Converting a S.S. Wort Chiller to Have Hose Fittings

Greetings Brewers,

I've run into some leakage problems with my stainless steel wort chiller recently. The chiller has been leaking into the kettle, causing me to reheat up the wort to kill off any bacteria that may have gotten in. I was time, gas and possibly an infection. I want to convert it to hose fittings, which it does not have.

This is the chiller I have, w/o hose fittings.
I want to convert it to this one with hose fittings.

What do I need? It looks like those are compression fittings I believe. My other options would be to fix and sell this one and build one like Bobby (I believe) has shown on here buying a 50'roll of soft copper. I'm cooling 5 gallons of wort, and have experience sweating pipe. I actually very handy, but would like to do this right the first time and not mess up the wort chiller. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks a ton.

Postman

The chiller looks to be made from 3/8" stainless steel tube (correct me if I am wrong). You can purchase a 3/8" compression to 3/4" FHT adapter from Brass hose fittings - PlumbingSupply.com for about $5.00.

Why not just attach some tubing to the ends of the chiller and attach your hose fittings to the tubing? Seems like a much easier fix...

Thanks Guys. As it is, it has tubing attached to the chiller, but the hose clamps are not doing their job of stopping the water from leaking into the wort.

Regarding the brass compression fittings, I should be able to find these also at the Home Depot or plumbing store?

Home Depot has the fittings you need. I used a 3/8" compression x 1/2" NPT adapter with a 1/2" female NPT x 3/4" GH adapter on the input and the same except with a male GH adapter on the output.

The Brass fitting looks good on the site, except, I don't see a 3/8" to 3/4 MHT???

Take the chiller with you when buying fittings to make sure they fit. As for the hoses you already have I assume you have tightened them after using them and at some point they might have degraded to the point of no return. After getting a blast of water in the face from my first chiller (cold water - lucky!) I abandoned the hose clamp method.

postman said:

The Brass fitting looks good on the site, except, I don't see a 3/8" to 3/4 MHT???

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That particular fitting might be hard to find and that's why I went with the adapters mentioned above. The 3/8" compression x pipe thread fittings are common. Compression x garden hose thread are not.

Thanks, missed that response. That should do it, I'll bring the chiller with me.

If you can, I suggest soldering on the connections. It will be cheaper, more durable, and will never leak.

Soldering takes all of 5 minutes and is a better option IMO.

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

If you can, I suggest soldering on the connections. It will be cheaper, more durable, and will never leak.

Soldering takes all of 5 minutes and is a better option IMO.

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I guess he would have to silver solder those puppies because the coil is Stainless Steel. It may be cheaper to buy a new chiller than to purchase the torch and supplies to do Silver Soldering.

Right, you're talking about buying a $8 silver soldering kit which isn't available at big box stores (see a welding supply). I think the compression fitting with NPT + NPT to GH fitting is a good bet.

IMO, there's nothing inferior about a compression fitting if it's installed properly. I've used a lot of them over the years and never had one fail. Nothing wrong with sweating the fittings, but the SS does complicate things a bit and would make me lean towards using the compression fittings for sure.

I think comp fittings are a good way to go too. That's what I use, but if you had the supplies (minus the fittings) I would prefer a soldered joint.

I was thinking of soldering a shutoff to my chiller but I also connect the same hose to a charcoal filter system when filling my HLT. My easy and cheap solution was attaching a shutoff at the end of my hose;



Cheers
Steve

you wouldn't want to attach brass fittings to your SS wort chiller because of (insert name of some high fallutin' scientific thing) that will cause your chiller to fall apart from the difference in metals.

TerapinChef said:

you wouldn't want to attach brass fittings to your SS wort chiller because of (insert name of some high fallutin' scientific thing) that will cause your chiller to fall apart from the difference in metals.

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This is false. Here is an excerpt from the Hendrix Group, Materials and Corrosion Engineering Website. The Hendrix Group - corrosion of brass and brass alloys

In a water system with brass valves and fittings and copper or stainless steel pipes, the total area of the cathodic metal greatly exceeds that of the brass but, because of the limiting influence of the electrical resistance of the water, significant corrosion currents flow only between the brass and the copper or stainless steel very close to it. Consequently the effective areas of brass and copper or stainless steel are not very different and the extent of any galvanic action between them is small. A brass fitting in a copper or stainless steel tank, on the other hand, would come under the influence of a much larger area of cathodic metal and severe galvanic attack would be expected.

So I went with the compression fitting. One is tight as hell, with no leaks. The other is still slightly movable, letting out on small drip every few minutes. I think I'll take that one back to the depot. Otherwise, it was pretty simple. I would have been cheaper to just use new plastic tubing, but does need to be replaced now and then.

postman said:

Thanks Guys. As it is, it has tubing attached to the chiller, but the hose clamps are not doing their job of stopping the water from leaking into the wort.

Regarding the brass compression fittings, I should be able to find these also at the Home Depot or plumbing store?

Click to expand...

I have the same problem. Periodic retightening of the clamps is required, and now there ain't no more hose to tighten. Time for a trip to Home Despot. The compression fitting is good news, thought I might have to solder them on....

Good to hear I'm not alone. Brass fittings.com as mention before is probably cheaper than the depot. Your other option is to trim off the old hose at the chiller and reattach/ reclamp the newer hose. This is the cheaper option in the short run.

In retrospect, the cheapest alternative is to go to Plumbing Supply as previously recommended. All you'd need is two 3/8" compression x Female Hose thread fittings and one Male Hose Thread x Male Hose Thread. Shipping is 8% of your sale + $3.50 handling. Ultimately, cheaper than my Home Depot.

Mega Cheapo option, cut of the bad section of plastic hose and reclamp the hoses.