What can I make with this????

A friend gave me about 70 feet of 1/4 copper tubing. It's been sitting around staring at me, and now that I have a wee bit of time, I feel the need to make it into something other than a dust collector. I was thinking of using it to either circulate hot water in my mash to maintain/adjust temp or to use it as a fermenter "wrap" to maintain fermentation temp. Is 1/4 tubing too small for these purposes? My wife had a suggestion of what to do with it, but I didn't want to have to post this in the proctology forum.

ummm well if you don't have a wort chiller you could wrap it up and then you'd cut a lot of time out of your brewing process. Thats on my to do list at least.

Thanks. I should have mentioned that I have a killer counterflow wort chiller (50 feet of 3/8 copper in a 5/8 jacket) already. I'm using a 10 gallon drink cooler as my MLT.

'Nother vote for wort chiller; that 1/4" should have better surface area to mass ratio than the 1/2", so if you can get good flow through there you'll have a reasonably effective wort chiller. You could pick up some larger tubing and even make a counter flow chiller.

EDIT: Nver mind . With a pump you could make a pretty effective MLT temperature controller; see if you can find a good DC pump and check out PWM control if you want to automate the process.

Don't make something that you won't use or will be unhappy with.
I vote scrap it and use the proceeds for something else.
Even if it's something for the wife to keep her from inappropriatly using brewery equipment.

hmmm personally i prefer your wives suggestion (mainly because it's you and not me) lol...

Hmm, plumb in a beer line to every room in the house...

Melt it down and make a copper fermenter...

cut it in half and sell it as wort chillers...

Give it away...

You could sell it to me...I need a chiller.

You could get a pretty penny for it, maybe as much as $50 for it if it's in newish condition. But I do like the "give it to me" idea; as an HVAC hobbyist I can assure you I'll put it to good use . A dispensing chiller comes to mind .

You could make a friend forever if you packed it up and mailed it off to western Massachusetts...

Like someone else said, cut it in half and sell it to somebody doing small kitchen batches, thats what my first chiller was made out of, now it is a prechiller.

If that's 1/4" OD, it's too small to run as an IC in a single pass. You could cut it into 3 23' sections and solder each end bundle into a 1/2" cap drilled with 3 holes. This thing would be really efficient though, tons of surface area.

It is 1/4" OD and I was afraid that it would be too small to do something meaningful with. But I like the idea of bundling it. I think I'll play around with designs to see if I can make a heat exchanger for a HERMS.

Hmmmmm, with that much copper, I should be able to make 2 heat exchangers. Anyone have a controller they want to trade for it????

You just have to play to its strengths, namely it's massive surface area to volume ratio.

Post up some sketches when you have them!

Cut it in half, then get 2 half inch tee's 2 half inch 90degree's 4 1/2-1/4" reducers and coil the 2 lengths up in your mlt as a heat exchanger. My 2 cp.

I suspect you can save a ton in fittings if you just drill a 1/2" end cap out to fit two 1/4" tubes into it tightly. Throw a bit of solder on it and you're golden.