5/8" OD Immersion Chiller, a Visual Step by Step

Just started brewing and quickly discovered the importance of a quick cold break. My first 5 gal. batch was cooled in an ice bath, hour+ to pitching = meh. The second was with a rinky dink 3/8" <20ft immersion chiller that a friend graciously donated - not bad, but still took a good 15 minutes. Finally, I decided to make my own. Took many a trip to a many home depot to find the right coil of copper, then settled on a 50 foot 5/8" OD. I have not seen an immersion chiller of that size on the web for purchase, so I figured this should be good. After about 3 hours, which involved looking for bending apparatuses and strategies that would reduce the amount of tube kinkage, as well as consumption of potent potables, we have das überimmersionchiller:


$108 + tax:


9" pot resulted in a 10.5" diameter outer coil:



If you have no experience with copper, it's a rather soft metal, but not as soft as you imagine. I was sweating somethingawful by the end of this excercise.



I quickly realized my IC was growing vertically quicker than anticipated. Since I use a 20qt pot, most of it was going to end up above sea level, which is a waste.



I kicked around the idea of having an inner coil. And found my heavy 10lb CO2 tank perfect for the job. Heavy is good, heavy is reliable. If it doesn't work, you can always make a wort chiller with it.



The idea is to take your time and let the copper bend itself under it's own tugging and wrapping force. Forcefully bending results in insta-kinks.



By the time I got here, I was perplexed as to how to get it inside without undue kinking.



I had to stretch out and unroll some of the outer coil...


Once you get here, you're pretty much home free.

My 3/8 by 50' rib cage IC cut my cooling temps time in half. Let us know how the 5/8 does.

Wow looks effective. I would check the volume that your pot can hold with that in there though. Its going to displace a ton of water for a 20qt pot.

Overkill^2
Of course you can reuse when you upgrade to a larger pot.

That is beautiful.

Let us know how it works. Nice pics btw!

Amazing. With a prechiller I would think that thing might get temps down to lager temps in less than 15 minutes.

Coldies said:

My 3/8 by 50' rib cage IC cut my cooling temps time in half. Let us know how the 5/8 does.

Click to expand...

Over the summer I got my hands on a keggle. Clearly the immersion chiller and the keg were meant to be:

11 gallons of 212F down to 90F in 10mins. I assume the water temp from the hose was in the 30s.

I'm also interested in finding out how well it does over 1/2" and 3/8". I mean you're only looking at an addition 1/4" in diameter. I wonder if flattening the tubing would create a "better" surface area?

stamandster said:

I'm also interested in finding out how well it does over 1/2" and 3/8". I mean you're only looking at an addition 1/4" in diameter. I wonder if flattening the tubing would create a "better" surface area?

Click to expand...

Exterior surface area would remain the same. Interior volume would decrease which would increase coolant flow rate and contact area per volume. A lot of variables are in play. Contact your local physicist for help working out that problem.

For reference:

My 50' 3/8" chiller cools 5 gallons of near-boiling wort to 100 degrees in 5 minutes using 60 degree tap water and stirring. It's down to 70 degrees in 12-15 minutes.

Nice looking chiller. I made one last week and it wasn't nearly as pretty. My coil of copper was just under $1/foot at Lowes. The price has come down quite a bit.