Wort chiller design - advice

[3kings]

I want to use two 20' coils of 1/4" tubing and separate them by a 20-30' coil of 1/2" tubing that is sitting in an ice water bath. I think this would make the most efficient use of water but I'm wondering if the design is sound as I'm fairly new to this. What do you think?

[Maplecitybrewer]

I use two wort chillers to cool down my 10 gallon brews. I use a 50ft 1/2" chiller in the brew kettle (half barrel keg) and a 25ft 3/8" (pre)chiller I put in a 5 gallon bucket full of ice water. It pushes 36 to 38 degree water through the wort chiller. It usually takes about 15 minutes to bring 10 gallons down to pitching temp. If I'm doing 5 gallon brews I just use the 25ft chiller with cold water only. Gives me options and flexibility.

MCB

[BrandonBrewer]

MapleCityBrewer:
What is your flow rate through your 50' and 25' chillers? Are you using the water off of your hose connection or are you circulating water with a pump?

[dharalson]

3kings
Do I understand that you will have two coils in the hot wort with a third coil in a water bath?

TAP WATER  >>>  COIL IN WORT  >>>  COIL IN WATER BATH  >>>  COIL IN WORT  >>>  WASTE

Is this what you want?

I don't think this is an appropriate use.  The maximum cooling is achieved with maximum delta T between the cold fluid and the hot fluid.
A better solution is the one used by MapleCity.  One way to maximize the ice is to run unchilled tap water through the system to drop the temperature of the wort to about 130 deg or so and then add the ice to the chilling water; this will maintain the largest delta T across the entire chilling process with the minimum use of ice.

TAP WATER  >>>  COIL IN TAP WATER BATH  >>> COIL(S) IN WORT  >>>  WASTE   
use this until the wort is about 130 or when the temperature change in the wort begins to slow down
then
TAP WATER  >>>  COIL IN ICE WATER BATH  >>> COIL(S) IN WORT  >>>  WASTE 

One of the most important actions is to continuously stir the wort.  You can test this by feeling the temperature of the waste water.  Check the waste water temperature without stirring, then check while stirring.  The temperature difference will be dramatically hotter while stirring.  BE CAREFUL THE WASTE WATER WILL BE HOT ! ! 

The hotter the waste water the more efficient the heat transfer. 
NOTE: don't dump the waste water on the lawn; it will kill the grass or any plants.  That is experience talking  :-)

David

[Maplecitybrewer]

Brandon- I push water through 25ft prechiller then through 50ft wort chiller with garden hose from house spigot. IN the winter I hook up in laundry area or in garage. Sorry for the late reply.
MCB

[turnole]

Very interesting thread. Unfortunately my old chiller broke and now I am using a chiller rental in order to bypass the time until I find a cheap offer. Friends of mine recommended using this rental service and I am very satisfied. Can also recommend it but nevertheless hopefully I will soon find a new chiller.

[sma]

I made mine with 1/4 inch refrigerator water supply tubing.  To form the coils (four of them), I wrapped the tubing around a tube of bathtub/window caulking.  I soldered them together (dope that I am I used normal (leaded) solder and used garden hose connections.  I went to Ace Hardware and purchased food grade high temperature epoxy and with nylon tie-wraps I wrapped the four coils up nicely (and covered all my lead solder up with the epoxy).  This thing I've used for several month. 

If I add the time, cost of the epoxy, cost of fittings I probably came in about 60% of the cost of purchasing a chiller.. . my 2 cents..

[mmayer]

Why not make yourself a counterflow chiller?  I made mine with a simple garden hose and 50' of flexible copper tubing (50' is overkill, 25' would probably work fine).  Of course, this only makes sense if your using a pump (10 gallon batches cool in about 10 minutes):

[brewark]

I don't use a pump.  I simply run mine through the CFC from the boil kettle into the fermenter.  Mine uses 1/4" Cu tubing and 3/4" garden hose.  So the volume of wort at the cross section is low, and I get a lot of heat removal.  I'm ready to pitch as soon as the fermenter is full.  Our water temperature here in The bay area doesn't change too much over the course of the year, so I get fairly consistent pitching temps.  If your water changes between winter & summer you might see different results.  I put a quick connect on the end of the CFC and the kettle.

I like your stand.  Mine is set up horizontally so the wort can pass from the kettle through the chiller by gravity into the fermenter.

Why not make yourself a counterflow chiller?  I made mine with a simple garden hose and 50' of flexible copper tubing (50' is overkill, 25' would probably work fine).  Of course, this only makes sense if your using a pump (10 gallon batches cool in about 10 minutes):