Counter Chiller Experiment

[evanvine]

Aleman
You are absolutely right there is a pump involved, but I am pumping from nowhere to nowhere.
I know I am being pedantic and hypocritical!
Your coils are brill, but I think your outer has too large a diameter. There is nothing for it to cool outside of it as I think it too near the the walls of your tun.
Don't forget I'm from the dark ages and therefore have a mind set (for better or worse)!
I think I'll go my own sweet way making superior beer to the nationals and leave you lot to your high tech rocket science.

 

[llannige]

Fair play evanvine.Follow your own path I don't see any problem with it. :thumb:

 

[Aleman]

The whole point is that you cool your beer quickly . . . if it works great . . . of course you could go even lower tech and stir it with a spoon. :lol:

The outer coil is actually a good couple of inches in diameter smaller than the kettle, so plenty of space for it to cool the wort on the outside . . . incidentally I widened the spacing between the coils to about 10mm.

I'm forced to use a pump for water and wort transfer as I have a very fragile back and don't really want to risk moving buckets of wort around . . .especially 18 gallons worth, which I'm also forced to do as I have to brew outside.

Low tech works well . . . and I often drop down to the simple approach for a lot of my brewing

 

[evanvine]

I did use a spoon initially, but as you can see there not much room to wield it.
My very first agitator was an electric drill, then I came across the one I use now.
Sorry to hear about your back Aleman, I also have a crushed disc so I use a system of pulleys to move my buckets and boiler about.
I'm only talking about 5 gals at a time and I am lucky enough to be able to brew in my garage.
Mashing is done using the "floating mash tun" method and sparging is by a gravity fed piece of flexible hose fitted with a small watering can rose.

 

[Vossy1]

No Vossy1, I didn't pump as it was a gravity feed test using cold water.

I would have expected at least a ltr/min through the cfc, you got slow run off for some reason :hmm:

I wouldn't pump anyway as that is the begining of the road to a "rocket science" brewery!
I still like to live in the dark ages and use the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid).

:lol:

 

[evanvine]

Vossy1

The 10mm pipe is very old, probably full of spiders and things!
0.83 ltr/min isn't a million miles from your expectation and it was free flow with only a 12" head.

 

[evanvine]

You were absolutely right V1.
Now I’ve cleaned it out it is running at approx 2 ltrs per min.
I think I’ll give it a go with a brew, I can always fall back on my old faithful!

 

[Vossy1]

Now I’ve cleaned it out it is running at approx 2 ltrs per min.
I think I’ll give it a go with a brew, I can always fall back on my old faithful!

Good news evanvine :party:
Let us know how you get on with the brew :thumb:

 

[evanvine]

No brew yet, but it passes 5 gal in 11 mins, as good as if not better than my bucket mounted coils, but so much more convenient!
I also poured a kettle of boiling water through it. It came out at 18 degs C.
Will use it for cooling boiled malt for yeast ranching and starters.
Very pleased with it and I nearly gave it Away!!
Thanks V1
(My first step towards "rocket science")

 

[Smod]

Superb piece of work.

As I mentioned previously, it's probably the first "Whirlpool Chiller". The best way to cool is to keep it moving past the coils to dissipate the heat like a counter-flow but much faster.

:thumb: :

 

[Vossy1]

Very pleased with it and I nearly gave it Away!!

That was a close one...phew

My first step towards "rocket science

:lol:

 

[evanvine]

Just a couple of pics (Commsbiff says you like them on this forum) showing my CFC and simple mod for cooling small quantities (couldn't do this with my bucket chiller)!