or more degrees is wishful thinking. It's usually more like 5-10 unless you're vigorously stirring the icewater. The problem is that you also should be stirring the wort at the same time so it's a bit of a task load.
Skaggz
Well-Known Member
I tried that with 15 - 20 feet of vinyl tubing submerged in an ice chest full of ice water. Really didn't notice a difference. I tried it on two different brews, and haven't used it that way since. Thought about getting another IC to put in the ice water, but never got around to it.
sportscrazed2
Well-Known Member
so is there any good way to chill your wort if you don't want to buy ice? I measured my tap water at 64 the other day. not sure if it gets colder during the winter because i've never had reason to check before.
Skaggz
Well-Known Member
My IC gets the job done just fine with regular hose water. The reason I tried the procedure that I mentioned above is because I wanted to do it better. It didn't so I went back to using it normally. The higher your tap water is, the longer it will take to get down those last few 10's of degrees. But, it you stir the wort from time to time with your IC going it will get it there eventually.
I use the cooling time as time to clean out the mash tun and clean up everything else. No sense in just sitting there and staring at the thermometer. They say that a watched pot never boils, well the same is true in reverse as well.
If you're using an IC and just letting it sit there, it will take twice as long as if you do stand there and stir the wort. I don't mean once in a while, I mean keeping it moving the whole time. 64F is cold enough to get the job done.
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