A Comparison of Wort Chiller Water and Time Usage as a Function of Coolant Temperature and Flow Rate

By E. Baxstrom and P. Meleney EmpiricAles.com October 16, 2012

Abstract
The aim of this experiment was to compare cooling rates and water usage of commonly available immersion wort chillers and determine the most efficient equipment and method for chilling wort. All tests were conducted with five gallons of boiling water as a wort analog. The wort was cooled for ten minutes while continuously stirring and measuring temperature every minute. Two 25 chillers composed of Copper and Stainless Steel were compared, with both chillers cooling at nearly identical rates. The results of the 25 chiller trials were then compared against several trials with a 50 Copper chiller run at different flow rates. The 50 chiller outperformed both 25 chillers in both water usage and speed of cooling. A test of unstirred wort with the 50 Chiller had the worst performance, resulting in both high water usage, and high wort temperature at the end of the ten minutes of cooling. Wort chilling was then modeled using Newtons Law of Cooling and it was determined that the most efficient cooling was achieved through use of the 50 chiller run at medium flow rate while stirring the wort. The model also shows the profound impact of coolant temperature on chilling efficiency. Lower coolant temperatures were significantly more efficient with time and water usage.

Introduction
The most common wort immersion chillers are made from either copper or stainless steel, with lengths of either 25 feet or 50 feet. There has been some discussion regarding performance, with some claims that copper is more suitable than stainless due to its superior heat conductivity (by a factor of more than 20) [1]. However, thermal properties alone do not determine heat conduction rates, with surface area and conductor thickness both being significant factors [2]. In the case of wort chillers, coolant flow rate, coolant turbulence and wort convection are all factors affecting overall cooling rate. This study determines cooling rates empirically, models the chillers using Newtons Law of Cooling, and provides recommendations for chilling quickly and efficiently.

Methods and Materials

All tests were conducted using 5 gallons of tap water (measured between each trial) in place of wort. The cooling water was also tap water, and will be referred to as coolant while the water used as a wort analog will be referred to as wort. Three chillers were tested: a 25 x 3/8 Copper chiller, a 25 x 3/8 Stainless chiller, and a 50 x 1/4 Copper chiller. For each test, the wort chiller was placed in the pot before the wort was brought to a boil. Wort temperature was measured using a calibrated dial thermometer (0.5 F) once per minute for ten minutes. The wort was stirred using a long handled spoon at a rate of approximately one revolution of the spoon around the pot per second. For the unstirred test, the wort was left completely unstirred until the 10 minute mark, at which time the wort was homogenized through stirring in order to achieve an accurate temperature reading. Coolant flow rate was determined using a stopwatch to measure the time to fill a bucket of known volume. Tests were conducted on two different days separated by approximately two months, and consequently groundwater temperatures were different for the two sets of test. Thus, some trials cannot be compared directly. Further analysis is given in the Discussion section.

Results
All immersion wort chillers performed better than ice-bath cooling or no-chill methods which can take up to one or 24 hours respectively. Only the 50 Copper chiller running at a flow rate of (an unrealistically slow) 0.608 gpm (2.3 L/min) failed to cool the wort below 95F (35C) within the ten minutes of cooling. All other chiller configurations cooled the wort below 81F (27C) within ten minutes, even with 72F (24C) coolant water for some configurations. The two 25 chillers (Copper and Stainless) performed almost identically, with wort temperatures within a degree of each other after ten minutes of stirred chilling. The 50 Copper chiller with wort stirring outperformed all other configurations, even with substantially reduced coolant flow rates compared to the 25 Chillers. Because the test was conducted over several weeks, coolant water temperature (ground water temperature) varied significantly, so not all results can be compared directly.

It is also worth noting that the 50 Chiller could not achieve a flow rate higher than 2.05 gpm, while both 25 chillers peaked at 3 gpm. Also, coolant temperatures for both days varied less than 1.5 F as measured between trials.
Chiller Type and Flow Rate Coolant temp: Time 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 25' Stainless: 3gpm (11.4 L/min) 72F (23.9C) 212 186 165 142 125 111 101 93 88 84 79 25' Copper: 50' Copper: 3gpm (11.4 0.608 gmp (2.3 L/min) L/min) 72F (23.9C) 212 175 149 130 116 104 97 92 86 81 78 62.6F (17C) 212 183 169 155 145 136 127 120 114 109 97 50' Copper 50' Copper: 50' Copper: Unstirred: 1.33gpm (5 2.05gpm (7.8 2.05gpm (7.8 L/min) L/min) L/min) 72F (23.9C) 62.6F (17C) 62.6F (17C) 212 177 154 136 122 112 102 95 89 85 81 212 165 133 112 98 88 81 74 71 68 67 212

80

Table 1. Wort temperature vs. time for various chiller configurations. For the unstirred trial, wort temperature between time 0 and 10 minutes was heterogeneous and therefore could not be measured.

Discussion

25 Copper vs. 25 Stainless The 25 Copper and 25 Stainless chillers behaved almost identically, with the temperatures being within 1 F after ten minutes of cooling (with equal coolant temperature and flow rate). Coppers superior heat conductivity is often cited as evidence of its superioriority as a wort chiller material. However, other factors appear to make up for stainless inferior heat conductivity, with the two chillers performing equally well. These other factors determining overall cooling rate likely include tubing thickness, interior surface area (the amount of water in contact with the tubing interior), and fluid flow characteristics, i.e. turbulence which is affected by fluid velocity, interior surface roughness, and pipe diameter. 50 Copper The 50 Copper Chiller outperformed both 25 chillers, cooling the wort as well as the other two chillers, while using 55% less coolant. It is worth noting that none of the chillers brought the coolant into equilibrium with wort temperature. Sporadic effluent (wort chiller outflow) temperature measurements indicated the effluent temperature to be more than five degrees colder than wort temperatures, even for the 50 Chiller at the lowest flow rate. Stirred vs. Unstirred Between the stirred 50 Copper and unstirred 50 Copper chiller trials, the stirred method performed significantly better. With the same coolant temperature and flow rate, the stirred wort was 13 F cooler than the unstirred wort at the end of ten minutes. It took 10 minutes to cool the unstirred wort to 80 F, while it took the stirred wort just over six minutes to reach the same temperature. Time vs. Water Usage In order to compare time and water usage for different coolant temperatures, further analysis is required. The cooling is modeled using Newtons Law of Cooling. There are more engineering-centric models that take into account parameters such as chiller surface area, specific heat, as well as wort and coolant mass. By using Newtons

Law of Cooling, all these parameters are lumped into a single parameter, the thermal conductivity, k. The k value is then used to calculate and compare cooling times and water usage for various chiller configurations. Newtons Law of Cooling states that the change in temperature with respect to time is proportional to the temperature difference between the coolant and the material being cooled (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Newtons Law of Cooling. T=the temperature of the wort, Tcoolant is the temperature of the coolant, k is a constant determined empirically, and t=time. It should be noted that this is not the intended application of Newtons Law of Cooling. However, the model provides an easy and reasonably accurate1 means of comparing the cooling properties of the various chiller configurations for typical wort chilling parameters. A value for k was calculated from the temperature drop in each time step (one minute). The overall k value for each chiller was then determined using the mean of selected k values. Individual k values were excluded if the signal-to-noise ratio was less than three. Additionally, the k values from the first two measurements of the stainless chiller were excluded due to inconsistencies in measurement technique at the outset of the experiment. The resulting average k values and standard deviations are given in Table 2.
25' Stainless: 3gpm (11.4 L/min) Average k value k value Std Dev 0.27 0.03 25' Copper: 3gpm (11.4 L/min) 0.26 0.01 50' Copper: 0.608 gmp (2.3 L/min) 0.15 0.03 50' Copper 50' Copper: 50' Copper: Unstirred: 1.33gpm (5 2.05gpm (7.8 2.05gpm (7.8 L/min) L/min) L/min) 0.24 0.3 0.22 0.02 0.01

Table 2. Newtons Law of Cooling k values for different chiller types and flow rates. The 50 Copper unstirred test required a different approach, since only the starting and ending temperature are known. The k value was calculated by solving Newtons Law of Cooling as a differential equation. Given the test parameters, k was calculated with algebra.
50' Copper: 50 deg Coolant Coolant Temp F 50 Time 13 8 6 16 10 8 23 14 11 7 9 Gallons 8 10 13 10 13 16 14 19 23 21 18

50' Copper: 60 deg Coolant

60

50' Copper: 70 deg Coolant

70

25' Chiller: 50 deg Coolant 50' Copper Unstirred: 50 deg Coolant

50 50

Table 3. Coolant times and water usage for various wort chiller configurations. Each configuration assumes the wort begins at boiling and is cooled to a final temperature of 75F.

In order for Newtons Law of Cooling to be a valid model, the rate of cooling has to be linearly related to the temperature difference between the medium and the coolant. In other words, the natural log of temperature versus time should be linear. The trend line of Ln(temperature) vs. time has R2 values greater than 0.91 for all temperature sets, which is sufficient for this model.
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Treating Newtons Law of Cooling as a differential equation and finding the solution also allows cooling to be modeled for various parameters. There are several ways to approach the information given by the solution to the differential equation. The most instructive approach for comparing time and water usage is to use fixed values for the initial and final temperatures and calculate the resources required for each of the three flow rates. The model assumes that the wort temperature begins at boiling and will be chilled to 75 F (24 C). Although 75 F is higher than typical yeast pitching or fermentation temperatures, it is closer to the range of temperatures measured in the experiment. Additionally, if the model used a final wort temperature close to the coolant temperature, it would make the modeled results less meaningful since most of the total cooling time would occur in the last few degrees as the wort temperature approached the coolant temperature. The results of the model for given parameters is shown in Table 3. Graphing the results makes the trends more apparent. Each line in the graph represents the resources required to cool the wort to 75 F for the given coolant temperature. The water usage was determined using flow rate multiplied by cooling time. It becomes readily apparent that there is a tradeoff between cooling time and water usage and that the tradeoff is non-linear. With high flow rates, the coolant cannot reach equilibrium with the wort and therefore uses water inefficiently. For extremely low flow rates, the coolant comes closer to equilibrium with the wort temperature, but at the expense of greater time usage.

Chart 1. Cooling resources required to chill 5 gallons of wort from 212 F to 75 F. The lines represent time and coolant expenditure to chill the wort for various coolant temperatures using a 50 Chiller while stirring the wort. The two points are the time and coolant expenditure to chill the wort with 50 F coolant using a 25 Chiller (copper or stainless), and using a 50 Chiller without stirring.

Bibliography 1. Wikipedia. List of Thermal Conductivities Retrieved 10/8/12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_thermal_conductivities 2. Taftan Data. "Fouriers Law of Conduction Retrieved 10/8/12 http://www.taftan.com/thermodynamics/FOURIER.HTM