Wort Chiller DIY

I had to run to lowes last evening because the kitchen sink was in need of repair... the drain started leaking while cleaning bottles.



I have been thinking of building a chiller for a bit now... I was trying to figure out if I should get 25' or 50' of 3/8 copper tubing. The 25 ft chunk was a buck less than the 50 ft.. so I made my decision quick. $30.57 for 50 feet of 3/8 copper.

So here is what I did.. I had a beer...



Here are the bits I collected at the box store... Is that hose going to be ok?



I used an old primer paint pail to wrap it around...



Cut a hole in the top of the bucket and used a tie wrap to secure....



Started wrapping and secured with more tie wraps...



Here is what I ended up with...



It should work, but it isn't that pretty...

I got 50 foot and didn't use it all. Tap water here in AZ during the summer is still quite warm. My plan is to make another chiller that I can drop into a 5 gallon bucket ice bath and hopefully cool the tap water, then circulate through the wort..

Here are a couple more pics.. easy and functional... just ugly.





in the brew pot...



meh nothing special compared to what some of you guys do but this is what I have to offer.

Hopefully this helps someone out.

Total was $52 and some change...

Gotta go fix the broken sink now, saw shiny copper and got distracted. lol

Scott

Looks good to me. Actually, looks better than the one I built last week!

Great Job Scott.


Paul

Looks good to me! I just built mine two weeks ago and you got a pretty good deal on the tubing. I spent closer to $45 for 50' of 3/8 refer tube

Espi said:

It should work, but it isn't that pretty...
Scott

Click to expand...

Oh contrar....pretty it is!!!!

Yep, looks good to me! I got a good deal at my LHBS on a 59' IM for $58 that hooks righjt up to my water spigot or sink, Ive havent seen any that cheap anywhere else but then again that little store near me cant be beat on prices ever. Its just too bad you almost always have to order a week in advance cause she doesnt carry much at all in stock.

that wort chiller looks 100 times better than mine. Mine looks like **** (molded it by hand at ace hardware) but it does the job.

thanks everyone... fixin to try it out tomorrow..

it took me close to an hour to chill 5 gallons to pitching temps with an ice bath so we will see how we end up this go around.

Very nice. You'll be looking at less than 20 mins now and no ice.

Just remember to stirr the chiller.

very cool!

Nice work on the chiller!

Instead of buying a prechiller I bought a small water pump from Harbor Freight and pump ice water into my chiller. Once the water coming out of the chiller cools down I recirculate until I obtain my desired temperature.

Great job and thanks for the pics. I'll be putting one together myself in the very near future.

I have about 15 foot left over or so.. I am going to use a bit of it for my mash tun cooler build and the rest will be made into an additional chiller that I will drop into an ice bath to chill my tap water a few degrees before sending it off to the wort...

Holy cow $31??? Mine was twice that expensive for the same tube
I cool 4 gallons to pitching temp in 5-6 minutes so you should expect something close to this.

Looks good to me. I don't have a wort chiller but have thought about making one. I mine turns out half as good I'd be happy. Looks don't matter anyway as long as it works!

brewed up an IPA this afternoon before the game... what took me well over an hour to chill in an ice bath took just at 30 mins with 68 degree tap water...

worked well... money well spent I would say.

well we will see I guess..... ill let you know next month.

mmmmmm beer!

IceFisherChris said:

Holy cow $31??? Mine was twice that expensive for the same tube
I cool 4 gallons to pitching temp in 5-6 minutes so you should expect something close to this.

Click to expand...

thats what I thought was odd... 25 feet was a dollar less.

5 years ago, I had one made (dumb and didn't know about this site). He charged me around a hundred. He went around a cornie and got twenty wraps that are really uniform. Then again that was probably the 50th one that he had made. You did a great job, and got a great deal.

At the LHBS I was talking to another customer, he said that his friend ran room temp, carbed beer out of a cornie through a copper tube that was 50 foot long and inside of an ice chest filled with ice and salt. I figured one of those would chill some hot wort as well. Inside of that tubing would need to be cleaned all the time though.

Nice job...looks way better than mine

MurderMittenBrewing said:

Nice work on the chiller!

Instead of buying a prechiller I bought a small water pump from Harbor Freight and pump ice water into my chiller. Once the water coming out of the chiller cools down I recirculate until I obtain my desired temperature.

Click to expand...

I just built a chiller myself, and opted to go the same route with the pump from Harbor Freight ($12 for a 196 GPH pump with 59" of lift). I used 20' of ½" OD copper tubing, and was concerned that it wasn't going to be enough -- but I was comforted by the fact that most of the commercially-made chillers, while using a greater length of tubing, use 3/8" OD, and mine would have more surface area. The whole shebang cost about $75.

Ran a test run on 4 gallons of water brought to a boil at 212˚F. With 20 pounds of ice and 2 gallons of water in an ice-chest, and the pump recirculating the water back into the ice-chest to keep the overall temperature considerably lower than plain ol' tap water, I cooled the water to 90˚F in just under 7 minutes, leaving no ice behind, and no need to lug the pot into an ice bath.

During a practical test on a batch of wort, I cooled 3½ gallons boiling at 208˚F down to 80˚F in just a hair over over 5 minutes using 30 pounds of ice in 3 gallons of water (larger ice chest this time), with some ice remaining.

It's a win/win as you get the benefit of much colder water, and less wasted water.

I figure most any wort chiller can be adapted to use a pump for the price of the pump itself, a few fittings and hose clamps, and a short length of ½" ID tubing. I expect anyone who is brewing beer has an ice chest or five laying around, so that's equipment you already have.

<facepalm>

Gah! Just noticed this was a double-post. Thought I lost it when I posted from work, got home and recreated the message... mostly. Lo and behold, the original message appears. I edited this one to spare everyone the feeling of deja vu.

Nothing to see here folks. Move along. Mods, please delete this post if you wish to spare me a brief moment of embarrassment.

The 20' of 1/2" OD copper is much harder to bend than the 3/8", and in turn makes for a "cleaner" looking wort chiller, if that makes a difference to you.

I'm a first timer...and a big DIY-er, so after brewing my first ever batch (belgian wit extract kit), and burning through all the ice my freezer makes, I decided a wort chiller was needed.

I also broke the wife's oven capable temp probe thermometer...so that's next on my list, albeit a little more difficult to DIY.

msehler said:

The 20' of 1/2" OD copper is much harder to bend than the 3/8", and in turn makes for a "cleaner" looking wort chiller, if that makes a difference to you.

Click to expand...

The only problems I had with the bends were in the dramatic angle changes required to bring the tubing up, then out of the pot. They ended up fairly clean, and with minimal to no crimping. Silly me, I discovered a $4 tubing bender at Harbor Freight the next day. I went ahead and bought it for the next one I build.

Getting the coil diameter was easy... the whole thing was already in a large coil already in the packaging, I just tightened it around a 12 quart stockpot. I also went the extra mile and soldered a short piece of tubing (using silver solder and lead free flux) across the coils to keep them spaced and from losing their shape or coil diameter. It's sturdy as a rock.

FWIW, I brew 10 gallon batches and the 50' chiller I built will get me down to pitching temps in about 20-30 minutes when recirculating ice water.







I'm thinking of using this one as a pre-chiller and building a 60' primary chiller.

Brewing this Sunday, 10 gallons of sweet stout, water temps are nice and cool here in AZ I'm thinking a 20 minute chill time with ice water. Tap water is around the mid to high 40°'s.

when you guys say you are using a pump with your chiller, are you pumping ice water through the chiller that is submerged in the wort or pumping wort through it while submerged in ice water? i'm sure its obvious but i am little to tired to make much sense of what i just read. maybe someone could post of a pic of one of these in action? i am curious because i have an inkling that i will be forced to build one of these within the next month or two.

LazyPBar said:

when you guys say you are using a pump with your chiller, are you pumping ice water through the chiller that is submerged in the wort or pumping wort through it while submerged in ice water?

Click to expand...

I'm pumping recirculated ice water through the chiller, which is submerged in the wort. The pump is in the bottom of the ice chest, which is filled with ice and enough water to just cover the pump. The pump and the return hose are on opposite sides of the ice chest from each other so that the warm water returning from the chiller must pass through the ice before being pumped out once more and back through. And, as a bonus I'm stirring the wort to cool it more efficiently, and occasionally reaching down into the ice chest and giving it a swirl-around as well. Sadly, I have no pictures of it in action just yet.

There are wort chillers that do circulate the wort through the chiller itself, which is submerged in ice. From the standpoint of DIY "make it easy", that type is more challenging to make and operate, and I can only see trying to keep it clean and sanitary as being a logistical pain-in-the-bifurcated-lower-back.

And, on a final note to Schnitzengiggle: "Oooooooooooooh... pretty!" *drools*

DmentD said:

I'm pumping recirculated ice water through the chiller, which is submerged in the wort. The pump is in the bottom of the ice chest, which is filled with ice and enough water to just cover the pump. The pump and the return hose are on opposite sides of the ice chest from each other so that the warm water returning from the chiller must pass through the ice before being pumped out once more and back through. And, as a bonus I'm stirring the wort to cool it more efficiently, and occasionally reaching down into the ice chest and giving it a swirl-around as well. Sadly, I have no pictures of it in action just yet.

There are wort chillers that do circulate the wort through the chiller itself, which is submerged in ice. From the standpoint of DIY "make it easy", that type is more challenging to make and operate, and I can only see trying to keep it clean and sanitary as being a logistical pain-in-the-bifurcated-lower-back.

And, on a final note to Schnitzengiggle: "Oooooooooooooh... pretty!" *drools*

Click to expand...

thanks that makes a lot more sense. so does the outside of the chiller need to be sanitized or is the wort still hot enough to sterilize it?

LazyPBar said:

thanks that makes a lot more sense. so does the outside of the chiller need to be sanitized or is the wort still hot enough to sterilize it?

Click to expand...

I clean the chiller with white vinegar and a rinse of clean water to remove any oxidation -- a spray bottle for the vinegar works fine, and I don't bother scrubbing... it always ends up looking like a new penny. As for sanitation, I've taken the advice that I've found here (likely somewhere in DeathBrewer's "Easy Partial Mash" thread... around page 851) and just drop the chiller in for the last 2 - 3 minutes of the boil and let the heat sanitize it.

Nice job on the chiller! I have the same issue with tap water in So Cal. Already having a 20' or so IC I decided to go pre-chiller route... here is the thread for what I made just this last week...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/cheap-easy-pre-chiller-161934/

Espi said:

Tap water here in AZ during the summer is still quite warm. My plan is to make another chiller that I can drop into a 5 gallon bucket ice bath and hopefully cool the tap water, then circulate through the wort..

Click to expand...

If you're considering doing that, then maybe just get a bucket with a drain (like a bottling bucket or a cooler) connect the drain to your input, put the output in another bucket, and pour water and ice in the top cooler. When the bottom bucket is full pour it back over the ice. It will save a little water (and ice) and give you better heat transfer from the ice.

actually billyon that might work quite well.. thanks for the idea.. I don't have water in the garage where I brew and that would save either dragging out the hose or moving around 5 gallons of hot stuff.

Edit cause I just thought of putting a hose splitter on the washer.. doh I have never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the shed.