Dual Coil immersion chiller

Here's the chiller I gave birth to!
I can post a parts list if anyone is interested in building one.
I plan on testing it after the Canada day weekend!
Should be much more efficient than one long coil that sticks 1/2 way out of the wort! I used a 50' coil of soft copper. The outer coil was wrapped around an 8" cylinder for making concrete footers, and I used a 2L glass jug for the inner coil "About 6 inches diameter "

I'd recommend angling the 2 pipes so the water connections are not over the pot. Sometimes those connections can leak and unsanitized water could drip into your brew pot. Ideally the connections are outside the rim of the pot and angled down away from the rim so any drips end up outside the pot.

Very nice work. What type of tubing did you use? Type L? M? I'm making one now from the cheaper A/C grade tubing. It's somewhat thinner then the M or L types. But it solders up to 3/8" pipe fittings.

Nice neat, clean work! I did something similar, but instead of one long run, the inner and outer coils are separate.



-Joe

Thanks for the advice.. This is why I didn't trim down the long straight pieces. I may bend them so they hook onto the keggle. I'm just not sure I will bend the solid tubing without kinking it.

I was going to make the same comment as Joe. You'd notice a big improvement by splitting the input across the two coils.

I'm thinking that both coils in series would work better because the water flows towards the path of least resistance. Having 2 coils merge into 1 path would cause resistance in the flow. I'd really like to find some info for comparison. If you are correct, it would be simple for me to modify.

Mobstar said:

I'm thinking that both coils in series would work better because the water flows towards the path of least resistance. Having 2 coils merge into 1 path would cause resistance in the flow. I'd really like to find some info for comparison. If you are correct, it would be simple for me to modify.

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Run them in parallel. I did the same thing you did. At first They were in series then I later changed to parallel. It works much better.

There's no problem with flow. In fact, you usually run the input at much less than full anyway. What you gain by splitting and running parallel is twice the surface area when the water to wort temp delta is the highest. One long coil reduces the delta for most of the surface area. In other words, after 20 or so feet, the coolant is already getting very close to the wort temp.

Bobby_M said:

One long coil reduces the delta for most of the surface area. In other words, after 20 or so feet, the coolant is already getting very close to the wort temp.

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But that also means he could up the flow rate and cool the wort down even faster. Just playing devil's advocate...

Playing devil's advocate's apprentice, no one said you had to use a symmetrical tee to split and combine. You can use one with a larger tap for the in/out. You can directly solder the parallel runs into a 1" copper cap. Now you're flowing more than a single line could anyway. Diminishing returns.

Mine is split into two parallel coils. The in/out lines from the chiller are 1/2" rigid copper, which then splits with 1/2" tee's before being reduced and flowing through the 3/8" soft copper coils.

Works pretty well.

WOW!!
Made my first 5Gal batch of AG last weekend and I was VERY impressed with the results of my chiller! It took under 10 minutes to cool it from boiling down to pitching temp. The only downside is that it cooled the boiling wort when I first immersed it in my brew keg. I guess there's too much cool metal. Next time I'll run hot water through it before using it.

The only downside is that it cooled the boiling wort when I first immersed it in my brew keg. I guess there's too much cool metal. Next time I'll run hot water through it before using it.

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I thought the point was to chill the wort down as quickly as possible. What exactly is the downside here?

laserghost said:

I thought the point was to chill the wort down as quickly as possible. What exactly is the downside here?

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He wanted to boil the chiller for the last few minutes to sanitize it.

ah, i see. thanks for clarifying.

I need to modify my chiller. Used a full 50' in a single coil (about 3 rings stick out above my wort) This double coil looks like a much better option.