"Supercharged" immersion chiller?

[sj_engr]

I bet this has been thought of but couldn't find an example in search. I am having a tough time hitting a decent pitch temp due to "hot" tap water with my 50' immersion chiller. (fast drop to 100* then slow, slow creep to 80* and stuck)

Just bought a titanium core mini-chiller for aquariums, via fleabay, with water temp selection (appears lowest is 34*F). Going to plumb it into the water feed lines to send super chilled water through the copper piping.

I will report on results when unit arrives.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

That sounds like a good plan... and maybe a bit more complicated than the solutions people have found on here. My favorite (and what I'll be upgrading to soon) is a cheapo lawn-fountain pump submerged in an icebath, recirculating water through the immersion chiller.

I look forward to the results, though. Does titanium have a favorable heat coefficient?

 

[sj_engr]

Heat Transfer Characteristics

Titanium has been a very attractive and well-established heat transfer material in shell/tube, plate/frame, and other types of heat exchangers for process fluid heating or cooling, especially in seawater coolers. Exchanger heat transfer efficiency can be optimized because of the following beneficial attributes of titanium:

Exceptional resistance to corrosion and fluid erosion
An extremely thin, conductive oxide surface film
A hard, smooth, difficult-to-adhere-to surface
A surface that promotes condensation
Reasonably good thermal conductivity
Good strength

Although unalloyed titanium possesses an inherent thermal conductivity below that of copper or aluminum, its conductivity is still approximately 10-20% higher than typical stainless steel alloys.

It appears that titanium was selected by the manufacturer mainly due to corrosion resistance in salt water environment.

I'm planning to create a "wheel-in" cart that has all the random tools needing in brewing. (ie motorized mill, mini-chiller, storage for sparge equipment, etc)

Pump w/ ice bucket does make good sense, but found this part for $1XX so going to give it a whirl. I'm sure the salvage value will make the TCO net positive in the end vs. ice bags.

 

[DarkPhyre]

Have you ever used aquarium chillers before? they don't chill the water on a single pass. it will take a long time. even if it was in a closed system I don't think the chiller would keep up with the increasing water temps. at least no time soon.
How large of a tank was the unit designed for.
Also, most aquarium chillers/heaters are for salt water (why waste the money on fresh water, those fish are dirt cheap) and most salt waters are in the 70's (tropical fish)

 

[sj_engr]

Have you ever used aquarium chillers before? they don't chill the water on a single pass. it will take a long time. even if it was in a closed system I don't think the chiller would keep up with the increasing water temps. at least no time soon.
How large of a tank was the unit designed for.
Also, most aquarium chillers/heaters are for salt water (why waste the money on fresh water, those fish are dirt cheap) and most salt waters are in the 70's (tropical fish)

No history, thus going to try it out and report to y'all. I'm planning to connect the chiller in-line with tap water feed. I could always create my own temp "closed loop" system via solenoid. I believe the purchased unit is rated for a 40G tank and plan to run at max cool (34*F). Looking to see if I can hit 70*F pitch temp (at all) or at least faster than the current 1-2hr with water running and stuck at lowest of 80*F wort.

If I can shave an hour off the brew time or prevent 1 contaminated batch I will consider it money well spent. (personally)

AG is just killing me on the time. I have to wake up at 8am sharp Sunday mornings just to try and bang out a batch since it can take 5-6 hours....[30 min (water->170*), mash 45 min, sparge 45 min, to boil->30min, boil+hops 80-90min, cool 1-2 hr, misc/collateral damage XXmin)
I wish I could use lightning to instantly heat my mash/sparge/wort.

 

[mikeal]

Another alternative is to run the tap water through a copper coil pre-chiller immersed in an ice bath. If you do use the recirculation method, stick with straight tap water until you hit 100* or so, then switch to the recirculated ice water.

 

[audger]

do you have a link to this particular one? im hoping you didnt spend too much on it, because i think you may be disappointed in the performance... ill do the energy calculations for you if you can give me a link.

 

[Doomsday]

So glad water temp here in alaska is around 60-65 degrees, and its not even full on winter yet! Good luck.

 

[sj_engr]

Another alternative is to run the tap water through a copper coil pre-chiller immersed in an ice bath. If you do use the recirculation method, stick with straight tap water until you hit 100* or so, then switch to the recirculated ice water.

I did think of that but price of copper (initial) + bags of ice (over long run) will cost the same as the mini-chiller. Plus I would easily forget to grab ice on brew day.

do you have a link to this particular one?

I believe the unit is this P/N Arctica DBI-050-D (900 BTU/h). If it sucks then back onto eBay with it.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

So glad water temp here in alaska is around 60-65 degrees, and its not even full on winter yet! Good luck.

Dang dude, really? Tap water here is ~45*F all year round

Bringing it from boiling to 60*F takes about 12-15 minutes with a 25' 3/8 copper IC.

 

[camiller]

I did think of that but price of copper (initial) + bags of ice (over long run) will cost the same as the mini-chiller. Plus I would easily forget to grab ice on brew day.

Of course if it has the nuts to chill the water significantly, energy usage of the chiller factors in.

 

[DarkPhyre]

Let us know, but again, I used to be into aquariums and used chillers/warmers. They aren't quick, its meant to maintain temperatures.

How big of a brew are you doing that its taking 2 hours? Move that chiller around while cooling.

 

[sj_engr]

I put about 6-6.5G into the conical when done. It's the lousy tap temp that's killing me. Cold setting is like 75-77*F in the apt complex.

 

[H2opunk182]

I bought a cheap pond pump, 5 gallon lowes bucked and just recirculate the water through there.. i buy a 16 lb bag of ice add water run the pump and i usually get to about 95-100 pretty fast, add a 6lb bag of ice just to cool the water down again and in about 15 min i have the wort to about 80

 

[Ryush806]

Not thinking the heat removal rate is high enough assuming it actually can do 900 BTU/h.

Basis:
1) only using the chiller for taking wort from 80 to 60 as it's decently fast from 212 to 80
2) assuming wort has the properties of water. shouldn't be too far off to matter much
3) modeling this as a closed loop system since you said temperature of the tap water doesn't do anything after 80 anyway

Taking ~6.5 gal from 80 to 60 needs approximately 1090 BTUs of heat removed. With a 900 BTU/h cooler it'd take about another hour to do it. Thermo never lies!

 

[audger]

just to put it into perspective...
to cool a 6.5 gallon pot of wort (not including the heat the pot itself contains) from boiling to 65*F, requires the removal of around 8000 BTUs of heat.

your best bet is probably what ryush suggested; chill the wort with regular tap water initially, then use the chiller once you reach the point where tap water stops working efficiently.

its still going to take a long time. another option would be to use that chiller to cool a large (5-10 gallon) resevoir of liquid over a long period of time to a low temp, and then use that to chill your wort quickly.

the formula for figureing out BTUs is
[#gallons] x [8.3 lb/gal] x [temperature change]

or

6.5 x 8.3 x (212F - 65F)
6.5 x 8.3 x 147
=7930 BTU