Double chiller

[muircockhall]

Hi

Looking at designs of AG systems and thank you, much has been learned here.
If you had a double immersion chiller;
Water from tap through copper pipe chiller immersed in ice/water then the water flowed onto and through the chiller in the hot wort. In essence all it would do is cool the incoming tap water closer to 0C. I expect you would use less water and it would be quicker to cool to pitching temp.
In your opinion would it be worth it hassle and expense? More importantly would improve any flavours or add any other benefits other than using less water.

Thanks y'all :grin:

 

[Aleman]

It's useful to help drop the wort from around 40C to pitching temperature during the summer, which seems to take twice as long as going from 100-40C (at least on my set-up)

 

[Swift Pint]

For the price of the copper, would it not be cheaper and more efficient to buy a SS plate heat exchanger? :wha:

Sorry, this is a genuine question - I've got a 12 plate HE and it seems a lot more efficient than the immersion chiller I had, although that was without the extra coil in the ice bath.

might be worth considering & I'm sure someone a bit more technically minded can tell me whether I'm right or wrong!

 

[Aleman]

If you want to pitch at 12 and your tap water is at 21C . . . a PHE will not get it any cooler than 21C . . .Or less extreme if you are pitching at 18C . . . and it will take hours to get there from 30C because the coolers work faster with a bigger difference in temperatures (big delta T = rapid cooling, small delta T = slow cooling).

Running the coolant through a cooler source (like an ice bath) increases the Delta T between coolant and wort and therefore maintains rapid cooling

 

[Swift Pint]

Spot on!

:thumb:

The laws of thermodynamics were eluding me for a moment there!

 

[muircockhall]

Brilliant thanks for the replies, it makes sense.

From a brewing/taste point of view, does it make much difference if it took 30 minute or 10 minutes to get to pitching temperature?

Thanks again