cheaper to buy immersion chiller than to build?

I looked at home Depot yesterday and they wanted 58 dollars for 20 feet of 1/4 inch flexible copper pipe. It looks like it's cheaper to buy an immersion chiller than make one from scratch????

Yup.

Unless you can do what I did; HD couldn't tell me how much the 25' lengths of quarter-inch tubing were, so they sold me them at the 10' price ($15). 50' of 1/4 tubing for $30, which I used to make a very effective dual-coil chiller. Otherwise, though, SOOL, copper is MAD expensive.

Someone suggested Ace Hardware as being a possible source; maybe take a look at the small hardware stores, low turnover places that maybe haven't increased prices yet.

Right now it could be cheaper to buy, just because some companies (unlike the oil boys) do not jack the prices on everything in stock each time prices change. In accounting we call that FIFO, first in, first out. People use it, because it can be cheaper just to let the prices ride through rather than constantly re-price items. I paid $1.65 a foot for 1/4" three weeks ago.

I've lucked out. Found about 30' of 1/2 in copper tubing from back when I did my upstairs bathroom. Just have to clean it up and add the connections. Of course I need a bigger pot to make it worth while

Look for stainless steel. I found that 3/8 inch stainless here is half the price of 3/8 copper. works the same or better uses the same compression fittings. But you will have to use a spring type tubing bender. and now i get no corrosion. I use it for a prechiller and a CF chiller.

msiler said:

Look for stainless steel. I found that 3/8 inch stainless here is half the price of 3/8 copper. works the same or better uses the same compression fittings. But you will have to use a spring type tubing bender. and now i get no corrosion. I use it for a prechiller and a CF chiller.

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Where are you that SS is cheaper than copper? It maybe time for a road trip.

Abilene TX

I think it may be just about anywhere. But it is not so easy to find place that stock it. 3/8 coper here for 20 feet you are looking at $60 plus at HD. For stainless I was quoted $1.40 per foot at a local plumbing store. It may have reflected a discount since I was in uniform at the time.

I'm in Vatoville (san antonio) and it's not that cheap. I'll be going thru Abilene soon whats the name of the supply store?

Apparently I need to make a trip to Texas!!! I can't find stainless stock, pipe, tubing, or anything else anywhere in town, and it's ridiculously priced online!

Yes you are correct. I lucked out and convinced the SWMBO to let me buy one before the makers caught on to the fact that the price of copper increased. Bought mine from Austins when shipping was free after $60 no less

msiler said:

Look for stainless steel. I found that 3/8 inch stainless here is half the price of 3/8 copper. works the same or better uses the same compression fittings. But you will have to use a spring type tubing bender. and now i get no corrosion. I use it for a prechiller and a CF chiller.

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Stainless steel tubing will not conduct heat as efficiently as copper tubing. Copper has roughly 30 times the thermal conductivity of stainless steel. Although all metals are good thermal conductors, SS is the lowest of the common metals. Aluminum is a better thermal conductor than SS. Copper is much better than either of the other two.

Silver tubing would be even better than copper at transferring heat. It is a better thermal conductor than copper. Both stainless steel and copper are corrosion resistant, however, and silver is not. Plus, if you think copper is expensive, imagine what silver tubing would cost!

Yeah, I'm ending up doing the buying route as well. NB has theirs for $45 (current price online, the paper catalog still has them at $39 which is a bummer) I'm taking Ed Wort's advice and making my "Get-Toe" chiller a pre-chiller. My next door neighbor has some compression fittings he's selling me which will work perfect on the old one. Of course he is a hydro racer so he has a little bit of everything. Wait til next summer when I ask him to help me build a brewstand.


Ize

I ended up buying from LHBS b/c it was about $20 cheaper than I could make one. Bummed me out, because I'd always rather have a project - but the completed piece with fittings soldered & everything was cheaper than I could get raw materials.

Good news is that copper can't stay this high forever. And when it comes down, I'm building a CFC.

Teedocious said:

Good news is that copper can't stay this high forever. And when it comes down, I'm building a CFC.

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I guess the price has come down a little already. Do you think it will drop even more soon?

I haven't really seen it come down too much in the futures market. It's been in a fairly tight range since the beginning of the summer, and has very much been flatlining for a few months, but I haven't seen any indications that prices are starting to move downward. It, along with a lot of the other base metals, have held up a bit better than the commodities that people follow more (crude oil, gold, silver).

So, if I were to find an immersion chiller (25' of 3/8" copper) for less than $30, I should pick it up, right?

For that price, buy two!

trinitone said:

So, if I were to find an immersion chiller (25' of 3/8" copper) for less than $30, I should pick it up, right?

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Is this a local deal or can you share?

After I make sure they have one left for me I'll be happy to send a link.

trinitone said:

After I make sure they have one left for me I'll be happy to send a link.

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My breath is bated!

Well... sorry to be a tease. I was, of course, looking at old pricing. Price is now 39.95. If you're still interested, they can be had from www.beernut.com.

Still, not too bad of a deal.

That website is possibly the worst one I've ever seen though. the search didn't work and the catalog layout is awful. Nothing personal!

Did you think so?

This is a quote from that site's forum, in response to someone posting wondering where their order was:

For what it's worth, I was at the storefront about two weeks ago and the guy helping me laughed when I mentioned this website. He said "that thing is so out of date, don't even bother"....I'm not sure how often anyone looks at this, or comes on here expecting to have received an order....
I certainly don't know for sure...just thought I'd add my thought.

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Heh, that’s my LHBS. The only reason I look at the website is to get an idea of what they may have in the store.

As a graphic designer by day (with quite a bit of web development experience) that site is up there with the bad ones. At least the shopping cart system seemed to work... at least somewhat. From what I could tell, it hasn't been updated since at least March. (That's when they were having a drawing from their online surveys for a $50 gift certificate.)

I don't know which is worse sometimes, a less than pretty web presence, or no web presence at all. Outdated is the worst though. Nothing I hate like the tease of finding a good price, or that discontinued item in stock only to find it ain't really true.

Compared to the other Salt Lake LHBS website, the beer nut’s is fabulous. If you really want your head to explode, try to navigate your way around this webpage:

http://www.users.qwest.net/~artsbrew/index.htm

As far as the actual store goes, I don’t know. I tried to find it once, and lets just say, all the buildings on that street looked like they should be condemned. I didn’t even stop my car to figure out which was the right one.

trinitone said:

So, if I were to find an immersion chiller (25' of 3/8" copper) for less than $30, I should pick it up, right?

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Ahh.... yeah..... but several and sell it to your friends here.

wow, that site is so 1997! actually, both of them are.

feedthebear said:

http://www.users.qwest.net/~artsbrew/index.htm

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wow, that one actually hurt my eyes.

God Emporer BillyBrew said:

wow, that one actually hurt my eyes.

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Not as bad as the Green Board, but dont these folks think pictures would be nice..... aparently not....

Pictures! We can't have no stinkin' pictures! What of our customers who haven't yet upgraded to them fancy new 28.8 modems?

My LHBS's site isn't much prettier. Never ordered online from them, don't know that I would.

http://www.beerbrew.com/

Played hooky from work yesterday and went by our brand new Atwoods. It's like a farming store but they have everything. Anyway, as I was walking the isles, I saw a 20 foot roll of 3/8 ID copper tubing for 19.95. Did I jump on that, HELL YES! Also found 10 feet of 3/8 clear plastic hose for 2.28. Jumped on that as well. I just now have to rig up some way of hooking that 3/8 hose to my kitchen tap. One thing that did concern me was the plastic hose has a heat rating of 175F. Is that too low for chilling wort? I figure I could adjust the flow so that the water coming out is not steaming hot. OR bend the copper in a way so that the exit line dumps directly into the sink. But now this problem, just how in the hell do you bend a copper line so that you have no kinks? I started messing with it yesterday and got the majority of it in the brew pot, but the in and out lines, I couldn't bend them 90 degrees with kinking up the lines. Any ideas???

Somebody stop me if this is total BS, but my understanding is that if you fill the pipe with sand, you can bend it and it won't kink.

Got to be a better method that than, plus, I got no sand.

There is a device made specifically for bending tubing without kinking. It's a relatively snug fitting spring coil that you slide over the tubing in the location where you want to bend. Then you bend the tube and slide the spring off. An auto parts store would have them because they're used to custom-bend brake and fuel lines. Of course, you'll need a big one for the 1/2 OD stuff.

In a pinch, try carefully bending it over a radius like a soup can rather than making a super-tight 90.

BTW, your output water will be very hot to the touch, but it won't be too much over 180. Even if it is, it will only be so for a short time so your vinyl tubing will be fine. You did pick up some hose clamps right? It gets mighty soft and will definitely leak or fall off without the clamps.

Bobby

Yeah, I got HOSE CLAMPS out the yeng yang. I bent it the best I could so I now need advice as to how to hook it up and what would YOU do? One piece, the top part, sticks out past the brewing pot, the other, goes straight up along the pot but I couldn't get it to bend over the pot. So, which line would you use for the in and which for the out? I plan on using two hose clamps on the line that comes up above the wort but doesn't get over the pot, that is the line that starts at the bottom. I know the most important thing is that no water can drip back into the wort, hence the need for two clamps, as an insurance measure. I kind of think to have the cold in start at the bottom and work its way up to the top. Or should I do it the other way around?

Ol' Grog said:

Got to be a better method that than, plus, I got no sand.

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I bent my 1/2" around my argon bottle, nice and hard and pretty much the perfect size. It is still pretty hard to bend, I had a nice sweat going.

the hardware store shoud have a sink to garden hose adapter you can use, then get a garden hose fitting for your tubing.

I do web design as a side source of income and a creative outlet. I may need to parlay my abilities into getting free equipment...er uh, making some HBS sites more appealing.

My LHBS also has a site that could use some work. I have seen then filling the online orders, though, and they are pretty good guys. http://www.home-brew.com

Hey 'Bird-you use the one in west boylston? That is near my in-laws (Sterling)..I just give them a list at Christmas time.

Nah, that's the other end of the state for me. I go out to Rensselaer, NY, it's a little more than an hour west of me. There's another place in Northampton that I've been to once (http://www.beer-winemaking.com/), I just like the place in NY a little better. Just a nice little shop, the guys who work there are real friendly (I forgot to have them ring up a bung plug for me, they told me to just take it on the house). I also know that they have pretty much everything I could need.