Salt Water w/ Immersion Chiller.

[maglorski]

So I'm debating running saltwater through a pump and then through my immersion chiller to take advantage of colder temperatures (and hopefully some water conservation)

My chemistry is extremely rusty but I seem to recall that saltwater freezes quite a bit below zero. What I was able to dig up on the intertron was that if I add somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 gr/liter of water I'll get a reasonable approximation to seawater.

I was going to have a 'reservoir' of this chilled seawater in my garage to use for cooling, until it gets really cold (i.e. south of -10-ish) and pump it down the sink.

In theory it works in my mind but I'd thought to look to the masses for input.

If left long enough will the salt settle and I'll just have a block of ice with some hyper-saline water at the bottom?

My intention would be to rinse everything that came in contact with the saltwater with fresh afterwards.

Pipe dream or workable?

Thx.

M.

[darciandjenn]

Seems like you're adding a lot of complexity and inefficiencies in order to gain a potentially small amount of water savings. First, you need to mix up your "sea water" i.e. you need to dissolve quite a bit of salt into water, which involves energy and time... Then, you need to chill your sea water to almost freezing, which requires energy. Then you need to pump your cold sea water through your IC, which again, requires energy.

Now, what have you gained - the ability to chill the water to about 2 degrees below zero. (From wikipedia: the coldest seawater ever recorded (in a liquid state) was in 2010, in a stream under an Antarctic glacier, and measured −2.6 °C).

What have you lost? Well, now you can't use this water for anything else. I use the waste water from my IC to water my gardens and grass, clean my equipment, etc. Also, now if your IC springs a leak, you won't be dripping fresh water into your beer (relatively harmless), you'll be dripping salt water, which in small amounts is probably fine, but I don't really love the idea.

Not to crap all over the idea, man, but it just seems like a lot of effort for very little savings. It'd probably be easier to switch to a CFC or a plate chiller.

[Celiacbrew]

You want anti-freeze for what you are suggesting, salt will gum up your stuff. Food grade propylene glycol is the anti-freeze of choice. you mix it with water. The only thing to consider is how much of a reservoir you would need to chill 6 gallons of 100c wort down to <20c. I didn't do the math but I would guess you would need at least four time that volume at freezer temperature to cool your batch down. Might be easier to cool it down a little with your IC and then toss it in the carboy and let your fridge/fermentation chamber bring it down to the correct temperature overnight.

[GuingesRock]

I like this idea. Salt will remain in solution and won't "settle out". You could use a stronger solution and go to colder temperatures. Salt is cheap and non toxic. Might corrode/rust metal. Marine fittings, pumps etc are designed to handle salt water. Like you say though, it would be easy to rinse out.

[mthibodeau]

What about a two stage immersion chiller? Have the first stage in an ice bath, even a salt water ice bath if you keep the flow rate high enough. You could even re-circ the water flowing through the two chillers

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[spears104]

Is your immersion chiller stainless? You may experience chloride corrosion if it is.