CFC with a difference

[Vossy1]

Can you tell what it is yet

[Chiltern Brewer]

A DIY Colonic Irigation Kit?

[Vossy1]

I suppose it could be used for that

You volunteering for first go

[mysterio]

... A double counterflow chiller?

It's like an optical illusion, I can't focus on any point of the picture

[Chiltern Brewer]

I suppose it could be used for that

You volunteering for first go

No, you can go first! I can't figure out which way the water flows any way.

[Vossy1]

I have been having some problems with my plate chiller as of late.
It's been taking me almost an hour to cool a 46ltr batch to pitching temp....which is not good.

I did a lot of testing on Thursday and I'll post the results on here soon but in essence, to get the plate chiller to produce wort at pitching temp meant restricting the flow so it was no more efficient than my cfc.

This is wort to fv I must add, not wort to copper.

Thanks to Daab's advice, I have been playing with recircing my wort back to the copper in an attempt to get the hops to filter the trub.

In the grand picture I have been experiencing haze problems which I'm trying to eliminate

[RabMaxwell]

I am sure i have seen that on oil rigs to put out fires there's didn't look so good though.

[Vossy1]

The CFC above has a split coolant inlet. I can restrict the flow to the greeen hose using the ball valve in the picture.

I quickly realised when testing my cfc that the coolent leaving the cfc was no where near the volume available from the tap.

I use my pid control unit and a circular hose temp probe to accertain the various temperatures of the hose at certain loops (using the green hose cfc only)

My chiller (green hose) has the coolant, ie, tap water, entering at the bottom and exiting at the top. 3 coils from the top the coolant reached a maximum temp of 54.9 deg c which it maintained t'ill exit. IMO these 3 coils are useless

I then realised I could use the tap water to better effect by utilising a seperate feed of coolant to a seperate coil

Hence the new untested V1 cfc.

Using coolant, ie, tap water at 15 deg c the green coils reduced the wort temp to 24 deg c from 90 deg c.

I've not tested the yellow coils as they are hot of the press...so to speak, but I'm expecting them to reduce the wort to tap temp which when recircing can only lead to a dramatically reduced cooling time for the wort.

I was going to use a seperate feed of iced water for the second coil but in the end my head was perplexed enough....thanx

[Vossy1]

Here are my testing results...the only thing I didn't measure was the flow rate per min....I know it's important but there's only so much one person can do a any one time

I labelled my plate chiller WI and WO (W = wort) and h2o in and h2o out.

Ambient air temp = 22 deg c, ambient H2O from tap 15 deg c

Each set of readings was given 2 minutes for continuity

PC using WI -WO...coolant with flow
Exit wort 38 deg c Exit effluent 29 deg c

PC using WI - WO coolant counter flow
Exit wort 38 deg c Exit effluent 29 deg c

Using the H20 in and out for wort with flow
Exit wort 57 deg c Exit effluent 49 deg c

Using the H2O in and out counter flow
Exit wort 40 deg c Exit effluent 44 deg c

CFC counter flow only, Exit wort 24 deg c Exit effluent 54.9 deg c

PC reduced flow 2ltr/min (the only flow rate I measured)
Exit wort 20 deg c Exit effluent 49.5 dge c

Now I know that 20 deg c at 2ltr/min might seem fine giving 23 minutes for a 46 ltr batch but the fruit flies dont know that

And I was bored anyway so It was time to play

If I can get it clean time it might go into action on sunday

And yes I do know that plate chillers should work equally in each direction but that's not what I found

I probably will end up with an IC like DaaB says....but there's only one way to evauate all options

[Vossy1]

I was having a good look at those on e-bay last night DaaB as I know a few people use them

This is a line of thought that really interests me though I have no knowlege of them.....and that's scary

I just wish I could skip the intermediary steps and jump head long into the more complicated stuff without the in-between stuff which costs

[mixbrewery]

Vossy - you need one of these muthas!



Yes it really is as tall as the gas bottles.
Just a shame its blue and brown! and not shiny...

[Vossy1]

What the feck is that

I'm sure I've seen one before

[mixbrewery]

A bloody heavy plate chiller!
It will cool 50lt of hot wort to pitching temp in 5mins!

It's good enough t ouse on a 2.5 brl micro system.... one day!

[Vossy1]

I have seen those before

Usually I got out bid by bloody biodiesel gimps

[Vossy1]

Today I tested my new 'improved' cfc.
Ambient coolant water 15 deg c, wort (water 90 deg c), air temp 24 deg c.
Exit wort 15 deg c, exit effluent 71 deg c....far to hot to touch

However the flow rate was only 2 ltr/min. Even my plate chiller can get to 20 deg c with restricted wort flow rate of 2ltr/min

I changed pumps from my Totton NPD10/2 to my old Totton which is not mag coupled and only has a quoted flow rate of 6ltr/min, versus the 10 of the NPD.

This pump managed to up the flow rate to 3.5 ltr/min with 16 deg c wort exiting.

My question for one of our resident boffins is, how long will it take to cool a 46ltr batch be recircing back to the copper.

If I pump staraight to fv whilst cooling it doesn't take a genius to work out that the new cfc will cool 46ltr in 13 minutes...will it do this by recircing...

I know there's only one way to find out but if it results in 46 ltr of cloudy ale