Step By Step Solderless Immersion Chiller

Hello all,

Here are step by step instructions of how to make an immersion chiller w/o a need to solder anything. This will enable anyone to make an immersion chiller.

FIRST AND FOREMOST WHAT TYPE OF FITTINGS DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR IN AND OUT TUBES? What IS best for you shutoff valves, hose barbs, or regular garden hose fittings? SECONDLY FIND THE DIAMETER OF YOUR BREW POT AND THE OBJECT YOU WILL USE TO BEND THE COPPER FILL WITH WATER AND FREEZE. Step 2 will have more information on what common household objects can be used.

You want space between the chiller and the walls of your brew pot. In other words don't leave it touching the sides. You want the hot wort to come in contact completely with all sides of the chiller.


My brew pot a stainless turkey fryer

The object I used to make the bends. This isn't common and even farther from household it's a train piston. What most of you can use and will have is explained below with pictures. This just happened to work for me and I had it laying around.

Step 1

As is any DIY project whether it pertain to beer or not, go to your fridge and get a beer.

Step 2

Get your supplies together. You will need 2 crescent wrenches 12 inch is fine, a rubber mallet, a pipe wrench, swagelok stainless compression fittings (or comparable Parker is cheaper and more widely available (They can be found on amazon even please see below link)
http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=383614011

I'll explain in detail how these work later as we piece this together. It will be on the very bottom of the page. Mainly because if you weren't intrigued enough to take them apart, then you won't need to know how they go back together. Or if you're intrigued on how they work without losing the ferrels, the picture is at the bottom with an explanation

Now you don't have to go as insane as I did using multiple ball valves and excessive quantities of swagelok fittings. I'll explain as we go along. Now take a swig of beer as we're about to find something in your house to bend the copper around.

The two most common household items, will be a jug of windshield washing fluid, or a can of folgers coffee (if you have an old school metal one). I used a train piston. It's a good idea to put water in the object your using to bend the copper and freeze it.

Obviously, you'll need copper tubing

Pics of Supplies


Miscellaneous stuff I don't need to take a pic of a crescent wrench if you brew beer you know what one is especially if you keg!

Jug of windshield washing fluid for bending copper

Stainless Swagelok fittings these come in 90s Ts and any other connection you can dream of.

Obviously your copper tubing
Step 3

Let's get bending.

The first few rounds are always the hardest as you cant really latch on to anything you're holding it with one hand wrapping and bending with another. Help is best here or do what I did and find a way to clamp it. Maybe a piece of wire tied to the handle of your windshield washing fluid jug.



Obviously, it's not perfect here's where a little LIGHT tapping comes into play. This is bendable copper please don't beat the crap out of it.



This is continued on the next post

Step 4

Now you're at the point where you need to straighten out the top and bottom.

Straighten out a piece in the bottom long enough to bend at a 90 (you can use a swagelok fitting if youd like) or you can simply bend it which is honestly what I did. Filling the tubing with salt will help you bend it if you think it's neccesary. I found it not to be however. This first bend needs to be on the INSIDE of the chiller NOT the outside and needs to be long enough to reach the second from the top rung. Why the second? Because later you straighten out the top rung for your inlet this makes your now second rung your later top rung. This will allow you to rest the entire chiller on top of your brewing pot and allow it to suspend as this is bendable copper. THIS IS CRUCIAL!!! It allows the entirety of your brew pot to have chiller contact rather than the top having nearly none and the bottom having more.


Here is the bottom bend notice again it's on the inside of the coil

You now must make the upper 90 again you can use a swagelok if you'd like or again bend it by hand. I used a swagelok 90 as it makes it easier to rest the chiller on the top of your brew pot.


You see how the copper rests on top of the brew pot? That is how it suspends to the bottom. You also see my high tech zip tie to keep it from popping off the swagelok support.

Now is time you use what YOU PLANNED as stated above. What was best for you shutoff valves, hose barbs, or regular garden hose fittings? You now have your out tube complete with fittings.

Now let's make your in tube. Straighten out a run from your top rung and run it underneath the new top rung halfway across the other valve. Again, THIS IS CRUCIAL!!! It allows the chiller to suspend the entirety of the brew pot. Also with it being halfway around the circle it allows the maximum support without building anything else extra. Next run all your valves and fittings that YOU PLANNED as stated above.




Congratulations you have an immersion chiller that's going to work easily under 30 minutes if you keep water outside your brew pot in the sink turn on the water and stir.

As promised, here is how swagelok fittings work


That bevel is key to how all this works two bevels compressed together with an expandable ferrel that locks it all in place.




Want hardcore? Here is a very good write up about them

http://www.swagelok.com/downloads/webcatalogs/en/article-InSearchoftheIdealFitting.pdf

Here are some miscellaneous pics of it to help you get an idea of my build.







Your father who happens to work somewhere that provided all these awesome parts and the man that drinks your beer with you and gave you your brewery kit cause you bought it from him and he regifted it.

"Thanks, Dad!"

But - aside from the goal of building the most expensive IC ever - why would you put a valve on an IC?

My unadorned IC:


Cheers!

Honestly the only reason I did it was to pressure check everything and because Dad got them and I didn't want to make him feel bad about them sitting there. This isn't going to be the end as they have a huge lathe at his work and a crazy amount of stainless steel at their disposal so......Take your stainless steel in hand tac weld one end run the lathe on low low low speed and slowly turn the bad boy. You get an EXTREMELY tight coil. I just keep thinking though why do it this thing works fine. Why even bother is kind of my thought. He's even talking about getting me a 25 gallone tank and creating a propylene glycol system. I don't know that getting my wort down to lager temps in 2 minutes will help that much. That and one drop of prop glycol and that batch is screwed. You might as well add antifreeze to your batch.

Thankfully though, they have all sorts of electronics and other things that have made life easier for brewing.

If you buy the copper and just the parker fittings or whitey I think does them too for a little cheaper than parker it's a pretty economical build.

However, the Swagelok fittings, flowtek ball valves, yeah this is easily the most expensive IC ever. Maybe we should post a thread for that!