Counter flow chiller

brew · February 13, 2012, 11:17:08 AM

Quote from: "ChrisCraig"I've read in a few places that I need to buy hose rated for hot water use. I can't see why this is necessary. It'll be cold water running through the hose, not hot water. Even with the heat transfer, I can't see the water output being so hot that it would damage the hose.

Any thoughts before I spend $40 on hot water-rated hose?

I used the Home Depot $15 on sale 50' hose... no problems, hasn't melted yet after 15 batches... I cut 15 ft off each end for hose to the faucet and drain out the garage door...

JohnQ · February 13, 2012, 12:06:27 PM

Yeah, PG, so how about this idea...

15 gallon sanke keg with 10 gallons water, and 5 gallons of PG giving you a freezing point of around -10C.
Pop it in your deep freeze and get it down to about -5 C, then hook up a Sanke tap up to a pump, and recirculated the chilled antifreeze solution back into the 15 gallon sanke, if my old math is correct and I'm sure you'll point it out if it's wrong, starting with wort at 95C (having cooled a bit during your whirlpool) you have 100 degrees of thermal buffer or whatever that would be called in your keg and 3 times the volume, so to calculate the finish temp take the total of 20 gallons of liquid, 5 gallons of it is wort, so that means that you could get the wort down to 25% of the difference in temps, or 20C... (-5 + (100/(20/5))...
Is that right Dean?

JQ

Thomas · February 13, 2012, 01:19:35 PM

for those of you with CFC and no pump, how do you sanitize it? Do you un some solution through it before hooking up to the BK, or let hot wort into it first?

Richard · February 13, 2012, 01:21:47 PM

I run a gallon of star-san through.

Chris Craig · February 13, 2012, 01:28:13 PM

Quote from: "Thomas"for those of you with CFC and no pump, how do you sanitize it? Do you un some solution through it before hooking up to the BK, or let hot wort into it first?

I wouldn't want to use hot wort to sanitize unless the wort was recirculated back into the BK. I'm sure that you'd need a few minutes of contact time at boiling to make sure all the baddies are dead. Just filling the chiller with wort and letting it sit probably wouldn't do the trick.

I plan to use star san.

Thomas · February 13, 2012, 02:31:42 PM

I'd be interested in building a CFC at the same time if you guys dont mind. I'll e picking up all the fittings sometime before the weekend.

JohnQ · February 13, 2012, 03:52:39 PM

Quote from: "ChrisCraig"I picked all this up at lunch today (minus the 12" copper pipe). Mind giving me a hand some time?

How much was the 3/8th copper?

If 5 people want to do them at once, the guys at the Plumbing wholesale shop I use said they'd sell me a roll of 100 for $1 a foot, so $20 each for the copper tubing.

JQ

Chris Craig · February 13, 2012, 04:05:49 PM

I just bought 20' at Crappy Tire for $31

Not worth the $6 to return it and go to HD though.

JohnQ · February 13, 2012, 04:13:17 PM

It's $20 for the 20 feet instead of $25...which in copper seems to be about as good a deal as it gets nowadays.
Now the fittings are a bundle cheaper, just got a 1/2" brass ball valve for an amendment to be released later for my CFC for $3.75.

JQ

fakr · February 13, 2012, 05:09:14 PM

$1 a foot for soft copper is a good deal, mine was almost double that, but I didn't spend a lot of time shoppint around for the best deal.

my sparge tun is 50L. I'll take a reading of the water exiting my CFC next time to get an idea of how long it would take to warm 50L of really cold water. Worst case I have to throw a bunch of snow into the pot 3/4 of the way through, that's ok. Or just leave it and let the 14 degree wart warm up to 20.