Homemade chillzilla

Has anyone built one of these? I have access to copper tubing at scrap prices(metal recycling yard) and just can't resist the beauty of this thing. Braising the fittings won't be so bad, but bending without kinking might be another story. Any experience or ideas about this?

Read an article on building a garden hose/ copper chiller in BTO two issues back. They put the copper into the garden hose and bent the whole thing around a corny keg. You might want to use something larger , depending on the diameter of your outer tubing.
If you go with a bending radius of 20 times the diameter of your tubing, you should be cool. Works for hardline coax cable.
You could just experiment with different scraps to fid out what works.

that number- 20x diameter, seems reasonble sudsmonkey. Thanks for the reply. I did a practice bend at about corny keg diameter and got several fatal kinks. Also, don't think I applied adequate pressure against the tube at the point of the bend. I'm going to try again soon. 3/4 tubing would be about 15" diameter. That seems more reasonable. A 15" coil about 15' long would mount flat nicely on the stand out of the way. If / when I finally succeed, I'll post a how-to with some pix. If anyone else already knows how-to, please let me know!!

You may want to use a tubing bender spring to keep the pressure more consistent when you're bending it.

Titus, diameter is double radius, soo, 1/2 tube at bending radius of 20x 1/2= 20" diameter cooler. But soft copper "rolls" bend a lot tighter. I don't know what you find in the scrap yard.

I bought my copper in a coil . . . so when I was ready to make the chiller, all I had to do was pull it apart like you might pull a slinky. Then I did some minor adjustments. You will need a spring tube bender to do the major bends to get your coil "arms" out of your kettle.


Then, I bought a cheap garden hose and cut it in half. I used some hose clamps to secure the cut ends of the garden hose to the chiller "arms." Works like a dream!

Casebrew, yep on the diameter v. radius and yep on the tighter bend of soft copper. Just got 9 lbs of rolled copper at 2.50/lb (about 15' of 3/4 and 3/8 each). Another practice bend around the Sanke and I'll give it a shot. I think 15" diameter coils will give a nice low profile chiller that I can mount below the brew kettle and still above the carboy. We shall see.

sudsmonkey said:

Read an article on building a garden hose/ copper chiller in BTO two issues back. They put the copper into the garden hose and bent the whole thing around a corny keg. You might want to use something larger , depending on the diameter of your outer tubing.
If you go with a bending radius of 20 times the diameter of your tubing, you should be cool. Works for hardline coax cable.
You could just experiment with different scraps to fid out what works.

Click to expand...

I actually attempted to create a counterflow chiller per their instructions. They had the T-connection fiting specifics all wrong. I ended up scrapping my project I bought a Shirron plate chiller instead, it has been well worth its money

Well, it worked OK. Got the 3/8 inside the 3/4 bent around the Sanke. Still got a few moderate kinks but able to straighten well enough. Spring bender, a second person, and a little more time would yield a fairly flawless coil I think. I first hand bent 1 coil around the keg, turned the keg on its side, and proceeded to roll the keg over the pipe to coil the remaining pipe. I rolled on the dirt thinking concrete would flatten the tubing. In hindsight, the softer ground probably contributed to the kinking. Moderately flattened tubing can be hammered gently back to roundish. Anyway, figure the 3 or 4 kinked areas will create more turbulence in the water flow and cool a bit better. After fittings, I should be out around $40 total. I'll post some pixs when I get it mounted.