Wort Chiller Question

plumber8302 said:

Hey everyone! First, thanks for all the responses to all my questions up to this point! I am brewing my first batch tomorrow and have one more question. (At least for now!)

I am working right now on making my immersion wort chiller. I have a 50' piece of 3/8" copper and I formed it to make sure it fits inside my 5 gallon brew pot. My question is, How long does it really need to be? I coiled the entire 50' and it seems to hang out of the pot quite a bit. Can I cut it down and it still be effective? I dont want to risk having my wort touch the copper that is not being sanitized in the boiling brew pot.

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Johnny_Five said:

If you already have way too much copper, I think by removing excess you actually would increase your efficiency, if barely. Well the real reason I'm posting is that if you do have a lot of extra, then make a second chiller with it! Run that inline into a tub of ice water before it runs through more hose into your brew kettle. This may be overkill right now, but on a hot summer day, this might knock down your water usage and wait time in a very big way. The water getting to the final chiller will be so much colder.

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That's a fine idea. Use that excess 20' of copper to make a pre-chiller.

As far as sanitizing the chiller, I dare say that immersed 15 minutes in a pot of boiling wort will do the job quite nicely.

Swirling while cooling makes a big difference. I swirl opposite the flow of the chiller with a sanitized (in Star-San) plastic spoon every minute or two. I have a Brewmometer on the kettle, so I can see the temp drops that occur with each swirl.

I took a different approach on the chiller tubing and used 22' of 1/2" ID copper tubing with 90* and 45* slip joints attached to copper hard pipe for the straight bits and garden hose connections. That size tubing is a little harder to shape. Instead of trying to wrap it around a keg, I shaped by working it down alongside the walls of a 5-gallon plastic bucket. That worked well.

My mechanical engineer son advised me that, in an open thermal transfer system, flow rate is an important factor. Well, this one flows quite a lot more hose water than the 3/8" chillers that use vinyl tubing.

BigFloyd said:

That's a fine idea. Use that excess 20' of copper to make a pre-chiller.

As far as sanitizing the chiller, I dare say that immersed 15 minutes in a pot of boiling wort will do the job quite nicely.

Swirling while cooling makes a big difference. I swirl opposite the flow of the chiller with a sanitized (in Star-San) plastic spoon every minute or two. I have a Brewmometer on the kettle, so I can see the temp drops that occur with each swirl.

I took a different approach on the chiller tubing and used 22' of 1/2" ID copper tubing with 90* and 45* slip joints attached to copper hard pipe for the straight bits and garden hose connections. That size tubing is a little harder to shape. Instead of trying to wrap it around a keg, I shaped by working it down alongside the walls of a 5-gallon plastic bucket. That worked well.

My mechanical engineer son advised me that, in an open thermal transfer system, flow rate is an important factor. Well, this one flows quite a lot more hose water than the 3/8" chillers that use vinyl tubing.

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plumber8302 said:

BigFloyd
Did you shape it on the inside or outside of the bucket? Also, did you have to do anything special to the solder joints to make them able to go in the wort?

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plumber8302 said:

My 3/8" chiller I made worked well, but I think I want to make one like yours.

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BigFloyd said:

I slowly worked the tubing down around the inside of the 5-gallon plastic bucket.

You must use lead-free solder and flux just as you would for the water you drink out of your household plumbing.

I appreciate the compliment. I've been quite happy with mine. I found out through using a friend's chiller before I made mine that the type which use vinyl tubing can develop a kink in the vinyl where the tubing joins the outlet tube, resulting in reduced flow. That's why I decided on garden hose connections.

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FloridaSon said:

looking good. I made mine from 25 ft 3/8 copper to vinyl hose.

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plumber8302 said:

BigFloyd
That makes sense! Thanks for the picture and response! I was hoping you meant inside the bucket, because I tried to form my 3/8" chiller on the outside of a 5 gallon bucket and it didn't fit in my brew pot and I formed it by hand. It is probably the ugliest chiller known to man, but it did the job on my first brew.

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BigFloyd said:

I slowly worked the tubing down around the inside of the 5-gallon plastic bucket.

You must use lead-free solder and flux just as you would for the water you drink out of your household plumbing.

I appreciate the compliment. I've been quite happy with mine. I found out through using a friend's chiller before I made mine that the type which use vinyl tubing can develop a kink in the vinyl where the tubing joins the outlet tube, resulting in reduced flow. That's why I decided on garden hose connections.

Click to expand...