My double ic works!!

For my AG setup, I planned to use 1/2" tubing for my ic. I lucked out and bought 50' of 1/2" od tubing for $29.99 at the local home improvement store. I wrapped 9 coils around a corny keg, then 7 coils, approximately 12-13" in diameter, outside of those. I weaved 12 gauge copper wire between each coil. It seems to work well, the wort dropped from boiling to less than 80 in 15 minutes.

Now if the rest of my brew is successful, I'll be happy.

Well done. Photos please.

What is your ground water temp?

I can get that temp drop in 10 mins with 25' , but I have 40*F water, Im lucky.

You're running those two coils in parallel, right? that's what I'm planning on doing once I find the money to buy the copper.

where are the pics at, boss? its killing me!!

Here it is, 47' feet of 1/2" od. I kinked it a bit towards the end, hence 47'. I have a 30 gallon water feature I don't drain over the winter. I plan to hook one of my irrigation pumps to that and run it throught the chiller (recirculate) to see if I can do it quicker. That water will be air temperature. This fits into my 60qt. boil kettle (18" diameter) with a couple inches to spare on each side!

Pete08, that looks great! Grats on the copper score.

lustreking said:

You're running those two coils in parallel, right? that's what I'm planning on doing once I find the money to buy the copper.

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It doesn't look like they are in parallel. Looks like it's one continuous piece of copper tubing (i.e series).


I'm of the opinion that parallel coils will cool better. So, if I can score some cheap 1/2" tubing I will update mine (which IS in parallel) which I use with my keggle. It works great for both 10 gal batches (uses both coils) and for 5 gal batches (uses just the bottom coil). I can turn the water off to either coil (though there really is no need to turn off the bottom coil as it's used to cool both size batches). I pieced it together from 2 ICs and (for now) they are ziptied together. I will probably get some copper wire and tie them together that way soon (the nylon zipties will probably get brittle over time).
It has a garden hose 'Y' that connects to the 2 tubing coils using compression fittings and a quick disconnect on the other side that connects to the water hose (which has a quick disconnect too that has an on-off control, nice ). I also have a quick disconnect on the line from my sump pump for ice-water recirculation.

EDIT: yes the coil sizes are different, but not by design. It just happens that the ICs were different sizes before I put them together and didn't want to chance kinking the line by resizing one (or both).

Having parallel lines saves water when only doing a 5 gal batch (no need to run water through the upper coil!) and should cool faster when doing a 10 gal batch (compared to a long single coil).


Click image for larger size.

NoNothing said:

What is your ground water temp?

I can get that temp drop in 10 mins with 25' , but I have 40*F water, Im lucky.

Click to expand...

40*! That must be the Houghton water, not the Ann Arbor water, right? I'm in Brighton, and I think mine's about 55* as of last brew, about 2 weeks ago. Got down to 76* after 20 min.