Tap water through iced HLT coil to chiller? Any thoughts?

David_H · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 10:31 pm Post subject:

Ricky,
I have a SS Convoluted Counterflow Chiller (CFC) (tube in a tube) and a Counterflow Plate Chiller (CPC). Both of these work on the same principle of flowing hot wort in one direction and the chilling water in the other direction. This allows for a near constant delta temperature(dT) between the two liquids. The higher the delta T the better the heat transfer. I was never able to get my CFC to work well, which is why I switched to the CPC. However, there are many that have very successfully chilled with the CFC.

Things that you should try to get your CFC to work.
1) Measure the outflow temperatures on both the wort and the chilling water.
2) Put a valve downstream of the CFC on the wort side. This will assure that the chiller is always full of wort, you can't chill it if it is not in the chiller.
3) Try increasing the flow of wort and watch the output temperature. You need some flow rate to allow the convolutions to mix the wort and allow for the maximum heat transfer.
4) The prechiller is probably not the best use of the ice. The chilling water flow at full speed is not going to get much colder as it passes through the prechiller. Try putting all of the ice in a large cooler or your HLT and using a pump to push the ice chilled water directly through the CFC.

The gylcol chiller will not work. Most chillers only have a few gallons of chilled glycol and the refrigerating unit will not have sufficient capacity to chill the wort. Here's the math. 10 gallons of 200F wort to 70F is 8.34lb/gal * 10 gal * (200-70) = 10,842 BTU. A consumer sized refrigeration unit will typically be in the 5-10K BTU, meaning 5-10K BTU per hour, so it would take an hour or more at 100% efficiency (which you will not get).

Good luck and keep us informed.

David

rickysa · Joined: 13 Mar 2013 Posts: 136 Location: Southern Pines NC

Wow Dave, thanks for the feedback!!!

1.

David_H · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2016 11:57 pm Post subject:

wscottcross · Posted: Wed Jul 20, 2016 3:03 am Post subject:

I've had good luck use either a copper or stainless scrubby on the boil kettle pickup tube with my plate chiller. No issues so far and the chilling capacity of plate chillers is nothing short of amazing if you can come up with a way of filtering prior to the chiller. They definitely have down sides and require some work to mitigate those issues, but totally worth it IMHO.

rickysa · Joined: 13 Mar 2013 Posts: 136 Location: Southern Pines NC

OK, here's what I've come up with...

(extra) Keezer that is now holding 125 gal water at 35 degrees...plumbed directly to the CFC. Do I send the "water out" (from the chiller) back to the keezer or discard? What kind of flow rate...full bore (from the pump) or graduated?

It's a (fun) experiment, but I thought I'd toss it out for initial parameters Thumbs Up

David_H · Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2016 6:27 pm Post subject:

Rick,
The keezer will not have the cooling capacity to chill the heated "water out" effectively. If you return this water to the chilled water in the keezer all you will do is heat up your previous chilled water. You should not need more than about 30-40 gallons of chilled water to cool your wort down to pitching temperature. You should either discard or collect in a different container and return to the keezer after the wort is all chilled.

As far as the flow rate; if you have a thermometer on the outflow side of both the wort and the chilling water, you should adjust the cooling water flow to achieve the wort outflow temperature you are looking for.

I have used about a flow rate ratio of 3:1; Cooling Water:Wort.

Ozarks Mountain Brew · Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2016 9:50 pm Post subject:

Ive come up with an easy solution to chilling through the htl coil, Ive used a hundred or so drinking water bottles this sumer, I decided to start freezing them in my deep freeze, so on brew day I just put in as many as I could then added water and recirculated it, ran my wort through the coil slow and right into the carboy, it worked like a charm "but" since I usually whirlpool until the temp reaches 170 it was much easier than starting from 200

jeremy2027 · Joined: 23 Apr 2016 Posts: 12 Location: Groves, TX

I fill my hlt with ice and a 5 gallon bucket full of 40 degree water from the fridge. I pump the ice water using a pond pump from the hlt to the cfc then back through a 50 ft 3/8 immersion chiller that sits in the hlt as well. This creates a loop and saves a ton of water since the immersion chiller is cooling the exhaust water that gets put back in the hlt. It takes about 30 mins or so to chill 6 gallons of boiling wort to 68 degrees. when I'm done I still have some ice in the hlt that I reheat to clean up and flush pumps, hoses and kettles.
The key is ice water through the cfc and then cooling the exhaust water to recirculate.