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Solder is fine ... Won't impart any off flavors. Just be sure to use lead free solder and flux made for drinking water use.
 
Heres mine..

IMG_1877.jpg
 
Is everyone using a pipe bender? I tried a beer bottle and other small round objects and kinked every bend. I'm talking about the smaller bend to take the bottom up to the top.
 
Hello said:
Is everyone using a pipe bender? I tried a beer bottle and other small round objects and kinked every bend. I'm talking about the smaller bend to take the bottom up to the top.
Click to expand...


Nope, free hand..The trick is to just insert a small amount at the bottom and just pull it up.

20140109_172246.jpg
 
Hmmm I may go out and try this. But then I still need a bend over the kettle.
 
Hello said:
Hmmm I may go out and try this. But then I still need a bend over the kettle.
Click to expand...

yeah for that ya need a bender. You doing 3/8 or 1/2"? There's more soldering options for 1/2" is why I ask. On my 1/2" for the top bends I soldered some couplings with some stub out 90's..I just bent them a little more..and cut off the caps..
 
1/2 but I don't have the tools to solder. I figure bending would be cheaper and easier.
 
big box store do not sell 1/2" benders or rolling benders, they sell the cheap snake looking coil benders, almost impossible to bend a 90 on a short run with that..
 
well if you spend like $20 on a torch and a few more on solder and flux, you'll be set, and it'll come in handy later on as well. you'll be surprised. Especially with how much brewers love the DIY aspect of the hobby

or maybe something like this?

TubeBendingJig.JPG
 
I just got into the home brewing recently... but im nuts about trying to improve the process...

Here is the wort chiller i just built, as you can tell im neither a plumber or an engineer...

img_20140820_172108-63668.jpg


its 5 x 10ft of 1/4" copper tubing connecting to 3/8" pipe as feed and collector...

with tap water at about 68F it took about 7 minutes to hit 77F with a half batch boil.

next batch i did with it was the next size pot i was able to get my hands on without spending money... which turned out to be a 60 quart pot... so i did a double batch boil. chiller still did a fantastic job... cooled the wort in about 15 minutes with a lot of stirring and an awkward fit on a much larger pot.

i left some space on top of the 3/8" pipes and im thinking of adding another coild or two of 1/4" to allow for more surface area and water flow.

actually planning on doing a kind of step by step with all the ideas and mistakes as a guide or inspiration source for someone who can do it better... or even possibly to save someone the trouble and just do a single coil.
 
That run seems really short, what length of copper did you use? Less surface area will just mean more time to chill, not a big deal but faster is better.
 
Only 20ft of 3/8. I was on a budget. Guess I'll find out next weekend how it works. Worse case I'll use it for a pre chill coil down the road.
 
thats 5' shorter than what i use, you'll be fine :) i wouldn't worry about it too much at all, just save up for another 20' coil sometime later and run them parallel
 
radecki said:
I just got into the home brewing recently... but im nuts about trying to improve the process...

Here is the wort chiller i just built, as you can tell im neither a plumber or an engineer...

img_20140820_172108-63668.jpg


its 5 x 10ft of 1/4" copper tubing connecting to 3/8" pipe as feed and collector...

with tap water at about 68F it took about 7 minutes to hit 77F with a half batch boil.

next batch i did with it was the next size pot i was able to get my hands on without spending money... which turned out to be a 60 quart pot... so i did a double batch boil. chiller still did a fantastic job... cooled the wort in about 15 minutes with a lot of stirring and an awkward fit on a much larger pot.

i left some space on top of the 3/8" pipes and im thinking of adding another coild or two of 1/4" to allow for more surface area and water flow.

actually planning on doing a kind of step by step with all the ideas and mistakes as a guide or inspiration source for someone who can do it better... or even possibly to save someone the trouble and just do a single coil.
Click to expand...

the output hose might be restricting flow, i'd take it off and use a normal hose and see if it cuts down times at all.
 
50', 1/4" ID, not pictured are brass compression fittings, 90° turns, garden hose in and hose barb out.

Went with a kind of hybrid ribcage design – I liked how the ribcage keeps the coils from touching each other and thus "wasting" surface area, but wanted to preserve the crude counterflow feature (coolest water against coolest wort at the bottom of the chiller/kettle) of a single coil. Might be overthinking it a bit, but I get down to 75° in fifteen minutes without a pre-chiller, so, I'll take it!

wort chiller.jpg
 
Rivenin said:
the output hose might be restricting flow, i'd take it off and use a normal hose and see if it cuts down times at all.
Click to expand...

actually... the output is all 3/4" including the hose....
its the input that is 1/2" washing machine hose.... but thats what the plumbing in the garage is so a bigger input pipe was not going to improve much.
 
feinbera said:
50', 1/4" ID, not pictured are brass compression fittings, 90° turns, garden hose in and hose barb out.

Went with a kind of hybrid ribcage design – I liked how the ribcage keeps the coils from touching each other and thus "wasting" surface area, but wanted to preserve the crude counterflow feature (coolest water against coolest wort at the bottom of the chiller/kettle) of a single coil. Might be overthinking it a bit, but I get down to 75° in fifteen minutes without a pre-chiller, so, I'll take it!
Click to expand...
If this was a cake id eat it...sweetness .well done.
 
Just finished up my 20' counterflow chiller using the standard design found multiple places on the forum. I did, however, make a slight alteration to eliminate any possible contamination issues at the wort output. I actually built the whole thing and then remade the T fittings because I don't trust my sweating abilities! I used the 1/2"-->1/4" reducer and brought my inner copper tubing out an extra couple inches. I then sweated barbs onto the ends of the 3/8" copper tubing so that the wort entrance and exits are nowhere near any un-sanitized tap water.

20150314_094246.jpg

20150314_094254.jpg
 
Figure for my first try it came out pretty decent. 50+ feet of 1/2" L soft copper with a few rigid pieces on the end to give it stability. Wrapped with copper wire to keep it together.
Coils are 15 inches high, the top of the copper goes up to 23 inches and its 12 inches in diameter, so I think it'll work well with my 10 gallon pot.

11051163_808801682526054_1628027234_n.jpg


11072465_808801685859387_1862783668_n.jpg


11056906_808801692526053_1313283274_n.jpg
 
My Cleanable counter flow chiller. The ends of the 1/2" copper get connected with 12" pieces of 1/2" silicone tubing. Pop the tubes off and you can see and clean the tubes. I just built it and haven't used it to brew yet but I just tested it with 12 gallons of boiling water. I recirculated it back into the boil kettle through a whirlpool arm to cool the full 12 gallons and it chilled from boiling to 140 in 4 minutes and chilled the complete 12 gallons in the kettle to 65 degrees in 14 minutes. This means the hot and cold break will be skittle in the middle of the kettle and not in my carboys.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1426557417.387690.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1426557436.254543.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1426557467.921986.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1426557489.223378.jpg
 
WOW! There are some amazing immersion chiller builds out there!

I just made a simple one, for a simple mind!

I had an extra bilge pump from my boat, 12 VDC, found a AC adapter on sale to run it from the house outlet, and plumbed it in to my immersion cooler. The cooler is 25' ofd 3/8 copper. I can hook a garden hose up or hook the pump up. I use a rubbermade tote full of ice water to get the wort down to 70 real fast.

Wort_cooler.jpg
 

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