BrewSkipper
Member
Hello, folks. First post here, first batch brewer, total freaking noob.
I tend to over-engineer things, and when my friends bought me a rather nice homebrew kit two weeks ago, I immediately set to work on a wort chiller.
Go figure.
I purchased 50' of 3/8" copper, coiled it around the Corny I bought (engineering again), and cut 12' off of the top coil. Using appropriate copper fittings, I soldered some bits here and there and ended up with a basic wort chiller, using the male ends of 3/8" air hose couplings at a down angle (for condensation concerns) as the in/out leads.
The 12' I cut off was fashioned into a modular (any number of water sources are easily adaptable without any more hardware) prechiller.
End result? The prechiller sits in a tote-sized Coleman cooler filled with ice water, and the chilling water comes from a shutoff I installed into the washing machine cold water supply. When the boil is done, I just put the 22qt pot on the dryer, connect the air hose couplings with the "output" side of the prechiller and to the "dump" hose into the washing machine tub, and let 'er rip.
It brought a 2 gal boil down to 70 in 7 minutes flat, and it filled the washing machine to the largest wash load level.
No waste, cold wort.
FWIW, the brew was a very basic American Amber Ale. Seems to be doing well- I used Irish Moss for clarity and due to that and the speed of the chill the cold break was inhibited to a tiny, thin transparent film. I just put it in the secondary, and I'm about to start a Pomegranate Dunkelweizen next week.
Any and all suggestions/criticisms welcome.
Happy Brewing!
I tend to over-engineer things, and when my friends bought me a rather nice homebrew kit two weeks ago, I immediately set to work on a wort chiller.
Go figure.
I purchased 50' of 3/8" copper, coiled it around the Corny I bought (engineering again), and cut 12' off of the top coil. Using appropriate copper fittings, I soldered some bits here and there and ended up with a basic wort chiller, using the male ends of 3/8" air hose couplings at a down angle (for condensation concerns) as the in/out leads.
The 12' I cut off was fashioned into a modular (any number of water sources are easily adaptable without any more hardware) prechiller.
End result? The prechiller sits in a tote-sized Coleman cooler filled with ice water, and the chilling water comes from a shutoff I installed into the washing machine cold water supply. When the boil is done, I just put the 22qt pot on the dryer, connect the air hose couplings with the "output" side of the prechiller and to the "dump" hose into the washing machine tub, and let 'er rip.
It brought a 2 gal boil down to 70 in 7 minutes flat, and it filled the washing machine to the largest wash load level.
No waste, cold wort.
FWIW, the brew was a very basic American Amber Ale. Seems to be doing well- I used Irish Moss for clarity and due to that and the speed of the chill the cold break was inhibited to a tiny, thin transparent film. I just put it in the secondary, and I'm about to start a Pomegranate Dunkelweizen next week.
Any and all suggestions/criticisms welcome.
Happy Brewing!