Wort chilling from cooler filled with ice water, by gravity?

[Medic218]

Ok, I have this idea and I'm on the fence as to if it would work or not.

What I'm thinking is that I fill one of my big coolers up with ice water and place it on my work bench.
From there I'll run tubing from the spigot down to my wort chiller(building this weekend).

My question is if there will be enough force to continuously push the water by gravity only or if it would stall out and not completely flow through and out the chiller.

I can't hook up to my kitchen sink and I don't want to use my outside faucet/hose due to the water not being as cold as I would like.

What say you fine people if HBT?

 

[guinness10]

Hmmm. I honestly don't know. I suspect that if you have everything set up to siphon with the cooler at the highest level, the wort chiller at a midlevel and the chiller's outlet hose at the lowest level that it could work. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether the siphon would pull the cool water down to the bottom of the chiller and back up to the top again.


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[m1k3]

Test it with water first not your precious wort!

I would suspect wort will flow down with gravity, as long as you don't expect it to flow up any of the coils. The larger the drop the better it should flow.

Are you planning for the wort to make a single pass from the kettle through the ice bath chiller and into the fermenter? That might use a lot of ice.

Also, make sure your chiller is sanitized by running sanitizer (like StarSan) through it first. It will be hard to ensure all the surfaces have been in contact with the sanitizer. Maybe stop and shake it around.

Good luck (if you do it).

 

[NathanL85]

If you are doing single pass it could work. The column of water may be enough to jump start the flow but you might have to mess with cooler heights and the length/routing of the output hose to get it right.

Another option you could consider is what I do. I use my hose water to knock the temp down to about 100 degrees, living in Texas in the summer your lucky if tap water is below 80. Then I use I bucket filled with ice and water with a small 1-2 GPM submersible aquarium pump to pump the water through the chiller and reroute the output of the chiller back to the bucket. I use small water bottles that I freeze and when the temp in the bucket warms up I swap out the bottles. The submersible aquarium pump only cost me like 15 bucks but I can now consistently chill my wort to 65 degrees or lower on a hundred degree day.

 

[d3track]

We use this guy to move the ice cold water
http://www.menards.com/main/tools-h...ectric-drill-power-pump/p-1465789-c-10155.htm

 

[Medic218]

I think there may be some confusion. I'm not running wort through the chiller. I'm still in extract mode at this point.
The chiller will be IN the wort with cold water running through it.
I planned on testing it before hand and was skeptical that the water would run back up and out, I just wanted to see what the general consensus was before I replaced the factory spigot with a ball valve and to make sure I was on the right path.

Also, glad to see so many brewers in Texas and not far from me.

 

[brooklanebrewing]

You should have no problem. As long as the highest point on your chiller doesn't exceed the height of your starting water level in the cooler. Adding as long of hose as possible on the chiller outlet will help too. Once it's flowing all you need is the end of the hose to be below the bottom of the chiller and it will continue to draw until your chiller is empty.

e

 

[johny5w]

I picked up a "pre wort chiller" basically just a smaller chiller that you put in a bucket or sink full of ice water. That thing has been amazing for cooling my wort, way better than just the chiller by itself. So that might be an easy solution for you, that way you could use your outdoor faucet if needed.


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[bigken462]

Seems like it would be extremely slow with the friction of the IC. For a few bucks, you might could put a T and valve on the cold side of your sink water supply then plumb in the correct size outlet to match your IC. 10 bucks maybe at Lowes? Hook your hose up, turn it on and let it run back into your sink or catch runoff for cleanup.

Another option would be to recirculate with a pond or fishing aquarium pump, however I don't have any idea what those cost. If your sink does not allow for a hose to be hooked up, I would plump in something beneath it to hook your hose to.

Ken

 

[1BigBear]

My 1st AHA BIG BREW COMING UP This weekend..May3.
But this could apply to any off-normal-site outdoor brew.

A dozen +++ brewers.(and Me) ..And NO (maybe one) garden Hose to use for a wort chiller.
ANY clever/ creative suggestions on how to chill unconventionally, whilst away from OUR normal backyard hoses or faucets.?

With really only 1 spigot (we're in a parking Lot) it Seems like we'll need to be timing ENDs of Boils...Otherwise.

 

[pulfson]

Do yourself a favor and pick up a cheap sump or pond pump from Harbor Freight. Here in AZ I can barely get my wort under 85 with ground water. I'm able to get way below 65 with a pond pump, immersion chiller, and a 20lb bag of ice.


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[SixDemonBag]

I actually though about this the other night and tried it yesterday.

My setup has a garden hose connector under my sink that I spit-off. Copper immersion chiller. As soon as I got to 30 degrees C I transferred the hose to the tub above (which was filled with water chilled with frozen water bottles.)

Went from boiling to pitching temp in 18 mins. 2 1/2 gallons.

It's going to be my standard procedure now. Worked fantastic. It drew water at about half the rate of the hose (at half open). I had always had problems with the last 10-15 degrees of chill.