DIY wort chiller questions.

I was recently gifted a new brew kit and I asked around how to chill the wort quickly and I eventually came up with a system of running my wort through copper coils in ice water. The first time I used it it chilled the wort to room temperature as fast as I could pour it into the piping.

My question is this: has anyone here had success or failures with this type of system? It seems like almost everyone on here uses an immersion chiller, so am I at risk for contaminating my beer?

I run a b brite solution through it right after I pour the wort through and then boiling water after that. Before I use it again, I pour boiling water through it again then add the ice water and immediately procede to the wort chilling process. This system literally cost me less than $20 and I was so incredibly impressed with it's performance that I'm surprised nobody has much info on it. Any info would be great!

Do you have a pic of the chiller? You pretty much already have a counter-wort chiller.
If I were you I'd just use that chiller and create an immersion chiller, or counter-wort chiller.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Wort_chiller

I can't post a pic at this time, but I'll get one up soon. It's basically a funnel attached to the copper coil and the copper coil is set inside a regular cheap bucket you find at home depot. I drilled a hole in the bottom of the bucket, pulled the copper out the hole and bent it so it drains strait down. I put some caulk around the hole so the ice water won't drain out. I only used it once, but it was thoroughly sanitized before I used it, and it worked magnificently. I immediately poured water through it after it was used, then used boiling water to clean it again.

My main question is if anyone has ever used this kind of system? What is the best way to sanitize it? I would think boiling water through it would be plenty fine to sanitize it. I can scrap it if there's horror stories but I really like how it worked.

The only thing I could say about the system is when you pour the cold wort into the funnel you have a bigger chance at contamination. Now if you added a valve with a pick up tube to your kettle you'd have a pretty sweet setup.
Now for sanitation, I use PBW and recirculate for 20 minutes. Boiling water will work ok if it goes through the pipe for at least 15 minutes. Or, I have heard of oxi-clean working pretty well. After you're done with the boiling water, sanitize using Star San. Copper can get contaminated between uses, but it sounds like you have very good sanitation practices. So, honestly, if the system is working for you, go for it. my 2 cents

I actually pour the boiling hot wort into the funnel, so the top end of the system is always going to be at boiling temps. The part of the system that I could ever really be worried about is the copper piping inside of the ice water bath. I think I'll use some oxy clean or PBW to soak in from now on and then sanitize before use. I'd love to give anyone the specs on how I made it because it was super cheap, real easy and it literally cools your wort from boiling temps to room temperature in a matter of seconds. It took maybe 3 minutes to run a full two and a half gallons through the system and I had the fermenter closed and going within 15 minutes of sanitizing.

What you have is the inside part of a counter flow chiller and yes many of us flow or pump our wort through coils or plate chillers to cool it. A counter flow chiller uses a lager diameter hose or pipe jacket in the place of your bucket of ice water. Tap or chilled water flows through the large diameter pipe while hot wort flows thoug the smaller one. Plate chillers work in a similar fashion.

Pouring boiling water through your coil before use is a fine way to sanitize it. The only concern I would have is that you may melt all your ice before you finish cooling an entire batch. How many gallons did you put though your chiller on your test run?

The first time I used it I had about 2-3 gallons of boiling wort that was poured through. I had to pour it relatively slowly, I couldn't go super fast but I got through the whole batch in about 3 minutes. I have an Ice maker in my freezer, so I just filled the whole bucket to the top of the coil with ice, then filled that with cold water. I still had plenty of ice in the chiller when I was done and the wort was room temp when it got to the fermenter. I pitched the yeast not two minutes after the wort was fully poured into the fermenter. I'm sure I could have gotten a full 5 gallons of boiling hot wort through the system with ice still in the bucket.

I would be concerned with cleaning. Wort is full of debris, that can easily stick to the insides of the copper. This is why most people use a reverse system. Keeping the wort on the outside means you can seen if it is clean and greatly reduce chances for infection. Boiling water may not sanitize if you have chunks of trub in the piping.

That's precisely what I'm concerned about. It's also what a couple of brewers have confessed to me, but they've never used a system like this. I am very interested in anyone's actual experience with a system like this because I have yet to hear anyone that has actually used it.

I'd like to see your build. There's something that doesn't seem quite right. I usually use tap water though a 30 plate chiller to bring 6 or so gallons to below 100F in about 15 mins. I then switch to ice water to get down to around 60F in about another 20. That's about as efficinet as I've seen on a homebrew scale using everything the comunity has to bear on the problem. Multiple pumps, plate chiller, etc.

I'm not saying you're not getting the results you are (I hope you are) but there's another variable at play here. How much ice are you using? What's the ambient temp? How long is your coil? Anything else that could be helping you cooling?

I'd say I'm using roughly 3 gallons (volume, not actual liquid) of ice inside the bucket housing the copper coil. The coil is 10' of copper I believe (can't remember, but it was $13 at home depot). The pipe is 1/2". If you pour the wort (at almost boiling temps) at a steady slow pace, giving just a couple seconds of cooling time every once in a while, the wort comes out at maybe 75-80 deg. I noticed if I poured too fast that it came out really hot, but if you give it a little time then the wort chilled just fine. Honestly, with everything I was reading, I cannot believe that it chilled that fast. I'm wondering if I just stumbled on something great or if it's too good to be true.

Here's the system

I got it now, you're throttling the flow rate to maximize cooling time in the coil. It's actually not something new and works well on a small scale. You're cooling at rates similar to counter flow for the volumes you're working with. You'll find as you double the wort volume and start looking for final temps in the 60's that you'll need to add more ice and more time. That's why we use counter-flow and plate chillers.

As far as your other concern goes, as long as you stay on top of things, cleaning is not an issue. Just flush well after each use and sanitize with chemicals or boiling water just before each use. A pump would help with cleaning but then you might as well build a counter-flow chiller.

If you're kegging, you can actually turn the same setup into a jockey box by flowing beer from a keg through your coil and out of a tap.

Curious if throwing a medium size pond pump in the bucket would improve performance. Something big enough to move the water in the bucket around so you always have cold water touching the coil.

I use an immersion chiller but I've pondered alternatives to a counterflow in case I ever throw heating elements in my kettle. This is an interesting design.

We just use our hand to move the ice water around inside the bucket. It only takes a quick stir to get the ice back on the copper. You can see the ice melting as you pour through but it really is a great way to cool your wort fast. I think a longer copper coil with a bigger bucket would do even better for larger batches. I hope my design would actually do well for others!!

And in all honesty, this is so incredibly cheap that it's almost worth trying once. I bought the copper for $13, the bucket for $2, the funnel for $1, the vinyl tube for $1 and I used caulk laying around my house for almost nothing.

this seems like a nice alternative to a hundred dollar Copper coil. It would also use less water than an immersion chiller...sucks I just finished Building my immersion chiller a few hours ago. I like this idea.