attaching a garden hose to the "out" line of your wort chiller

[1776]

Hey guys i just recently moved up to all grain brewing which means a brand new shiny 10 gallon stock pot and an outdoor burner. Set everything up today, burnt all the excess paint from the cooker and realized i need to find a way to dispose of my hot water which will be coming out of my wort chiller.

I'll be brewing in my garage this winter and I'd like to somehow get that hot water into the gutter, rather than my lawn. I was thinking of buying another hose attachment for my chiller, connecting a garden hose to it, and sening that hot water into the street.

Question is, will that melt the garden hose?

I know the water will get very hot (but i haven't used it yet) so I'm asking you guys thanks for any help from your expertise. Thanks

 

[Golddiggie]

Garden hoses are not designed to be used with hot water. It's actually printed on the packaging most come with. I saw this printed on the 3/4" ID 'commercial' hose I purchased to feed my plate chiller.

That being said, I have been using a pair of short garden hoses for the waste water from my plate chiller. They are showing signs of being worse for the wear. I'm thinking about cutting a length of silicone tubing to use instead. I have a good amount of that on hand, so it's not an issue for me. Just need to get a single fitting to connect the tubing to the plate chiller and I'm set.

 

[dallasdb]

I've been using the same garden hose for 3 years. Just buy the cheap one ~$10.
Tip from my experience is make sure you have fittings for the "water in" on your plate chiller.
First brew I realized a standard water hose won't hook up to your plate chiller for the water in side. I had a set of quick disconnects that luckily did the job. Otherwise the first brew using the plate chiller would've been a disaster!

 

[1776]

i like your guys' style. F the system, im using a god damn garden hose

 

[runbad]

Assuming you wont reach the melting point of the rubber; You won't be putting any back pressure on the hose if you're just draining from it so using it for the water out line should be ok.

it's when you hook it up to a hot tap and put a hose nozzel on the end... it starts to balloon in spots.

 

[Gartywood]

the big question is how hot will the water leaving the chiller actually be. For chilling time efficiency you want to increase the flow so that the water still comes out cool. If the water in the end of the chiller (or second half of the chiller) has doubled temperature the ability to chill in that section of the chiller will be significantly reduced. By increasing flow we maintain a high temperature difference and can absorb more BTUs from the wort.

From a water use efficiency you want to slow the flow just to the point where the leaving temperature from the chiller is almost the same as the wort. This way you have maxed out the amount of heat (BTUs) that each gallon of water can absorb. Chilling will take much longer under these circumstances.

My chiller water leave the plate chiller at barely more than tap temp and I chill the whole batch to tap temperature in about 10 minutes.

 

[Gartywood]

TL;DR - Increase the chiller water flow until the outlet is not too hot for the hose.

 

[Golddiggie]

With my plate chiller, the initial waste water temperature coming out of the chiller IS hot. Easily at least the temperature from the hot water heater. It does drop pretty fast though, due to the chiller doing such a damned fine job. I recirculate my chilling wort until it hits a point where I can go directly to the fermenter at a high flow rate. Last batch, which was just over 7 gallons into fermenter, took less than 10 minutes to chill to about 64-65F.

 

[LuiInIdaho]

First, my chiller is an immersion chiller which I built; it is all copper with sweat on fittings. I added fittings for garden hoses for both the water in and water out locations.
Second, I purchased some quick disconnects for any garden hose at Home Depot. I use these on both the water in side and water out side to make for and easier setup and tear down.
I always drain into the gutter and have had no problems. I do use hoses that I purchased specifically for my brewery, but have experience no difficulties with using the garden hose on either end of the IC.

I hope that this helps.

Mark

 

[Spartan1979]

I've used old garden hoses as the outlet for my chiller for years. I just a section of a hose that I was throwing away.