Counterflow Wort Chiller Build (and use)

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I may have missed this, but has anyone found that a 20' - 25' counter flow chiller requires a pump to move the wort through? I saw a video on YouTube that warned 15' was about the longest you would want to go without a pump.
 
Mine is 20' and gravity feeds just fine. Most of the threads and instructions I've come across recommend a 25' length. I only went with 20' because that was the length of copper tubing I had available to me.

Brew-Jay said:
I may have missed this, but has anyone found that a 20' - 25' counter flow chiller requires a pump to move the wort through? I saw a video on YouTube that warned 15' was about the longest you would want to go without a pump.
 
I'm planning on making an all copper CFC. And I was able to get a 50' roll of both 3/8" and 3/4".
Would there be anything wrong with usin the 3/4" copper tube on the outside?
 
I'm planning on making an all copper CFC. And I was able to get a 50' roll of both 3/8" and 3/4".
Would there be anything wrong with usin the 3/4" copper tube on the outside?
Absolutely no problem at all.

With the tubing you bought, (50' coil of each) make two CFCs, 25' each in more than enough.
'just saying'.

If I can help and talk you through it, please holler at me.

P-J
 
I was looking for this thread to finally cut up my immersion chiller and make a counterflow, I'm surprised it is still kicking!

Living in Phoenix my tap water in the dead of winter is 80-85 degrees, summer temps are around 103 to 106 degrees, normally I use a pond pump to move a cooler full of ice water through my IC, I will be keeping this same process, just pushing the ice water through the CFC instead, maybe I can reduce the amount of ice I need, current setup requires 50 lbs of ice to chill a batch
 
I was looking for this thread to finally cut up my immersion chiller and make a counterflow, I'm surprised it is still kicking!

Living in Phoenix my tap water in the dead of winter is 80-85 degrees, summer temps are around 103 to 106 degrees, normally I use a pond pump to move a cooler full of ice water through my IC, I will be keeping this same process, just pushing the ice water through the CFC instead, maybe I can reduce the amount of ice I need, current setup requires 50 lbs of ice to chill a batch

Hope the CFC helps you cut down on your ice consumption! That's quite a bit! I imagine you'll be pretty happy with a CFC. Post back your results if you end up building one.

TB
 
Just built your CFC this past weekend out of my old IC. Works great! Tested it with some boiling water, and as you can see, worked like a charm. Thanks for the writeup!

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mccumath said:
Just built your CFC this past weekend out of my old IC. Works great! Tested it with some boiling water, and as you can see, worked like a charm. Thanks for the writeup!

Similar topic, but mccumath do you have a pic of your set up? Looks like something I have in my head to build very soon. Maybe even this weekend.
 
I have been thinking about making one of these for a few years now.

Right now I use a 50' two coil IC and whirlpool the BK. I have been getting down to tap water temps (which varies for time of year) in about 15 to 20 minutes. I collect about 20 gallons of hot/warm water for clean up and what not. Let it sit for another 10 minutes or so for stuff to settle to the bottom.

After my wort is cooled and settled I drain the BK through 1/2" lines to the fermenter and it's a pretty fast process.

If I can't shorten my cooling/filling fermenter process I don't see a reason to change, but every time I see a new thread pop up I am interested in making one.

Do you adjust the flow of the beer/tap water to adjust your final temp going into the fermenter? And, about how long does it normally take to fill the fermenter?

Great build by the way.
 
If I can't shorten my cooling/filling fermenter process I don't see a reason to change, but every time I see a new thread pop up I am interested in making one.

Do you adjust the flow of the beer/tap water to adjust your final temp going into the fermenter? And, about how long does it normally take to fill the fermenter?

This will vary depending on tap water temps, but I was able to open the kettle valve 100%, and adjusted water flow via a globe valve. It cooled the beer to pitching temps (even lager temps if I opened the water valve more) as fast as the beer could flow, which took about 10-15 minutes max to empty the kettle. I always did a short whirlpool after I killed the boil, set up my chiller while the whirlpool settled, then filled up the fermenter(s).

Great build by the way.

Thanks! :mug:
 
VipertheIV said:
Similar topic, but mccumath do you have a pic of your set up? Looks like something I have in my head to build very soon. Maybe even this weekend.

My stand or the chiller?
 
VipertheIV said:
Stand. Right now working with burner on the floor and mash tub on 3/4" plywood on two sawhorses

Will do once I get home from work this afternoon
 
Sorry for the thread jack here Tiber... Tried to send pictures through PM, but it does not give me the option.

Viper, here are a few pics of the stand. I actually plan on lowering the higher level down quite a bit, as I am looking into buying a pump in the near future and placing my mas tun on it. I never did use the high part for the mash tun, but for my laptop, tools, etc. These pics were before I installed a bit of 2"x2" flashing to protect the wood from any potential heat transfer (i.e. the uprights closest to the higher stand portion, and all of the underneath 2x4s surrounding the burners). Anyway, shoot me a PM if you have any questions about it.

Ryan M.

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Okay, my wife just "surprised" me by buying everything I need to make this thing. Only problem, she says the total came to $130! I haven't seen all the parts yet, or the receipt, but what should I be looking at for a gross overcharge?
 
Okay, my wife just "surprised" me by buying everything I need to make this thing. Only problem, she says the total came to $130! I haven't seen all the parts yet, or the receipt, but what should I be looking at for a gross overcharge?

Yikes. I would look at what she paid for the copper, and how much she picked up. Perhaps she was only able to get a longer roll than you needed? Also, I priced my build out after selling part of the materials to my friend who build one out of the same hose and tubing purchase. You could possibly build more than one with the materials she bought and sell the extra chiller to another homebrewer (possibly here on HBT?), recuperating some of your cost.
 
Tiber_Brew said:
Yikes. I would look at what she paid for the copper, and how much she picked up. Perhaps she was only able to get a longer roll than you needed? Also, I priced my build out after selling part of the materials to my friend who build one out of the same hose and tubing purchase. You could possibly build more than one with the materials she bought and sell the extra chiller to another homebrewer (possibly here on HBT?), recuperating some of your cost.

Minus the copper and a couple fittings, mine was around 55-60 bucks to build (i.e. rubber hose, fittings, 1/2" copper pipe, rubber stopper, lead free solder, etc). Hacked up my immersion chiller to build it.
 
turns out the guy helping her at the store screwed up ID and OD so we had way more copper by weight, plus the fact that all the fittings were going to go inside the pipes :(
anyway all corrected and it's about $90 raw cost including the 'thermowell', and I'll have some left-over 1/2" pipe and some garden hose
 
I was given some copper tubing and it says on the box it's 3/8" OD but it's refrigeration tubing so it's actually 1/4" plumbing tubing. Would that be too small to use as the inside tube of a CFC?
 
Cajun_Tiger33 said:
I was given some copper tubing and it says on the box it's 3/8" OD but it's refrigeration tubing so it's actually 1/4" plumbing tubing. Would that be too small to use as the inside tube of a CFC?

Same. Slower if using gravity, but works great.
 
Thanks guys. I just built my counterflow wort chiller last night and it looks great. Can't wait to use it. Felt a bit embarrassed asking for KY jelly, but it was super easy getting the copper into the hose using it. Any advice on how much head difference to drive flow through the 25' of 3/8" copper tubing?

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Thanks guys. I just built my counterflow wort chiller last night and it looks great. Can't wait to use it. Felt a bit embarrassed asking for KY jelly, but it was super easy getting the copper into the hose using it. Any advice on how much head difference to drive flow through the 25' of 3/8" copper tubing?

It will chill your wort just fine. Just don't expect to be able to whirlpool back to your kettle using a March 809-HS. The flow won't be that great coming out of the chiller.
 
Well i tried it out this weekend - and it worked but was really really slow. I think i'm going to have to build a stand to get it to be at just the right level, and get some different tubing. The good news was that it was extremely efficient, wort output temp was below 60!
 
pksublime said:
Well i tried it out this weekend - and it worked but was really really slow. I think i'm going to have to build a stand to get it to be at just the right level, and get some different tubing. The good news was that it was extremely efficient, wort output temp was below 60!

More time to drink beer?
 
You spent the money to buy the material for the chiller now spend a little more and buy a march pump. Huge improvement for me. In 5 mins I have five gallons of cooled wort. I also use a sump pump to pump ice water through the chiller.
 
More time to drink beer?

true, but what about the added time for late hop additions and the chances of infection?

You spent the money to buy the material for the chiller now spend a little more and buy a march pump. Huge improvement for me. In 5 mins I have five gallons of cooled wort. I also use a sump pump to pump ice water through the chiller.

it's not exactly a little more....
 
pksublime said:
true, but what about the added time for late hop additions and the chances of infection?

Mine was also pretty slow. As you mentioned, you can increase the height of your BK to fermentation vessel, increasing speed. Slow is not necessarily a bad thing because you have more time for the liquids to exchange heat. I am not well versed in physics, but your system is pretty efficient at <60 degrees output temp. Seems to me if you increase the diameter of the copper pipe, you increase flow of wort, but decrease the flow of cold water in the opposite direction. This combined with increased speed would seem to me to decrease cooling efficiency. There may be more surface area where heat exchange can take place, but I wonder if the difference would offset the aforementioned issues.

Not sure what you decide to do, but post more results, let us know what you decide to do.
 
I had a height differential (&#916;h) of about three feet when I used my gravity flow chiller (pictured in original post). That seemed to work very well given the flow rate, and coefficient of heat transfer. My suggestion would be to increase the vertical distance (&#916;h) between the kettle and the chiller to about the same to increase wort flow rate, and adjust your cold water flow rate accordingly via a globe valve.

The coefficient of heat transfer is not dependent on wort flow rate alone; surface area between the two fluids, temperature difference (&#916;T), and conduction coefficient of the material separating the two fluids will affect it as well.
 
Agreed, I first want to get the flow rate up, then I'll check where the output temp is. If that's still too low for my liking, I'll restrict the coolant throughput.

Has anyone thought about using the coolant pressure (60-80 psi at full blast) to power a impeller pump? This way there'd be no electrics to worry about...

Or what about one of these sous vide pumps (high temp & food grade :) ) 12V or 6V
 
I'm sorry if this question has been asked before but, I have been using a immersion chiller for many years and I live in the north east so in the winter my wort can go from boiling to 70 in about 10-15 minutes in the summer it can be as much as 30-40 minutes (Way to long !!!). Will this counterflow chill faster ? about how long on average to pitching temps ? Thanks !
 
Think of the immersion chiller as a bulk chiller. Now think of the counterflow chiller a super efficient chiller for a smaller portion of wort traveling through it. In my neck of the woods, in February, I'm able to pretty much go from boil to primary with the 25' CFC that I use. The volume of chilling water and temp difference vs hot wort is so great that I don't have to recirculate the wort. In fact, I usually open up the pump out valve to speed up the wort transfer or slow down the cold water through the CFC so the wort doesn't get too cold.
 
Think of the immersion chiller as a bulk chiller. Now think of the counterflow chiller a super efficient chiller for a smaller portion of wort traveling through it. In my neck of the woods, in February, I'm able to pretty much go from boil to primary with the 25' CFC that I use. The volume of chilling water and temp difference vs hot wort is so great that I don't have to recirculate the wort. In fact, I usually open up the pump out valve to speed up the wort transfer or slow down the cold water through the CFC so the wort doesn't get too cold.

Pretty much sums it up. If your CFC is efficient enough to get within 1-3 degrees of your desired temp at max wort flow, you're only limited by how long it takes to siphon or pump your wort through the chiller. My current setup is pump operated, and it takes about 10-15 minutes to empty 11 gallons from my BK into my fermenters at desired temp. I've yet to see an IC compete with that efficiency. However, with an IC, you lower the temperature of your entire mass quicker, which some argue is important to reduce DMS. So, I won't say one method is necessarily better than the other, but you can tell which method I favor by what I use.
 
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