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AlaskaBrewer230

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I have an idea for a way to chill wort that I want to use in my brewing apparatus and I wanted to get some feedback or opinions on whether it will work. So here it is: I want to connect the valve on my brew pot to a copper coil by a hose, place the coil in a bucket of ice water, let the wort run through the coil and out to the carboy. Is this realistic? Will there be enough heat exchange over say 25 or 30 feet of 3/8" copper tubing?
 
So you want to do a revers IC chiller...

I don't think it is going to work very well because you are not going to be able to get rid of the hot water that the heat exchange created. In an IC or CFC new, cold, water is always replaceing old, heated, water. Your idea is probably not going to be as good as you would hope because you are not only trying to cool the wort inside the pipe but also the water in the bucket that is getting hotter and hotter as wort passes through the coil.

Is there any reason you wouldn't want to put the coil inside the pot and run ice cold water through it using a pump?
 
I'm using an IC chiller right now (actually want to use the copper for the "reverse IC"). I was just hoping to come up with something gravity-fed that is more "hardwired" into a tower set-up, but you're absolutely right; the ice water would immediately melt and become hot, probably within the first gallon or two of flow.

Think I'll go for the CFC idea. Looks kinda fun to build.
 
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