How hard is it to bend immersion chiller tubing?

I'm thinking of finally building my immersion chiller. I checked out some tubing at Home Depot, and it seemed awfully rigid. I didn't try to bend it there for obvious reasons, so I'm wondering what people's experience is with making a chiller out of copper tubing. Is it hard to bend without making kinks? Is there some kind of tool that helps?

It's EASY to bend it....It's hard to NOT KINK IT!

Filling it with salt helps....and if you get some that's already coiled up in a box, you can usually just tighten up the coil until it's what you're after.

people usually coil it around an appropriately sized object. Corny kegs work, or a bucket.

the thing is, if you bend it one way, it will be very hard to bend it back...so don't over bend it.

and yeah, its really easy to kink copper...be careful. leave your two ends long enough that they can stick out of the pot.
My pre fab chiller has short ends, and sometimes water leaks out and gets into my wort.

...just on the off chance you looked at the wrong stuff, you want soft copper tubing, which typically comes all rolled up (and possibly in a cardboard box) - not straight copper pipe, which is hard, and will crack (or at least fold flat) if bent.

The more you bend soft copper, the harder it gets.

wrap it around something with a reasonable diameter as was said and just go slow doing small sections at a time.

i actually used aluminum fuel line from an auto parts store. its a little cheaper and seems easier to work with. problem is it doesnt conduct heat as well so its not as efficient but still works well. I would have likely gone with copper but got a 50' for free with a gift card i had from a set of tires.

....and CopperTubingSales.com :: ICS Indsutries :: has refrigeration tubing prices that will kick HD's ass.

+1 on coppertubingsales.com

I just ordered 50 feet of 3/8" refrigeration tubing from them last night for $49 shipped. I got the UPS tracking number within 12 hours.

+2 on coppertubingsales.com - best price around that I have found.

Ya i did the coppertubing sales thing also. I had a tubign bender laying around and I highly recommend getting one.

Waaaaaa waa waaa wait....bending copper makes it stronger?

Edit: Ill shut up

Yeah, I was looking at the coiled-up "refrigeration tubing" in boxes, not the long copper pipes.

But a buddy of mine does have an arc welder. I bet if I just bought one long-ass pipe and gave it to him with instructions he could build me one.

Bobby_M said:

....and CopperTubingSales.com :: ICS Indsutries :: has refrigeration tubing prices that will kick HD's ass.

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In my area, HD's copper is more expensive than coppertubingsales.com, but not by a whole lot, and once you figure in shipping, HD is cheaper. I'm sure that's not the case for everyone though.

BuffaloSabresBrewer said:

Waaaaaa waa waaa wait....bending copper makes it stronger?

Edit: Ill shut up

Click to expand...

not necessarily stronger, but stiffer. stressing metal (bending, hammering, stretching) makes all the little tiny ions in the metal go all crazy and haphazard. It's how you can take a coat hanger and bend it back and forth till it breaks.

if you need to soften the metal back up, heat it until it's glowing red hot. That will 'align' all the metal molecules and make it easier to bend. It's called annealing

I shopped at HD for copper tube and ended up going with coppertubingsales.com.

The price was the same including shipping, but the HD copper was 25' of 3/8 to coppertubingsales 50' of 3/8".

To answer the original question there are two ways to go.

3/8" OD tubing is really easy to bend around a cylindrical form but the result is a rather springy chiller. You can easily make 2" radius bends to come up over the top of the pot, even by hand with no bending tools. 25 feet of this is fine for a 5 gallon batch.

1/2" OD is a bit hard to bend but it holds its shape much better. I wouldn't go trying to make 2" radius bends in this to go up over the top of the pot without using a spring bender. That's why I soldered elbow fittings on in my video tutuoral. 50 feet of this is great for a 10 gallon batch.

Bobby_M said:

0 feet of this is great for a 10 gallon batch.

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Even better for a 5 gallon batch.

Go and buy one of those spring bending tools. After you coil it up you will want to put an angle on both ends to get it out of the pot. Insert the tubing into the spring thingy and bend without kinking. Works like a charm.

Bobby_M said:

....and CopperTubingSales.com :: ICS Indsutries :: has refrigeration tubing prices that will kick HD's ass.

Click to expand...

Bobby; after giving the above address to a friend he had to change his shorts then ordered a 50' and 100' of 1/2" soft tubing. Thanks for the posting.
You must have a lot of spare puter time to go looking around for useable, adaptable goddies for our brewing needs.

In the past I bandsaw cut many layers of 3/4" plywood, nailed and glued then trued the od on the wood lathe.
With a larger end flange plus a starting slot on the end plywood layer (1/2" thick) had a smooth radius ramp for the start. With the metal lathe on back gear and two people a person can make a nice looking wrapped coil asa good as a machine manufactured unit.
This was for a still project many years ago back in the 70's. Darn good hooch was my payback, what laws?

I like the idea of building tools to build other tools but even 1/2" can be bent extremely neatly around a cylidrical form with two people. I did a few myself using a 25ft coil but quickly realized it wasn't going to happen with the 50 footer. Way too much weight to hold up while you try coiling.

i Just made an IC out of some 3/8" tubing. I went to HD and a local HW store and could not find the little elbows, but i was in luck, my dad had a bender designed for copper tubing. Took me a little while to get it all bent but it came out OK.

its not hard to bend this stuff i build induction coils they are the same thing but used for a different app.
all you need is a round tube then screw one end of the tubing to it then heat the tubing up as you wind it... you have the coil.