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Author Topic: NEW IC in "best day brewing"  (Read 3951 times)

Offline hankus

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NEW IC in "best day brewing"
« on: December 12, 2009, 08:32:58 am »
Re: new IC..altho a newbie to this group I am a 13+ yr brewer..instead of a new IC break your present one into 2 or 3 if U can find a 4 way connection (tees are easier to find...think about it ..the first foot of an ic is MUCH better at cooling than the next foot...a "trifecta is AMAZING!!
1)fast coolant flow of a 2)cool liquid and 3)periodic agitation (which is why sticking it in a snow bank will work poorly) is the answer but the quickest is a CFC flowing back to a IC containing pot whose walls have been hosed down-cover the burner
hankus

Offline denny

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Re: NEW IC in "best day brewing"
« Reply #1 on: December 12, 2009, 09:11:19 am »
Hi Hank, glad ya made it.  I'm having trouble visualizing exactly what you mean by breaking your current IC into 2 or 3 parts.  Could you give a bit more info?
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

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Offline hankus

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Re: NEW IC in "best day brewing"
« Reply #2 on: December 12, 2009, 02:21:40 pm »
Instead of a 30' coil have 2 X15' or 3X10' runs...I wrote a little comment for my brewclub on ICs..it's a bit long but I have gotten some good feedback ..shall I post it?

Offline rabid_dingo

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Re: NEW IC in "best day brewing"
« Reply #3 on: December 12, 2009, 07:29:17 pm »
Yes, it may inspire some modifications or additions.
Ruben * Colorado :)

Offline makemehoppy

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Re: NEW IC in "best day brewing"
« Reply #4 on: December 13, 2009, 02:08:35 pm »
I would agree that this would work. I don't know the math to use but in the case of 3-10' sections hooked up in parallel the temp of the water entering each section is the same coldest temp. In a single IC or 3-10' sections hooked up in series the temp entering the 2nd section is greater than the 1st and the temp entering the 3rd section is hotter still.
I believe the limiting factor would be how much water pressure you have to feed the most amount of parallel sections.

If you do any measurements I'd be interested in knowing the time savings in doing this.

Offline denny

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Re: NEW IC in "best day brewing"
« Reply #5 on: December 14, 2009, 09:28:35 am »
Life begins at 60.....1.060, that is!

www.dennybrew.com

The best, sharpest, funniest, weirdest and most knowledgable minds in home brewing contribute on the AHA forum. - Alewyfe

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: NEW IC in "best day brewing"
« Reply #6 on: December 14, 2009, 07:40:51 pm »
This could work, but the skeptical engineer in me has some reservations.

It could work, as this is how a automotive radiator works.  A manifold in the top/side, many tubes and fins (need those fins for water to air heat transfer), and a collection maniforld on the opposite end.

Where I am skeptical is that you are not providing more flow.  Your house plumbing might provide 8-10 gallons per minute at some lower temperature.  You will only remove X BTUs/minute regardless of how it is plumbed to the chiller.  You will remove more in cold weather if your water supply is colder in winter, like mine is.  In other words, you have more place for the water to go in, but it will be flowing slower through each path, which will remove less heat through each path. 

The reason I brouight up the automotive radiator, is that if the supply is a hose of 1.5" to a couple inches in diameter or more with corresponding flow.  The tubes are much smaller.  Your idea would work great if hooked up to a 2 inch supply, or a fire hose. 
Jeff Rankert
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Home-brewing, not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle!

Offline hankus

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Re: NEW IC in "best day brewing"
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2009, 07:26:43 am »
Sorry for the delay...5" rain/3 hrs is big even by N.O. standards and I have been elevating things in my brewshack..
   Revisiting an old friend-the Immersion chiller
The immersion chiller is often the novice brewer's first "technology based" piece of equipment.Simple and cheap to make and to operate,it can be fine tuned to a new level of efficiency.
   Maintain maximum boil pot volume-instead of dropping it into the boil the last 10 minutes to sterilize which causes the already high boiling wort volume to rise,suspend it from an open weave frame (old oven shelf,old frig shelf,wire frame shelf, or custom made plastic/CPVC/metal frame).Tie 4 Cu wires at 4 equidistant balance points on the top and tie them to the bottom of a loop or ring which has another stout wire at the top as the anchor.Place the frame over the boiling wort with the ring below and the anchor fed through the center of the frame.Let out  the anchor line until the IC sits a couple of inches above the surface which will be better than a dunk since steam is hotter and no space is taken up.At flame out,add any hops needed (BTW,this is a good time to sprinkle in sugar which will readily dissolve but not char since the flame which causes scorching is out;I frequently add sugar as do many British brewers.)
  Lower the IC until it is just below the surface.
  Minimize the pot heat-one of the reasons counterrflow chillers (or pumping wort out of the pot work so well is that the wort is taken away from the hot walls of the pot.The experiences of dropping dry ice into wort,watching it cool and then watching the temp rise again or simply putting one's hand on the side wall shows how much heat the pot holds.Remove any insulation,cover the jet of the burner with a can and hose the side walls for a couple of minutes.Observation #2 (Reference volume=Hank's Observations on Hot Things)--the bigger the temp difference between coolant and "coolee",the quicker the drop so now is best time to splash the pot with hose water of constant temp.
  Rethink then remake the IC. A) Most ICs are smoothly curving coils that spiral down to sit on the bottom of the pot.From HOHT Observation #3-more turbulence,the less lamination and the more heat exchange.Convoluted Cu coils with elliptical twisted surfaces cool quicker than do straight runs so a kinky,various cross section shape coil is preferred.
B)HOHT Observation #4-heat rises.Why have the coil at the bottom except that the old design had it sitting on the bottom? Make a plani-spiral flat as wide as possible be so the entire top level cools and drops to bring up another level to be cooled.If anyone has access to some type of device it would nice to know how fast the levels move.
C)The first foot of the IC contains for example 70 degree water and when contacting 180 degree wort cools QUICKLY (see  HOHT,again Observation #2)-and the next foot perhaps 75 and therefore little slower cooling and the next 79? but whatever the exact figures it is true that the first half of the coil offers faster cooling than does the second half.Why not have 2 "first halves"? When St Arnold of Metz (patron saint of brewing) caused my 40' coil to snap at about the 20' line as I was realigning it I recognized that he had sent me a message and I made a double barreled IC.Since then I learned that a neighbor/fellow brewer has a Trifecta.FWIW," Pivo Ron" also has a lot of info on all electric brewing (http://hbd.org/rlaborde/rig.htm)
 
  Whirlpool after removing IC
   Dealing with the seasons-My Jefferson Parish water dept draws from the Mississippi and in mid August the river temp is 85 which is about what the hose delivers.BTW,I make lagers in the summer since I can offer a constant 45 in the frig easier than I can offer a constant 65 for ales.Prechilling the coolant in a Cu tube in ice bath does NOT really work since it requires the coolant to be kept to a trickle which defeats the rapid coolant flow needed;in zero flow-a terrible situation for chilling the wort -the 84 degree coolant and 32 degree ice bath meet eventually.84+32 =116;116/2=58 coolant whereas pumping the ice water delivers a 32+ degree coolant-much cooler.After a few runs U will know how much ice water water you circulate and can prepare enough but a more practical approach using ice is post chilling.
   A post chiller in which wort trickles does work well but note it is the WORT not the COOLANT that trickles.If you are confident in your technique some clean dechlorinated ice cubes cool well with minor dilution but post chiller is much better approach.BTW,instead of cubes I use frozen bottles which I refreeze in the secondary frig's freezer
  Love the planet
   In a place that gets 70" rain/yr,water is plentiful but it is not cheap and on general principles I save expelled water to clean utensils and refill the pond.After a few runs U will know how much water you circulate and can prepare enough vessels.