Homebrew Beer Blog

An update on the new double immersion chiller… I gave the new chiller a run last last weekend. It worked very well. Basically I got 7.5 gallons of wort down to 48 degrees in under 15 minutes. My tap water was 48, so it’s pretty impressive for an immersion chiller to get to the chill water temp so quickly. That last 10 degrees from the chill water temp usually takes me 15-20 minutes, so that’s pretty good I think regardless of the chill water temp.

Basically I just took a short piece of 1/2 ID tubing and linked the two chillers together in serial. I’m planning on trying to split my chill water into two lines and see what happens when they run in parallel, but it’s working really well right now I need to get some more parts. As much as I link the tinkering part, the more time spent messing around with equipment is less time spent brewing. Next time out I plan to run a bucket out to the discharge hose and get a figure for the gallons per minute, then compare w/ a parallel setup. I’m kind of curious how much more water I can push through the chiller and whether it’s worth the extra effort.

One issue though is when messing with stuff I managed to loosen up the compression fitting on the old chiller. The new chiller has soldered copper fittings, and I ordered another set to do the same on the new chiller. Also the new chiller is a little wobbly, so I want to get it to hold together better. I originally tied to just solder it together, but that didn’t really work out. I plan to pick up some bare copper wire and just bind it together a little. One thing always leads to another…

Anyway, I’m pleased with the setup. I think I’m making the most use out of my chill water, which is primary goal. The only question is as described above, if a different configuration can improve on this, but frankly, I’m satisfied.

Here are a few shots from the brew day. The final shot shows the whirlpool recirculation getting going. There are no garden hoses added yet there, I’m just heat sanitizing the loop during the boil.

1/2/08 Update - It seems when using whole hops things can get bunched up. Basically, there’s so much copper in the kettle, it’s restricting the movement of whole hops. Kind of a bummer, but not sure how big of a deal it is. They’re still in contact with the wort, they’re just not getting toss around. I’ll have to see if I can tell any difference, and if so, I might have to nix the more narrow chiller when using whole hops.