After consistently forgetting to bring ice to use for pre-chilling with the counterflow chiller, I've saved up our plastic juice bottles over the past few weeks at home and brought them to the brewhouse last night, filled them with water, and put them in the freezer.
They are for anyone to use - put a couple of the frozen bottles in the bucket of water a half hour before you need to chill and you should be good to go. Swap them out during chilling if you think its necessary.
Make sure you put them back in the freezer when you're done, for the next brewer.
pre chiller was disassembled.
It does not work with water pressure etc.
The pre chiller has been removed from the chiller system. It never really worked as intended and actually made the chiller harder to work.
I think it's a brilliant idea, and I snapped a pic of it last night so you know what Jim is refferring to.
(I'm a visual learner)
I don't know, the few times that I used the pre-chiller it worked for me, that is after I hooked it up correctly. Last summer it got my temps down below and off the chart cold even with the warm ground water. In the winter, it isn't really necessary.
I agree, the pre-chiller works fine for me, too, with the added ice. Can you guys please reassemble it?
When did it stop working? I just used it on Friday and it worked fine for me with ice.
sorry I was just the messanger I didnt actually disassabble it.
Well, whoever disassembled it, please reassemble asap. Thanks!
Josh is just a puppet for the real Disassembler.
shit your on to us.
JK I brewed on monday and it was straight from water to counterflow. It may be effective this way so dont jump to conclusions. With the "Pre Chiller" your cutting off water flow by going down in pipe size. So I wouldnt be so quick to demand change just yet.
But I dont really care either way itll also be nice to actually use the immersion chiller too since its now off.
I took the pre chiller off! Why? Cause it really does not work for most folks. You have a 1/4 inch line feeding a 1 inch line add someone filling a pot or cleaning, you lose the prime. It's a janky system. With the just the chiller you can get your beer down to 70-72 degrees with a minimum of fuss, well with in pitching yeast temps.
I brewed a lager two weeks ago and the prechiller didn't seem to do shit, even with 22 lbs of ice added intermittedly. I'd still like to get into the 60s, but realize that may not be a viable option.
70 or 72 is too high for pitching, according to Jamil Z. in "Yeast". At that temp, during the first stages, the yeast will spew compounds that lead to off flavors. Best practice these days seems to be to chill down to ferm temp or slightly below and let the wort/yeast warm up to ferm temp.
I never tried the pre-chiller, because I forgot to bring ice. I'd like to either put the pre-chiller back together and run some tests, note how well it chills with ice and without ice, document that it does or doesn't work since there seems to be a difference of opinion about that or come up with another prechillding solution - perhaps use a larger diameter coil?
Another option is to chill down to the 70s and then move the wort into the ferm room, without pitching, and then come back in 12 hours and pitch when the wort has reached ferm temp. The obvious issue with that process is that you've given the wild yeast/bacteria a head-start in their competition with the brewers yeast (and you have to come back to the brewhouse).
www.singingboysbrewing.com
Jim,
I agree with the concerns about pitching temp - I like them low myself.
Over the next month or so, we'll be working to bring in some different chiller options - hopefully in the form of an all metal counterflow in addition to an immersion chiller. The problem with the prechiller is that the jump from hose diameter from the water source to the small ID of the prechiller back to the larger diameter of the counterflow under already awful pressure severely reduces any additional chilling capability.
In the meantime, I believe the prechiller was added back on, but I'm unsure of it's official status.
What I do with this configuration is to recirculate back into the kettle until the temperature of the full wort is low that another pass generally gets it where it needs to 9 months out of the year. Summer sucks, indeed, with ground water temps.
As I mentioned above, I brewed my Rauchbier a few weeks ago and brought in a full 22lb bag of ice that didn't seem to have much of an effect, even after a long recirculation period.
A fountain pump inside the ice bucket would probably do the trick, that way we aren't relying on the water pressure to drive the system and people using the sinks won't affect the chiller. It will also waste less water.
http://www.brewandgrow.com/ecoplus-submersible-pumps.html
http://www.amazon.com/EcoPlus-728325-1267-Submersible-1347GPH/dp/B0018X162O
Thanks, Kyle, that sounds great. I'm not the most DIY-skilled person around, but would be happy to help with figuring out/putting together a pre-chilling system that works better. Replacing the small diameter coil with a larger diameter coil would be one. Mark's idea on integrating a pump is good. Another way to use a pump would be integrate it with an immersion chiller, pumping ice water from a bucket through the immersion chiller - let the first few minutes,when the outflow is hottest, go down the drain, then recirculate and keep adding ice/frozen water bottles to the pre chilling bucket. I'm sure there are other solutions.
www.singingboysbrewing.com
I don't know much about counterflow chillers (I don't use the one at the brewhouse - I bring my own immersion chiller when I brew), but this one got a lot of good reviews and the specs are impressive.
It's not cheap ($199), but Midwest is having a sale till tonight - 20% off orders $100 or more. And if you didn't want to pull the trigger before tonight, they're always running specials. I'll be on the lookout.