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Lowering Ground Water Temp

 
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Love2brew




Joined: 01 Aug 2016
Posts: 25
Location: California


PostLink    Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:59 pm    Post subject: Lowering Ground Water Temp Reply with quote


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All,

I'm looking for any creative ways to get ground water colder when using a plate chiller. I have an electric brewery 3 vessel system, almost the same as Kal's, with the exception of a plate chiller not a counterflow chiller. I'm using a Blichmann Therminator and my ground water is about 78-82 degrees. I've tried several methods, outlined below, and can't get my wort any lower than 75-78 degrees. It drives me nuts because I want to pitch at the end of the brew day; not wait until the next morning.

Methods tried so far:
1) Straight ground water, full flow, through the plate chiller adjusting the wort flow to as slow as possible to get the lowest temp possible
2) Ground water hose > Immersion chiller in a bucket of ice > potential "colder" water from immersion chiller to the plate chiller, adjust flow to get coldest temp possible
3) Ground water from hose fills the MLT > HLT full of ice and water (recirculating water temp in HLT at 44 degrees) > MLT out to HERMS coil top valve in the HLT > HLT lower HERMS coil out to therminator > hot water from therminator out, adjust wort flow to get coldest temp possible

Of all these methods, I thought method 3 would work. The first gallon of wort was at 64 degrees, but it raised significantly from there, then never got below 78 again. I was filling the MLT with ground water so the water could cycle through the HERMS coil in the 44 degree water, but the flow didn't seem to be enough in the plate chiller to transfer heat fast enough to chill it significantly.

I live in California so we don't get cool ground water in the summer. I'm looking for any ideas as to what others have done. Method 2 was a complete waste. The immersion chiller didn't cool the water at all, even though the ambient temp in the bucket never got above 60 degrees.

Any creative ideas would be greatly appreciated!
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Kazumichan




Joined: 07 May 2014
Posts: 177
Location: Cincinnati Ohio area

Working on: Belgium golden, Dubbel, and imperial red


PostLink    Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 10:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I came across a cheaply priced draft line glycol chiller that I plan on using. Then you wouldn't have to use any water at all.
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Ozarks Mountain Brew




Joined: 22 May 2013
Posts: 737
Location: The Ozark Mountains of Missouri


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

take your old copper immersion chiller add ends to match your system, I used compression to camlocks, put the immersion chiller in a cooler full of ice or frozen bottles then fill it with water, run your wort through the coils into your other chiller or carboy
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David_H




Joined: 13 Nov 2013
Posts: 139
Location: Savannah, GA

Drinking: Dry Irish Stout, Electric Pale Ale, American Amber Ale, Irish Red Ale


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

L2B,

read through this thread, there is a lot of discussion, calculations and experimentation results.

http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28984&highlight=

The plate chiller is a CounterFlow Chiller. Make sure you are flowing the Hot Wort and Cooling Water in different directions through your plate. It will make a huge difference.

Quote:
I came across a cheaply priced draft line glycol chiller that I plan on using. Then you wouldn't have to use any water at all.

Your typical Glycol Chiller will not help. The reservoir of cold liquid (3-5 gallons) will not be adequate to chill 11 gallons of 200F wort and it will take over an hour for the "heat pump" / "refrigerator" on the Glycol Chiller to remove all of the heat from the hot wort.

L2B, there are two basic choices,
1) Cool the ground water by flowing through a prechiller. This can be the HLT or another bucket / cooler with an immersion chiller. You should be able to lower the temperature about 20 F.
2) Fill the HLT (or other large container) with ice and water and then pump this water directly through your Plate Chiller.

You want a ratio of Wort to Cooler Water of about 1:3, so you will need about 30 gallons of chilling water for 10 gallons of wort. This is a rough measure the actual flows should be based on outlet temperatures.

Read through the thread above.

David

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David

Kal Clone Controller
20 gallon Spike Brewing 3-Kettle System
SS Brewtech 14 gallon fermenter w/ gycol chiller
4 tap keezer with Nitro Tap
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David_H




Joined: 13 Nov 2013
Posts: 139
Location: Savannah, GA

Drinking: Dry Irish Stout, Electric Pale Ale, American Amber Ale, Irish Red Ale


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A third choice I haven't tried yet, is to fill the HLT with ice water and pump hot wort through the HLT coils then to the fermenter.
The problem here is the cooling water in the HLT will be heated as you chill and the last gallon of wort will not be as cool as the first, however the average in the fermenter might work out ok.

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David

Kal Clone Controller
20 gallon Spike Brewing 3-Kettle System
SS Brewtech 14 gallon fermenter w/ gycol chiller
4 tap keezer with Nitro Tap
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Ozarks Mountain Brew




Joined: 22 May 2013
Posts: 737
Location: The Ozark Mountains of Missouri


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 4:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

David_H wrote:
A third choice I haven't tried yet, is to fill the HLT with ice water and pump hot wort through the HLT coils then to the fermenter.
The problem here is the cooling water in the HLT will be heated as you chill and the last gallon of wort will not be as cool as the first, however the average in the fermenter might work out ok.


thats what I do but I use frozen bottles instead of buying ice and your right it gets warmer at the end but I can get my htl down in the 30's so its fine, I brewed yesterday and at the end my beer was 56 before adding it to the fermenter and thats in the summer
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Love2brew




Joined: 01 Aug 2016
Posts: 25
Location: California


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 7:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the feedback guys!

David,

I have tried both of those options and both had the same result. I also did what Ozarks has done and I ran the wort throught the cold coil in the HLT, then back in the boil kettle (through the whirlpool port), then through the pump to the Therminator. It never got the temp lower than my ground water. I think my IC that I'm using pre-plate-chiller is too small so the water flow isn't fast enough. It's 25', 1/2" diameter, sitting in an ice bucket. The water in the bucket gets to the high 30's, but I measured the ground water coming straight out of the "out" on the IC, and it barely cooled it at all. Plus, running wort through the HLT coil wastes a lot of wort. My HLT holds at least 1/2 gallon of liquid, so that leaves the hoses and the coil with a lot of unusable wort. Just a heads up for those that want to try it.

I have read some other posts about hooking up another plate chiller inline and using only recirculated ice water through the 2nd plate chiller. That would only need to drop the temp 15-20 degrees, so I think that's a viable option.

I do also appreciate the feedback on the Glycol chiller. That sounded nice but clearly the science doesn't work for a 12 gallon batch!

Cheers!
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jcav




Joined: 21 Sep 2011
Posts: 205
Location: Central Florida


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have a three vessel electric brewery system and I brew outside in Florida. I just brewed an IPA last week and it was like 94 degrees on my back lanai and crazy humidity. More like an oven. I have a counter flow chiller but it doesn't matter. My ground water is like 80 something degrees this time of year, so this is what I do. I use the ground water until it reaches 106 degrees or so. Then I put 2 1/2 bags of ice in my mash tun, not the HLT with the coils, the bare mash tun (that I cleaned out). I put the ice on top of the false bottom and I put just enough water in the vessel to barely cover the ice. Then I pump the ice water from the mash tun through the chiller and then back into the mash tun. It works for me and I got my wort down to 68 degrees. If you want to go lower than that, you have to add more ice once it reaches 68. This method does work. When I tried the HLT method with the coils it didn't work for me. When I switched to the mash tun like I described above, it was smooth sailing. Give it a try it just may work for you, it works for me! Hope this helps...

John

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kal
Forum Administrator



Joined: 12 Dec 2010
Posts: 11116
Location: Ottawa, Canada

Drinking: Pub Ale, Electric Creamsicle, Mild, Pliny the Younger, Belgian Dark Strong, Weizen, Russian Imperial Stout, Black Butte Porter


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 8:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

FWIW I find using a fridge or similar to go down the last little bit in temp the easiest way.



I brewed a lager yesterday. Ground water (for chilling) is at 67F right now (hottest time of the year) which is still colder than many places but nowhere near the 50F I want the wort to be before I pitch the yeast.

I'm usually more interested in getting the wort through the 'danger zone' temperature as fast as possible and not requiring 45-60 mins to chill, so I chilled to about 78F as I could do that in about 20 minutes (12 gallons). If I go slower I can get a few degrees above the chill water temperature but it can more than twice as long and I'm sitting there watching which is boring because I've already cleaned up everything else. Wink

After this initial chill it goes into the fermenting fridges to drop down from 78F to 48F. That usually takes 6-10 hours with the fridges set to the lowest temp (39F - these are wine fridges). Then I aerate and pitch the yeast and set the fridges set to 50F for fermentation.

Never had any issues with an up to ~12 hour lag between chill and pitch. I always pitch a healthy amount of yeast so fermentation starts fast. (I don't like to pitch warmer and then chill down slowly as I find that can throw off tastes - I like this method of chilling to a point or two below the target fermentation temp before pitching - YMMV of course).

Real time chilling to lager-like temps (or ale temps for those with really warm ground water) would take an enormous amount of energy and a bunch of other equipment for what for me (IMHO) has negligible return. You'll already need some way to maintain temp when fermenting, so I'd recommend just using the same to initially get you down. I say don't fear the chill to pitch lag.

Kal

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jcav




Joined: 21 Sep 2011
Posts: 205
Location: Central Florida


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 9:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey Kal, that's great info there! I usually can chill with ice to about 66 degrees and then I pump into my conical fermenter. I brew 11 gallons batches and after using an oxygen canister and air stone, I pitch right away and then I set my upright freezer for the desired fermentation temp. I do fear a lag time, and that is why I haven't really tackled too many lagers yet. But what you say makes a lot of sense and it you say it works for you, I make try it next time. I can chill to a certain point and then use my freezer to get me the rest of the way and then pitch the yeast. I see more lagers in my future!

John

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rickysa




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


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Overkill, I know, but I filled up an old chest freezer with water and chilled it down to 35 degrees...125 gal that I pushed through the CFC, and I was in wort-chillin' heaven Thumbs Up !!

I could dial the wort down to 50 degrees via flow rate and I was dancing. This step of the process has been driving me nuts, so the overkill aspect is just added sweetness Very Happy
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Ozarks Mountain Brew




Joined: 22 May 2013
Posts: 737
Location: The Ozark Mountains of Missouri


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

rickysa wrote:
Overkill, I know, but I filled up an old chest freezer with water and chilled it down to 35 degrees...125 gal that I pushed through the CFC, and I was in wort-chillin' heaven Thumbs Up !!

I could dial the wort down to 50 degrees via flow rate and I was dancing. This step of the process has been driving me nuts, so the overkill aspect is just added sweetness Very Happy


nothing wrong with that Very Happy
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jcav




Joined: 21 Sep 2011
Posts: 205
Location: Central Florida


PostLink    Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

rickysa wrote:
Overkill, I know, but I filled up an old chest freezer with water and chilled it down to 35 degrees...125 gal that I pushed through the CFC, and I was in wort-chillin' heaven Thumbs Up !!

I could dial the wort down to 50 degrees via flow rate and I was dancing. This step of the process has been driving me nuts, so the overkill aspect is just added sweetness Very Happy


I love it! All great ideas!

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mcl




Joined: 11 Oct 2011
Posts: 155



PostLink    Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 1:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If I brew during summer I do this and it works. I chill with ground water but recirculate into my BK. Keep the flow maxed out while recirculating. ONce the wort is as cold as it will go (85-90). Then I hook up the water side to the HLT that is filled with ice water and run that as a closed loop for the final chill down.

In all honesty since I changed from my homemade AC Ferm chamber to a chest freezer I usually do what Kal stated.
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Love2brew




Joined: 01 Aug 2016
Posts: 25
Location: California


PostLink    Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 4:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm with it guys! Basically I'm envious of Kal's basement and all of the equipment he has! I never thought of using wine fridges, that looks nice! I do have a couple chest freezers that I use for fermentation chambers, I was just trying to be done when I'm done. All the sani is available so I wanted to be able to pitch, do a final clean, then put everything away. I use an oxygenation stone as well, so it's not too much left to sanitize, I can just spray it down before putting it in the wort, then pitch. Based on the amount of effort I've been putting in to chill to the right temp, it might save my sanity to just wait a little to pitch.

Once again, always good feedback!
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