Wort chiller for condenser water???

[rubberduck71]

I've been getting frustrated with having enough frozen jugs to keep my condenser water cool (SWIMBO already giving me the hairy eyeball with an entire shelf of upright freezer for my hobby). I have 8 one gal jugs in a half full 20 gal storage bin of water. For stripping runs this is fine (~3-4 hrs), but on spirit runs (~6-8 hrs), it doesn't seem to last.

I was thinking about a mini-freezer with a plate wort chiller inside (pic below), attached via quick connect or standard 3/4" hose connect mounted on or through the door and a submersible pump in a 5 gal bucket of water to circulate the water.

Any thoughts from the experienced veterans on this concept? Is this sustainable to keep my condenser water cold for the duration of the longer spirit runs???

I run in my basement, so I don't have a sink or water/sewer lines near my "lab."

[Salt Must Flow]

I use well water and don't care about water usage. My water goes down the drain. What is your circumstance? If water consumption is not an issue, you can simply tap into the home's water supply and also tap into the home's water drain from somewhere or just out onto the ground.

[subbrew]

You are not in dry country so a little extra water usage should be OK. I would try volume. Get two or three 55 gallon barrels and chain them together with siphon tubes. Draw from one end of the chain and dump back into the other end. I can get by with 50 gallons starting at 60 F. to do a spirit run. Have not tried reflux yet but think I will need to do the barrel chain for that.

[Ben]

Small radiator and fan inline on your hot side. It will heat up your space, but you could drop some of the temp off your recycled water before it goes into the ice bath. Could be a power steering cooler, trans cooler, whatever. Grab something out of a junkyard and put a fan on it. Potentially even just a long copper coil with a fan on it if you have spare copper laying around.

[Rrmuf]

I don't care about water use in my cicumstances so I just spill hot water into the environment, but it strikes me that to conserve your ice/water bath temperature, the wort chiller would have to be chilled into the air with a fan. I suppose a fridge would help as well, but just getting air flow through the chiller before hitting the ice bath might be a good first step. Do you have good ventilation? Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[greggn]

I run in my basement, so I don't have a sink or water/sewer lines near my "lab."

RedwoodHillbilly used transmission coolers and a remarkably small volume of water. His photo ...

[StillerBoy]

I've been getting frustrated with having enough frozen jugs to keep my condenser water cool (SWIMBO already giving me the hairy eyeball with an entire shelf of upright freezer for my hobby). I have 8 one gal jugs in a half full 20 gal storage bin of water. For stripping runs this is fine (~3-4 hrs), but on spirit runs (~6-8 hrs), it doesn't seem to last.

Using water from a half full 20 gal barrel at ambient temp and adding Ice blocks is distilling the hard way, not discounting the electricity used for making ice blocks, which is at a high cost now a days..

Information missing to really be of assistance, as to the size of the boiler load, and if the spirit run is pot or reflux column..

Having stated such, unless you set up a 2 - 55 gal barrel setup, you'll continuously had issue of water temp.. a spirit reflux column run of 7 gal takes 5 hrs of water usage for me, and that takes 225L (56 gal ) ( @ 3/4L pm ) of tap water at 55*F.. on the pot still setup a little less..

Since your time fact is at least double my, the two barrel setup would be the way to go.. as to using rad and fan, they done work out that well, they are slow to exchange heat plus the extra heat generated is a drawback in an enclosed area..

Yeah.. distilling uses lot of water, and unless one have a tap setup, it's not an enjoyable task of having to always check the water temp, as it's important to have constant water temp feeding the condenser(s), especially for a reflux column run..

Mars

Pictures of a member's setup..

[shadylane]

I was thinking about a mini-freezer with a plate wort chiller inside (pic below), attached via quick connect or standard 3/4" hose connect mounted on or through the door and a submersible pump in a 5 gal bucket of water to circulate the water.

From what I read a mini-freezer only uses around 100w while running.
Just guessing, it can only knock down that much boiler power.

Maybe put a coil in the bucket of water before freezing.
To let the little freezer, get a running head start before distilling.

Or as one of our members did awhile back.
He used his clothes washer for a reservoir and did a washing after the run.

[Chauncey]

A 5 ton unit will do nicely

https://www.morebeer.com/products/glyco ... YLEALw_wcB



Only 11k and change...

[dmw_chef]

What I do is use a 5 gallon bucket full of water that is used as the reservoir for the water that is circulated through the condenser. The bucket has a wort chiller in it connected to my tap water.

I monitor the temperature of the recirculating reservoir in the bucket and adjust the flow rate of the cooling water through the wort chiller to maintain a consistent temperature.

What I plan to do soon is buy a small chest freezer, seal the seams in the chamber, and fill it partway with water and a chlorine tab, and use a PID to maintain a temperature at 35 degrees.

[NormandieStill]

Active cooling is good and all but requires a shitload of power. For a pot still you're effectively doubling the energy consumption (at a minimum... you'll never get that efficiency) if you want to hold the temperature steady.

Unless space is just too much of an issue, get a big container (1000L IBC is overkill and I suspect fairly cheap for most folks) and recycle your water. By the time you've raised the temperature of 1000L to the point at which it's a problem you should be long done. As long as you're not running back to back stripping runs day after day the cool down period overnight should be enough to get you back to your starting point.

[shadylane]

What I plan to do soon is buy a small chest freezer, seal the seams in the chamber, and fill it partway with water and a chlorine tab, and use a PID to maintain a temperature at 35 degrees.

Sorry to say it, but it's not going to work.
A small chest freezer isn't near big enough.
Get a radiator and electric fan.

[shadylane]

A 5 ton unit will do nicely

https://www.morebeer.com/products/glyco ... YLEALw_wcB



Only 11k and change...

5 tons (60,000 BTU/hr) = 17.5 Kw

If my math is right with 50% coiling system efficiency.
The 5 ton chiller would be the size needed to cool my 4" column.

[Chauncey]

Get 2 just to be sure

25 large lol

[Moosehead]

Has anyone tried a 1hp aquarium chiller before?

[Moosehead]

Has anyone tried a 1hp aquarium chiller before?

[Ben]

1hp is 2545 btu. Figure 50% efficiency.

1 watt is 3.41 btu.

The aquarium chiller will only knock down approximately 375 watts of electric. That's not much, about the same as a 1 gallon air still.

[BlueSasquatch]

I've got a 6-gallon pot still with a worm-tube condenser that is probably a hair on the small side. I siphon water into it, from an elevated 5 gallon bucket, which is filled via faucet and hauled over when I need it. Well I have a spare bucket or two that I work in rotation. I'd say I ran my still on propane for 7 hours? Did two strips, and went through about 20 gallons? Helps that it was around 45 degree F out.

Hell when its cold out enough, I put a hot-bucket aside, and by the time I need it, it's cooled off enough to be of use. Winter-time distilling may be my favorite time.