15 replies to this topic

[djinkc]

Just trying to get in the ballpark. My CFC will get it's first run later this week. The plan is to recirculate ice water through the CFC using a sump pump and go straight to the fermenter. Or run 75 - 80df ground water returning to the kettle for initial cooling, then switch to the recirculating ice water and fill the fermenter. 10+ gallons in the fermenter.I'm thinking the first option would be nice to keep hot break out of the fermenter. The second should chill fast enough to lower DMS potential but might introduce enough cold break in the kettle that I won't get a nice cone in the kettle.Or I could rig my EHERMS coil for double duty and use it as a post chiller but that would be a major PIA with my setup.This is for when I'm brewing with pellets only. Whole cones will be my IC and false bottom. ETA a trial run with gravity feed only took 212df water to 85df with groundwater only. I'll need to use the pump when wort goes through it.

Edited by djinkc, 10 August 2010 - 06:09 AM.

[BrewerGeorge]

I'm a little confused, as your first option would send all the cold break to the fermentors... I'd do the second if it were me.As for how much ice... Generally 8 lbs of ice at 0F is enough to take 4 gallons from 210F to about 75F. That's the calculation I used when dumping ice into the wort as the dilution for a high gravity boil. That method has 100% efficient use of the "cold" so you might need a bit more running through an ice water chiller.

[djinkc]

I'm a little confused, as your first option would send all the cold break to the fermentors... I'd do the second if it were me.As for how much ice... Generally 8 lbs of ice at 0F is enough to take 4 gallons from 210F to about 75F. That's the calculation I used when dumping ice into the wort as the dilution for a high gravity boil. That method has 100% efficient use of the "cold" so you might need a bit more running through an ice water chiller.

edited OP, need more coffee

[drewseslu]

Dust off the old bomb calorimeter and find out!I wouldn't worry about sending cold break to the FV, just be sure to dump trub from the FV, otherwise you can end up with an impacted dump valve...ask blksabbath about how much fun those can be to unclog...

[Deerslyr]

Just trying to get in the ballpark. My CFC will get it's first run later this week. The plan is to recirculate ice water through the CFC using a sump pump and go straight to the fermenter. Or run 75 - 80df ground water returning to the kettle for initial cooling, then switch to the recirculating ice water and fill the fermenter. 10+ gallons in the fermenter.I'm thinking the first option would be nice to keep hot break out of the fermenter. The second should chill fast enough to lower DMS potential but might introduce enough cold break in the kettle that I won't get a nice cone in the kettle.Or I could rig my EHERMS coil for double duty and use it as a post chiller but that would be a major PIA with my setup.This is for when I'm brewing with pellets only. Whole cones will be my IC and false bottom. ETA a trial run with gravity feed only took 212df water to 85df with groundwater only. I'll need to use the pump when wort goes through it.

Recirculating ice water has been the bane of my existence the past several brew sessions. I'm about to give up on it. I've got a generic no-name plate chiller that probably isn't big enough. I'm going to go back to the Garden Hose/Copper CFC that I have. I may try the sump pump with ice method with that. Who knows. Maybe that will work. I'm not super concerned anymore now that I have a chest freezer though. If you run a test on the CFC with the sump pump recirc, could you take some pics and/or video? I want to see how you are set yours up.

[djinkc]

............ If you run a test on the CFC with the sump pump recirc, could you take some pics and/or video? I want to see how you are set yours up.

I may take some pics. Not much to it. For the IC I run ground water and cool to 90 - 100df. Fill a cooler with ice, set the sump pump in it. Disconnect the groundwater connection to the IC and hook up the sump pump to the IC. Add enough water to the cooler to prime the pump. Take the exit hose out of the sink and connect it to the cooler to recirculate.All of those connections have garden hose QDs to make life easier. If I go with just recirculated ice water for the CFC cooling source it will be the same way I finish with the IC

[SchwanzBrewer]

I use 30 lbs of ice in a 80-120 quart cooler filled with water and a sump pump on my plate chiller. I use a lot of ice to make sure there is enough thermal mass that the ice water temp isn't raised too high. The wort is gravity fed to the carboy. Deerslyr, I know we have talked about this, which plate chiller do you use?Cheers,Rich

[Deerslyr]

I use 30 lbs of ice in a 80-120 quart cooler filled with water and a sump pump on my plate chiller. I use a lot of ice to make sure there is enough thermal mass that the ice water temp isn't raised too high. The wort is gravity fed to the carboy. Deerslyr, I know we have talked about this, which plate chiller do you use?Cheers,Rich

I'm ashamed to admit I got this one off of E-Bay. I just don't think it has enough "contact".

[ChefLamont]

If you are using a CFC, I would not recirc the cooling water unless water conservation is a primary concern. If you wanted to try single-pass, just dump the cooling water as it comes out of the CFC and add the same amount of tap temp water back into the bucket/cooler with the ice and the pump. That alone will use less ice. I essentially do this with my IC. While the delta T on the cooling water going into and out of the chiller is significant (>20-30 deg) I just pump tap water through the whole thing and dump the used cooling water. As the delta T gets below that, I throw the ice in the bucket/cooler and then start recirculating the water.

[SchwanzBrewer]

I'm ashamed to admit I got this one off of E-Bay. I just don't think it has enough "contact".

Could be that the plates aren't brazed with copper (not enough thermal conductivity), or the the surface area just isn't sufficient. All I can go on is the size of the fittings, but it looks like the shirron is about 2x as long as that but has the same number of plates. That could make a big difference. Cheers,Rich

[Deerslyr]

Could be that the plates aren't brazed with copper (not enough thermal conductivity), or the the surface area just isn't sufficient. All I can go on is the size of the fittings, but it looks like the shirron is about 2x as long as that but has the same number of plates. That could make a big difference. Cheers,Rich

I'm sure it does. I'm sorry I wasted the money on it. During the winter months, I was able to get my wort down to 68DF with the CFC. Yeah, it takes a bit of space, but it worked like a champ. Never should have gotten away from it. I bought some new tubing at ACE and will get back to using it.

[harryfrog]

IC with ice water and sump pump are great when it's friggin hot outside and you're trying to hit lagering temps or when you need a little speed. I have noticed that when using an IC, nothing is as beneficial as stirring the wort constantly while chilling - unless you get the wort moving across the coils you have no real efficiency

[BrewerGeorge]

Could be that the plates aren't brazed with copper (not enough thermal conductivity), or the the surface area just isn't sufficient. All I can go on is the size of the fittings, but it looks like the shirron is about 2x as long as that but has the same number of plates. That could make a big difference. Cheers,Rich

Right. Heat transfer is dependent on surface area. If it has half the length of the Shirron and the same number of plates, it has about half the surface area, and probably cools about half as well. Given that the Shirron is already about half as effective as the Blichman chiller, I'm not surprised it's insufficient.

[Deerslyr]

Right. Heat transfer is dependent on surface area. If it has half the length of the Shirron and the same number of plates, it has about half the surface area, and probably cools about half as well. Given that the Shirron is already about half as effective as the Blichman chiller, I'm not surprised it's insufficient.

You get what you pay for. I'm 99.9% sure I'm moving back to the CFC. I'll put the plate chiller on E-Bay or Craigslist for $10 or so. I'm not so concerned anymore, now that I have a chest freezer and a controller. Would just have been nice to get to the point where I was wasting less water.

[djinkc]

If you are using a CFC, I would not recirc the cooling water unless water conservation is a primary concern. If you wanted to try single-pass, just dump the cooling water as it comes out of the CFC and add the same amount of tap temp water back into the bucket/cooler with the ice and the pump. That alone will use less ice. I essentially do this with my IC. While the delta T on the cooling water going into and out of the chiller is significant (>20-30 deg) I just pump tap water through the whole thing and dump the used cooling water. As the delta T gets below that, I throw the ice in the bucket/cooler and then start recirculating the water.

Obviously I hadn't though this one through yet this morning. Perfect suggestion, especially since my delta won't change much. That ought to be easy to balance inflow/outflow. Thanks!I did a couple final more tweaks to it tonight and am ready to try it in a couple days.

[djinkc]

Trying to pre-chill tap water in a cooler and pumping that through the CFC was a joke. Should have known better but I tried anyway. Only cooled the wort to 85df. If you need to melt ice really fast this is the way to do it. Just ordered a couple QDs from McMaster so I can use the EHERMS coil for a post-chiller too.But a recirculating whirlpool to sanitize the pump and hoses at the end of the boil and for a few minutes after worked. That was the first time I had a nice cone of pellet hop debris and hot break - nice clean kettle drain.......