I was thinking of getting a plate chiller to help reduce my time chilling to pitching temperature. I spent nearly 40 minutes just to get to 78F with 71F tap water. I would be using gravity to feed the chiller to start with then possibly in the future moving to a pump as funds permit.
I currently use a 25ft copper immersion chiller. Is it worth the cost to save on water and time?
You are at the mercy of the water temperature. It will go faster with colder water.
What you can do to help is to get a bigger immersion chiller (50 ft. of 1/2 inch), or the plate chiller. Surface are is an important part of the equation. Plate chillers have very large areas, and are counter flow by design.
Do you stir the wort while chilling? That will increase the heat transfer to the wort. I hope you are running the water fast enough to get turbulent flow >1 liter/minute.
I use the immersion chiller with a pump and a ice chest full of ice water. It costs extra for the ice but at least I’m not dumping water straight down the drain (a consideration for those of us in California). On my last batch I got the wort down to 80 in about 7 mimutes.
Yes I stir while I chill and flow is good. I may give a plate chiller a try.
Surface area is where plate chillers excel. So if you want to go that way, do it.
I went from IC to plate to CFC and finally back to IC. The key, as I later learned, is to run your source water at full blast and constantly move the IC around (or stir the wort). I go from boil to 6F above groundwater temp on a 5 gal batch in less than 5 minutes.
This is true. Running full on will give you more delta T across the chiller length, and the water comes out cooler, but it is taking more heat energy out, think M-dot*(Tout-Tin). The high Mass flow rate (M-dot) will carry the heat away.
+2
I always recommend putting a chilling wand in the center of the IC coil and move the whole deal around a lot. I chill to 70’s in about 10 minutes. YMMV, my water only gets up to 64 in the summer and my coil is 50’ but it will definitely help and cheap.
A chilling wand is made of food grade plastic and is used in the foodservice industry to cool food fast:
Or use a pump to do recirculated chilling with an IC. That kinda stirs it automatically.
If you know about glycol, have the ability to rig up a condensing unit, you can chill your wort rapidly using a plate chiller with no water, just glycol. I haven’t done it yet but I may very soon just to prevent water waste. Its kinda like HVAC only using glycol not R22
I did that for a bit, still didn’t like cleaning the pump… but when my arms stop working as well, that’s what I’ll do [emoji12]
Okay this is very helpful, mainly I just need to change around my method of using my IC to better chill wort faster and then maybe make up the last few degrees in my keezer. My faucet moving at full blast does decently to get water in the IC. I may look into a pump though soon as another option as well, maybe to recirculate. Thank you all
Another option would to use a pump with a bath of ice water once the tap water starts to plato.
Shut up, Dr. Kallio, I already passed your thermodynamics class!!!
Sorry…PTSD flashback.
Anyway, good to know. I heard somewhere to run the water through the IC slowly. Next time I brew it is full blast.
I think Marshall should run an test on fast versus slow. Compare time to gallons of water used. I’m sure slow isn’t heat sink efficient and full bore isn’t water efficient. There must be a point where the lines cross.
I experimented when I brewed last week. I know this is all qualitative…, in previous batches my 20ft 3/8 in. IC at a slow flow rate for a 5 gal batch would cool from boiling to 100 in 45 minutes using 10 gal of water. I increased the flow to use just over 15 gal and it decreased the cooling time to around 15 minutes. I move the IC up and down constantly while running the water. Looks like my garden gets a little extra water on brew days.
I am still planning to get a hydra IC sometime this winter… So I can brew and cool larger batches.
-Tony
I learned that in the Heat Transfer class.
My Thermodynamics Prof. was Charles Brown, AKA. Charlie Brown to all of the Engineering students.