Ultimate Immersion Chiller

chiller on Flickr - Photo Sharing!


I built this chiller today and did a test run. I was amazed at how hot the water coming out is. The heat exchange is incredible. When actually using it, I will fill the cooler with ice and water to help get the temp on down to pitching. But even without that, It cooled the test water down to about 85 in 10 minutes. I could almost see the thermometer moving down. I think I might brew tonight just to test it out. I can't wait to see the cold break it makes.

You should think about putting some kind of disconnect on between those two coils. It would be tough to move and store it as is.

100 ft of coil?

That is a good idea about the disconnect. I didn't think of it but it would be easy to do. It is a monster to move around.

Yes, its 100 ft, and darn near to 100 bucks.


Mashing right now, so I'll be testing it for real in another hour or two.

Nice, looks like a beast!

Are you pre-chilling the water before it gets to the wort? I am going to be doing something similar with my CFC.

dutch101st said:

Are you pre-chilling the water before it gets to the wort? I am going to be doing something similar with my CFC.

Click to expand...

Yes, The first coil is submerged in ice water then it goes into the wort. I think this helps get that last ten or so degrees lower on the wort. My tap water is 75 degrees now, I'm not sure what it is after the first coil but it has to be considerably lower. The line between the ice bath and the wort is really cold.

I used it last night and it worked very well. About ten minutes to get to 85 degrees then a bit slower to get down to 68. Without the ice bath I would be able to get it much below the 85 degree mark with the immersion chiller I don't think. Now, during the winter with colder tap water I think it would work fine without the first coil in ice water.

You can also supercharge the prechiller if you use finer blocks of ice and add a little rocksalt/icemelt. In the same way that chilling is a lot faster when you stir the wort, the prechiller is more effective when you aggitate the icewater.

Are those plastic zip ties you're using for stability?

In the pre-chiller that would be good, but in the wort I think I would go for 12/14 ga Copper wire.

Hmmm. We built a new wort chiller recently and had debated using the spare to pre-chill. Will definitely give it a try now.

Reedwalker said:

Are those plastic zip ties you're using for stability?

In the pre-chiller that would be good, but in the wort I think I would go for 12/14 ga Copper wire.

Click to expand...

Yeah... I had the same thought, working on that.