Stainless Steel Wort Chiller, safe for hydroponics?

The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter

Active Member
For sure... It's about as inert as you can get... At least with the kind of chemicals we are running. Only downside is that the heat conduction is much poorer... At a minimum I would suggest pulling the coils apart a bit.

Although honestly something like that is no so difficult to make. There was an article on the Make Magazine web site about a guy making a mondo copper one. I'll dig up the link if you can't find it.

Basic process is to fill the tube with packed sand or wax, cap it off, and then roll it around some kind of form. Looked like the guy in the make article used sonotube (The cardboard tubing used for casting cement)... Filled it with plaster, and then done a bit of shaping so he could bring the return right up the center. The tubing, could be had from McMaster or another industrial supplier.



T.M.H.
 
squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
The Mad Hatter said:
For sure... It's about as inert as you can get... At least with the kind of chemicals we are running. Only downside is that the heat conduction is much poorer... At a minimum I would suggest pulling the coils apart a bit.

Although honestly something like that is no so difficult to make. There was an article on the Make Magazine web site about a guy making a mondo copper one. I'll dig up the link if you can't find it.

Basic process is to fill the tube with packed sand or wax, cap it off, and then roll it around some kind of form. Looked like the guy in the make article used sonotube (The cardboard tubing used for casting cement)... Filled it with plaster, and then done a bit of shaping so he could bring the return right up the center. The tubing, could be had from McMaster or another industrial supplier.



T.M.H.
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im fairly sure copper shouldn't be used because it poisons your reservoir. Do you have other information ?
 
The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter

Active Member
Okay so I just did a bit of checking... And the price of raw tube is not that much less then what they want for the pre-formed coil..... Only around $10-15... Most definitely not worth the trouble... Although do tell us a bit more about your application... I'm assuming you plan on hooking this up to a chiller... Otherwise it's probably not going to do you a whole lot of good.

Cold tap water works for whort that's hundreds of degrees... Not going to do much good for nutrients that are 10-15 degrees over ambient... Sorry to state the obvious... But sometimes it's hard to tell around here.

Now if you were to say... Hook this to a small pump, and run it to a res of alcohol inside a mini freezer then you would be getting somewhere. I don't really anticipate temrature problems personally... but if I have them that's what I plan on doing.

T.M.H.
 
squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
The Mad Hatter said:
Okay so I just did a bit of checking... And the price of raw tube is not that much less then what they want for the pre-formed coil..... Only around $10-15... Most definitely not worth the trouble... Although do tell us a bit more about your application... I'm assuming you plan on hooking this up to a chiller... Otherwise it's probably not going to do you a whole lot of good.

Cold tap water works for whort that's hundreds of degrees... Not going to do much good for nutrients that are 10-15 degrees over ambient... Sorry to state the obvious... But sometimes it's hard to tell around here.

Now if you were to say... Hook this to a small pump, and run it to a res of alcohol inside a mini freezer then you would be getting somewhere. I don't really anticipate temrature problems personally... but if I have them that's what I plan on doing.

T.M.H.
Click to expand...
i have a 3/4 HP chiller


oh, i guess i should elaborate, i want to run an watercooled icebox, and chill my reservior with the same chiller. So, run the wort in the cold water tub to cool my nutrients.

I want to have a cold water tub, which the chiller directly feeds and the watercooled line goes to the icebox, and also have my 55 gallon res getting cooled by that same supply
 
The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter

Active Member
squarepush3r said:
im fairly sure copper shouldn't be used because it poisons your reservoir. Do you have other information ?
Click to expand...
Just referenced that as an example on the construction process...

However the mobility of the copper ions depends on the Ph of the solution... Increasing as the Ph drops.

Some light reading is here:
http://library.wrds.uwyo.edu/wrp/95-07/95-07.pdf

As for toxicity I'm not really inclined to beleve it would cause to many probelms... After all your water spends a healthy portion of it's life in copper pipe, at only +2 Ph of the minimum you should be running... But I'm pretty far out of my element here. Stick with the SS... Your only talking about maybe $20 more...



T.M.H.
 
The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter

Active Member
squarepush3r said:
i have a 3/4 HP chiller


oh, i guess i should elaborate, i want to run an watercooled icebox, and chill my reservior with the same chiller. So, run the wort in the cold water tub to cool my nutrients.

I want to have a cold water tub, which the chiller directly feeds and the watercooled line goes to the icebox, and also have my 55 gallon res getting cooled by that same supply
Click to expand...

Okay... Now I'm just getting confused... You growing weed or brewing beer? Or both?

If you really are chilling wort at the same time then it's not going to work out for you... As that's going t.... Yeah... That just makes no sense.

Incase I'm misleading you here...

Wort is unfermented yeast and sugars... Used to make beer.

When I mentioned alcohol in the lines I simply meant running alcohol to prevent the lines form freezing.

T.M.H.
 
squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
The Mad Hatter said:
Okay... Now I'm just getting confused... You growing weed or brewing beer? Or both?

If you really are chilling wort at the same time then it's not going to work out for you... As that's going t.... Yeah... That just makes no sense.

Incase I'm misleading you here...

Wort is unfermented yeast and sugars... Used to make beer.

When I mentioned alcohol in the lines I simply meant running alcohol to prevent the lines form freezing.

T.M.H.
Click to expand...

the wort chiller coil can be used in a beer system to cool liquid, or a hydroponic system to cool a res, basically any application that needs to cool a liquid.


So i'm thinking of using it to cool my res and watercool my growroom
 
The Mad Hatter

The Mad Hatter

Active Member
squarepush3r said:
the wort chiller coil can be used in a beer system to cool liquid, or a hydroponic system to cool a res, basically any application that needs to cool a liquid.


So i'm thinking of using it to cool my res and watercool my growroom
Click to expand...
Okay... I think I follow now... Since I'm not sure of the dimensions of the area you are trying to cool I can't speak to efficiency... But it's something to consider... Certanly a 3/4 HP chiller is quite significant though.

You will however want to consider what your trying to achieve... If you want to drop your res temp to say 55F... And your room to say 72F (just making number up here) your going to need to have different size coils, or a different amount of flow between coils...

It may be hard to strike the right balance. But nothing is lost in trying it...

If you were talking about cooling the res and also cooling a big ice tub... And using the tub to keep your room cool your going to loose a lot of efficiency... Of course you could add a fan to circulate air near the icebox... But then you end up with a swamp-cooler and perhaps introduce unwanted humidity.

My guess would be that ultimately if you cool your res with the chiller. And have conventional forced air cooling for your room and or lights your probably going to be okay...

Good luck with whatever you decide to do... If you end up getting the coil, post back and let us know if it's decent quality etc. I'm curious if it's seamless or welded tube. It's a good deal either way... But if it's seamless it's a REALLY good deal.

T.M.H.
 
squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
The Mad Hatter said:
Okay... I think I follow now... Since I'm not sure of the dimensions of the area you are trying to cool I can't speak to efficiency... But it's something to consider... Certanly a 3/4 HP chiller is quite significant though.

You will however want to consider what your trying to achieve... If you want to drop your res temp to say 55F... And your room to say 72F (just making number up here) your going to need to have different size coils, or a different amount of flow between coils...

It may be hard to strike the right balance. But nothing is lost in trying it...

If you were talking about cooling the res and also cooling a big ice tub... And using the tub to keep your room cool your going to loose a lot of efficiency... Of course you could add a fan to circulate air near the icebox... But then you end up with a swamp-cooler and perhaps introduce unwanted humidity.

My guess would be that ultimately if you cool your res with the chiller. And have conventional forced air cooling for your room and or lights your probably going to be okay...

Good luck with whatever you decide to do... If you end up getting the coil, post back and let us know if it's decent quality etc. I'm curious if it's seamless or welded tube. It's a good deal either way... But if it's seamless it's a REALLY good deal.

T.M.H.
Click to expand...
thanks for all your replies TMH
 
fluffygrrrl

fluffygrrrl

Well-Known Member
Hi,
I was doing a search on this same question, just wondering if you bought the stainless coil for hydroponic cooling. Please let me know if you have and if it works.
 
N

nadroj215

Member
Hey, Im not really sure how to sen PMs here, but I'm very interested in the results of your operation. I am planning to run a sealed room, 4 x 600, 2 x aeroflo 60, using a 1/4 chiller to chill the 2 40 gallon res through wort chillers and cool the exhaust with an ice box. money is a factor, so im trying to get away with just the 1/4 hp. Keep me posted, im interested in knowing whether 1/4 hp should be enough. The system will run the chiller to capacity, but will only need to lower room and res temps to 68, with the addition of portable ac. Come to think of it, if the room is sealed, I wonder if the res chillers are necessary if the exhaust and room is cooled to 68, the res should stay at that temp, all the heat energy is conserved in the system, it shouldn't matter. where its from. Anyway keep me posted on your findings.
 
A

airedog

Well-Known Member
The Mad Hatter said:
...
Now if you were to say... Hook this to a small pump, and run it to a res of alcohol inside a mini freezer then you would be getting somewhere. I don't really anticipate temrature problems personally... but if I have them that's what I plan on doing.

T.M.H.
Click to expand...
If you're gonna do that, might as well go Dowfrost or Dowtherm.
 
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