DIY Interwoven "Rib-Cage" Immersion Chiller

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Okay, my rib-cage chiller has a little different twist that I think will work well. I made two 25' coils and then connected them at the bottom. Instead of circulating water through the whole chiller, I thought why not take advantage of two cooling inlets that finally connect at the bottom and then out. I used 3/8" tubing, but I thought that it would work even better to use 1/2" where they join at the bottom and then to the outlet. I wasn't sure if the two water hose sources would be competing with their pressure to force water back up the other coil, so I figured that if I reduce the pressure at the outlet, certainly both would flow through each coil to the 1/2" "T" and then out the 1/2" outlet. Not, sure if it would have been an issue, but I figured that I couldn't hurt it by decreasing the pressure at the outlet. I haven't tried it, but it will be interesting to see how fast it cools. Also, with dual cooling coils both starting at the top, I could now solder the 3/8" inlets tubes together to stiffen them and not worry about heat transfer. I soldered them at both 90 degree fittings and once in the middle of the tubes. Give me your thoughts.


Chill1.jpg


Chill-2.jpg


Chill-3.jpg


Chill-4.jpg


Chill-5.jpg
 
Looks cool! Why not just use one input and split it with a T into two coils? Then you don't have to hook up 2 hoses.
 
Palefire said:
Looks cool! Why not just use one input and split it with a T into two coils? Then you don't have to hook up 2 hoses.
Click to expand...


I did it this way because with a single hose source spilt into two paths, I might have to worry about both sides being equally pressured with cold incoming water. Would one way flow faster than the other when split at the "T?" Not sure, plus I brew outside and have two hose bibs in easy reach. With two water sources I know both sides would be fully pressurized with cold incoming water. That's why I created two separate inlets. I need to run some tests and compare it to my single coil 50', 3/8" IC.
 
I used mine for the first time today. Wicked fast cooling. I had my 2.5 gallons cool (70*) in about 7 minutes.

Next time, I'm going to prep my pre-chiller sooner. I filled my cooler with ice water and dropped the pre-chiller in right before turning the water on. I think it takes a few minutes to "cool soak" the pre-chiller. That definitely cut down on my efficiency.

Still, I had wicked fast cooling and I didn't have to spend $3 or 20 minutes futzing with ice!
 
Looks like MW66 might be on to something here. I would like some opinions as to which direction chill water should flow. In other words, should the chill water flow from top-down or bottom up? If I recirculate/whirlpool and have a keggle return up high, the direction of the the hot wort is flowing top-down. So does that mean that the chill water in the IC should flow opposite that? Does this mean that chill water should flow from the bottom-up? Or is this splitting hairs? Also, has anyone tried MW66's idea but used a simple Tee as an inlet? This would only require one hose hookup... but would it work just as effectively?
Thanks!
 
Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to use my chiller yet. I just finished a few more add-ons onto my new brew rig and I've also been working on a keezer.

Matt: The top of the coil is 8.5" and in my keggle, that is exactly the height of 5 gallons, so it looks like the entire double coil would be submersed.
 
I used my rib cage chiller for the first time today (20' of 3/8" copper) and it had my 5 gallon batch down to 80* in probably about 25 minutes (that's what it seemed like at least, I should probably time it next time). It fits perfectly in my 8 gallon kettle.
 
I did mine a little different.

Instead of having only one in and one out I split the rib cage into two sections. I find that the setup cools much faster. (only requires one hose in and one hose out)

One rib side cools from the top down, the other cools from the bottom up.

Every time i see someone else's ribcage design I wonder how I could do it better. I hope you can get the same results I do from similar designs.

189160_1892739444417_1419450696_32150027_5207240_n.jpg


First time soldering so dont laugh, they can withstand "some" pressure with no leaks.
 
I have to drop in and give my ($2/100). I love thermodynamics. Ive gone to bed with a phsyc chart, steam table, and a calculator just for a last minute calculation to help me become sleepy. Anyway, I have to say, I love the Rib Cage Immersion Chiller design. Its design is a huge advantage to a tightly wound coil (TWC). Most of the time, the TWCs have no spaces between each coil. The RCIC is super ingenious and really looks like it gets the job done.

The biggest problem (BP) to overcome when chilling wort is when the wort approaches the cooling water temperature. (wort=90 and tap water = 70) When you are chilling near pitching temperature (NPT), the chiller with the largest surface area will prevail. If you think about what is going on when the wort is at 212, you will be confused. The average house-hold doesn't have enough water pressure to keep the temp of the waste water leaving the chiller (WWLTC) below the temperature of the wort. The WWLTC will be very close to the temperature of the wort, if the flow is low and the surface area of the chiller is also low. There may be quite a few stove-top-in-the-kitchen brewers reading this as well. If possible, try to increase your flow rate of chill water by running a hose from the water supply in the house, or from a garden faucet outside. This may give you much higher water flow than the kitchen sink.

So back to the problem of chilling the wort down to the chilling water temperature. The best way to accomplish this without using ice, is with larger surface area and agitation. Lets say you had a coil that was made from 50' copper tube (5/8") OD and about 3 feet were useless because they are the feed and waste water portions of the RCIC. Also, the water flow rate is 1.3 gpm at 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Area of coil= 50' - 3' = 47 ft
A= 47*(.625pi/12) = 7.7ft^2

T_2=50
mdot=(1.3gpm)*(231in/gal)/(1728in^3/ft^3)*(62.4lbs/ft^3) = 10.8 lbs/minute
(mdot is mass flow rate of water this time)

Lets also assume that you are down to 76 degrees Fahrenheit.
T_1= 76
Internal energy at @ T_2 is:
u_2 = 18 btu/lbm
T_1 (wort)
u_1= 44 btu/lbm

If we assume the RCIC is 100% efficient, it wil be removing this much heat per minute(Q_out is usually heat removed):

Q_out = m_dot(u_1-u_2)
Q_out = 10.8lbm/min (44btu/lbm-18btu/lbm)
Q_out = 280.8 Btu/min

Have you ever heard the term tons of cooling when hearing about AC units? A ton of cooling is 200 btu/min. Its pretty wild that a RCIC can chill at the rate of one ton with a mere differential temperature of 26 degrees.

This isnt fast enough though for 5 gallons of wort. (m=42lbm)
One degree in temperature change requires:
u @ 76 degrees: 42lbm*44btu/lbm = 1848 btu
u @ 75 degrees: 42lbm*43btu/lbm = 1806 btu

(its really one btu/lbm per degree at these temperatures)

So the energy needed to chill 5 gallons on degree is 1848 - 1806 = 42 btu/degree change of wort. If we are only able to exchange 280 Btu/minute with our 1.3 gpm flow rate, then we can find the temperature rate with those numbers:

Degrees/min = 280 Btu/min / 42 Btu/degree (Btu's cancel out and leave us with degrees/min)

=6.7 degrees / minute.

Not true, no? This is for a 100% efficiency assumption. You would have to stir your arss off, have 50ft^2 of area to achieve near perfect efficiency. This is food for thought. I figure I should jump on here take some numbers from real world, and talk about my lust for thrermodynamics.

Hail Purdue.
 
I was thinking the way you were when I first started to gather my materials for the Rib Cage Immersion Chiller (RCIC). I had experience with a 50' coil IC and was somewhat impressed so I knew there had to be a better way so I designed my RCIC [See post 130]. I used 50' of 1/4 in ID copper tubing. Instead of having the cooling water travel through the same 50' I split it into parallel coils. I used the smaller diameter to take advantage of the heat transfer benefits and multiple paths to assist in the flow rate. The way that I maintain a larger flow rate is to have the input and output support a flow rate greater then the parallel coils combined. I was going to add a third path but my engineering judgment pulled me away from it, at this point Im balancing building and maintenance ease with performance (The classic engineers juggling act)

It works really well. 5 gallons from boiling to pitching temp in 7 minutes using a garden hose. of course I havent done experiments using other temp water hoses, just my own.

Im an engineer so things are never good enough, but I must come up with a working design(Better then the last). Just like my job pays me.

Good luck. Maybe you will come up with a simple better alternative.

Thats over 200deg down to 70deg in 7min. Thats OVER 18 deg a min, with NO wort agitation or stirring.

DarkNoonBrewer said:
I have to drop in and give my ($2/100). I love thermodynamics. Ive gone to bed with a phsyc chart, steam table, and a calculator just for a last minute calculation to help me become sleepy. Anyway, I have to say, I love the Rib Cage Immersion Chiller design. Its design is a huge advantage to a tightly wound coil (TWC). Most of the time, the TWCs have no spaces between each coil. The RCIC is super ingenious and really looks like it gets the job done.

The biggest problem (BP) to overcome when chilling wort is when the wort approaches the cooling water temperature. (wort=90 and tap water = 70) When you are chilling near pitching temperature (NPT), the chiller with the largest surface area will prevail. If you think about what is going on when the wort is at 212, you will be confused. The average house-hold doesn't have enough water pressure to keep the temp of the waste water leaving the chiller (WWLTC) below the temperature of the wort. The WWLTC will be very close to the temperature of the wort, if the flow is low and the surface area of the chiller is also low. There may be quite a few stove-top-in-the-kitchen brewers reading this as well. If possible, try to increase your flow rate of chill water by running a hose from the water supply in the house, or from a garden faucet outside. This may give you much higher water flow than the kitchen sink.

So back to the problem of chilling the wort down to the chilling water temperature. The best way to accomplish this without using ice, is with larger surface area and agitation. Lets say you had a coil that was made from 50' copper tube (5/8") OD and about 3 feet were useless because they are the feed and waste water portions of the RCIC. Also, the water flow rate is 1.3 gpm at 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Area of coil= 50' - 3' = 47 ft
A= 47*(.625pi/12) = 7.7ft^2

T_2=50
mdot=(1.3gpm)*(231in/gal)/(1728in^3/ft^3)*(62.4lbs/ft^3) = 10.8 lbs/minute
(mdot is mass flow rate of water this time)

Lets also assume that you are down to 76 degrees Fahrenheit.
T_1= 76
Internal energy at @ T_2 is:
u_2 = 18 btu/lbm
T_1 (wort)
u_1= 44 btu/lbm

If we assume the RCIC is 100% efficient, it wil be removing this much heat per minute(Q_out is usually heat removed):

Q_out = m_dot(u_1-u_2)
Q_out = 10.8lbm/min (44btu/lbm-18btu/lbm)
Q_out = 280.8 Btu/min

Have you ever heard the term tons of cooling when hearing about AC units? A ton of cooling is 200 btu/min. Its pretty wild that a RCIC can chill at the rate of one ton with a mere differential temperature of 26 degrees.

This isnt fast enough though for 5 gallons of wort. (m=42lbm)
One degree in temperature change requires:
u @ 76 degrees: 42lbm*44btu/lbm = 1848 btu
u @ 75 degrees: 42lbm*43btu/lbm = 1806 btu

(its really one btu/lbm per degree at these temperatures)

So the energy needed to chill 5 gallons on degree is 1848 - 1806 = 42 btu/degree change of wort. If we are only able to exchange 280 Btu/minute with our 1.3 gpm flow rate, then we can find the temperature rate with those numbers:

Degrees/min = 280 Btu/min / 42 Btu/degree (Btu's cancel out and leave us with degrees/min)

=6.7 degrees / minute.

Not true, no? This is for a 100% efficiency assumption. You would have to stir your arss off, have 50ft^2 of area to achieve near perfect efficiency. This is food for thought. I figure I should jump on here take some numbers from real world, and talk about my lust for thrermodynamics.

Hail Purdue.
Click to expand...
 
DarkNoonBrewer said:
I have to drop in and give my ($2/100). I love thermodynamics. Ive gone to bed with a phsyc chart, steam table, and a calculator just for a last minute calculation to help me become sleepy. Anyway, I have to say, I love the Rib Cage Immersion Chiller design. Its design is a huge advantage to a tightly wound coil (TWC). Most of the time, the TWCs have no spaces between each coil. The RCIC is super ingenious and really looks like it gets the job done.

The biggest problem (BP) to overcome when chilling wort is when the wort approaches the cooling water temperature. (wort=90 and tap water = 70) When you are chilling near pitching temperature (NPT), the chiller with the largest surface area will prevail. If you think about what is going on when the wort is at 212, you will be confused. The average house-hold doesn't have enough water pressure to keep the temp of the waste water leaving the chiller (WWLTC) below the temperature of the wort. The WWLTC will be very close to the temperature of the wort, if the flow is low and the surface area of the chiller is also low. There may be quite a few stove-top-in-the-kitchen brewers reading this as well. If possible, try to increase your flow rate of chill water by running a hose from the water supply in the house, or from a garden faucet outside. This may give you much higher water flow than the kitchen sink.

So back to the problem of chilling the wort down to the chilling water temperature. The best way to accomplish this without using ice, is with larger surface area and agitation. Lets say you had a coil that was made from 50' copper tube (5/8") OD and about 3 feet were useless because they are the feed and waste water portions of the RCIC. Also, the water flow rate is 1.3 gpm at 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Area of coil= 50' - 3' = 47 ft
A= 47*(.625pi/12) = 7.7ft^2

T_2=50
mdot=(1.3gpm)*(231in/gal)/(1728in^3/ft^3)*(62.4lbs/ft^3) = 10.8 lbs/minute
(mdot is mass flow rate of water this time)

Lets also assume that you are down to 76 degrees Fahrenheit.
T_1= 76
Internal energy at @ T_2 is:
u_2 = 18 btu/lbm
T_1 (wort)
u_1= 44 btu/lbm

If we assume the RCIC is 100% efficient, it wil be removing this much heat per minute(Q_out is usually heat removed):

Q_out = m_dot(u_1-u_2)
Q_out = 10.8lbm/min (44btu/lbm-18btu/lbm)
Q_out = 280.8 Btu/min

Have you ever heard the term tons of cooling when hearing about AC units? A ton of cooling is 200 btu/min. Its pretty wild that a RCIC can chill at the rate of one ton with a mere differential temperature of 26 degrees.

This isnt fast enough though for 5 gallons of wort. (m=42lbm)
One degree in temperature change requires:
u @ 76 degrees: 42lbm*44btu/lbm = 1848 btu
u @ 75 degrees: 42lbm*43btu/lbm = 1806 btu

(its really one btu/lbm per degree at these temperatures)

So the energy needed to chill 5 gallons on degree is 1848 - 1806 = 42 btu/degree change of wort. If we are only able to exchange 280 Btu/minute with our 1.3 gpm flow rate, then we can find the temperature rate with those numbers:

Degrees/min = 280 Btu/min / 42 Btu/degree (Btu's cancel out and leave us with degrees/min)

=6.7 degrees / minute.

Not true, no? This is for a 100% efficiency assumption. You would have to stir your arss off, have 50ft^2 of area to achieve near perfect efficiency. This is food for thought. I figure I should jump on here take some numbers from real world, and talk about my lust for thrermodynamics.

Hail Purdue.
Click to expand...

WOW. Ummm... My mind is melting from that breakdown, but that is pretty awesome info. All I know is the last time I used mine, I got below pitch temp in less than 10 minutes. 50' 3/8 rib cage hooked up to the kitchen sink. Granted the water was coming out of the faucet @56 degrees F, but that was 10 minutes not touching anything but a beer. come summer it may take a bit longer, but i really dont think its gonna hurt me when summer water comes out about 65...

Slainte :mug:
 
charlope said:
I was thinking the way you were when I first started to gather my materials for the Rib Cage Immersion Chiller (RCIC). I had experience with a 50' coil IC and was somewhat impressed so I knew there had to be a better way so I designed my RCIC [See post 130]. I used 50' of 1/4 in ID copper tubing. Instead of having the cooling water travel through the same 50' I split it into parallel coils. I used the smaller diameter to take advantage of the heat transfer benefits and multiple paths to assist in the flow rate. The way that I maintain a larger flow rate is to have the input and output support a flow rate greater then the parallel coils combined. I was going to add a third path but my engineering judgment pulled me away from it, at this point Im balancing building and maintenance ease with performance (The classic engineers juggling act)

It works really well. 5 gallons from boiling to pitching temp in 7 minutes using a garden hose. of course I havent done experiments using other temp water hoses, just my own.

Im an engineer so things are never good enough, but I must come up with a working design(Better then the last). Just like my job pays me.

Good luck. Maybe you will come up with a simple better alternative.

Thats over 200deg down to 70deg in 7min. Thats OVER 18 deg a min, with NO wort agitation or stirring.
Click to expand...

YOU'RE AN ENGINEER! This is sweet! I just realized what equation is needed to map the cooling rate of the RCIC. Newton's law of cooling! We just need to plot the temp of wort at different points in time and take a logrythmic regression and we will have the exact plot of temp vs. time. Then, do what i did to determine rate of change in temp to compare it to ideal (100% efficiency) cooling and we can compare how efficient the IC's are. I dont have time right now, I have econ hw. I bet this will work. What do you say?
 
DarkNoonBrewer said:
YOU'RE AN ENGINEER! This is sweet! I just realized what equation is needed to map the cooling rate of the RCIC. Newton's law of cooling! We just need to plot the temp of wort at different points in time and take a logrythmic regression and we will have the exact plot of temp vs. time. Then, do what i did to determine rate of change in temp to compare it to ideal (100% efficiency) cooling and we can compare how efficient the IC's are. I dont have time right now, I have econ hw. I bet this will work. What do you say?
Click to expand...

Isn't it cool when we get to use something that we learned in the classroom? I'm an ECE guy, but I would really have liked to get an ME as well. Oh well.
 
Whoa....

I never thought my design would ever spark this kind of debate. I know I have said this in here before but I believe the reason the dual coil design cools faster than a single coil is more wort coverage.

P.S. I have contacted TxBrew about becoming a vendor and I may just build these and sell them here to anyone interested in using one of these, but not wanting to take the chance at kinking a $50 coil of copper tubing in the middle ;) I'm also looking at designing a very basic but highly ergonomic/intuitive grain crusher.

p.p.s. I'm a cell phone repair tech in case anyone wonders what I do for a living. ;)
 
If your going to produce this it would be good to market with the best design. Using 50ft of continuous copper might not offer enough performance gain to get people to buy this over the traditional one-loop design.

I know that making two loops work in parallel really brought my heat transfer efficiency up quite a bit. Just something to think about. If your going to go all the way, might as well do it right.

Good luck.

RedIrocZ-28 said:
Whoa....

I never thought my design would ever spark this kind of debate. I know I have said this in here before but I believe the reason the dual coil design cools faster than a single coil is more wort coverage.

P.S. I have contacted TxBrew about becoming a vendor and I may just build these and sell them here to anyone interested in using one of these, but not wanting to take the chance at kinking a $50 coil of copper tubing in the middle ;) I'm also looking at designing a very basic but highly ergonomic/intuitive grain crusher.

p.p.s. I'm a cell phone repair tech in case anyone wonders what I do for a living. ;)
Click to expand...
 
I really liked renthispace's take on the ribcage and decided to make my own. I live in Mississippi, so it's rare for us get water out of the faucet that is below 50*. We've had trouble with our cooling time in the past and having a pre-chiller seems like an elegant solution. It looks good at least, but the real test will come this weekend!
 
Quazado said:
I really liked renthispace's take on the ribcage and decided to make my own. I live in Mississippi, so it's rare for us get water out of the faucet that is below 50*. We've had trouble with our cooling time in the past and having a pre-chiller seems like an elegant solution. It looks good at least, but the real test will come this weekend!
Click to expand...

I too like the Pre-Chiller.

The Pre-chiller can be used for any immersion chiller setup though.
 
I finally got around to brewing this weekend. It only took about 7 minutes to get my 5.5 gallons down from boiling to 68 degrees with no stirring. I stirred after I removed the chiller to get a whirlpool and the temperature did not drop. I was pretty impressed at how evenly it cooled the wort. Instead of running two hoses from two separate hose bibs, I used a "Y" splitter at one hose bib and ran two hose lines into the chiller.




MW66 said:
Okay, my rib-cage chiller has a little different twist that I think will work well. I made two 25' coils and then connected them at the bottom. Instead of circulating water through the whole chiller, I thought why not take advantage of two cooling inlets that finally connect at the bottom and then out. I used 3/8" tubing, but I thought that it would work even better to use 1/2" where they join at the bottom and then to the outlet. I wasn't sure if the two water hose sources would be competing with their pressure to force water back up the other coil, so I figured that if I reduce the pressure at the outlet, certainly both would flow through each coil to the 1/2" "T" and then out the 1/2" outlet. Not, sure if it would have been an issue, but I figured that I couldn't hurt it by decreasing the pressure at the outlet. I haven't tried it, but it will be interesting to see how fast it cools. Also, with dual cooling coils both starting at the top, I could now solder the 3/8" inlets tubes together to stiffen them and not worry about heat transfer. I soldered them at both 90 degree fittings and once in the middle of the tubes. Give me your thoughts.


Chill1.jpg


Chill-2.jpg


Chill-3.jpg


Chill-4.jpg


Chill-5.jpg
Click to expand...
 
Good job! Im glad it worked out for you.

Why are you splitting the input like that? why didnt you have one hose connector that slit using a T splitter like you did on the output? The input flow is going to be restricted by T on the output, it'll act like a bottleneck.

Are you using a garden hose, splitting the garden hose into two and then connecting it to the two inputs?

9 minutes, good job. It is so much nicer having an immersion chiller that cools down really fast, isnt it!?!


MW66 said:
I finally got around to brewing this weekend. It only took about 9 minutes to get my 5.5 gallons down from boiling to 68 degrees with no stirring. I stirred after I removed the chiller to get a whirlpool and the temperature did not drop. I was pretty impressed at how evenly it cooled the wort. Instead of running two hoses from two separate hose bibs, I used a "Y" splitter at one hose bib and ran two hose lines into the chiller.
Click to expand...
 
charlope said:
Good job! Im glad it worked out for you.

Why are you splitting the input like that? why didnt you have one hose connector that slit using a T splitter like you did on the output? The input flow is going to be restricted by T on the output, it'll act like a bottleneck.

Are you using a garden hose, splitting the garden hose into two and then connecting it to the two inputs?

9 minutes, good job. It is so much nicer having an immersion chiller that cools down really fast, isnt it!?!
Click to expand...



I used larger diameter tubing and T on the output side. No restriction to worry about. Yes, I split the output source and ran 2 separate hoses. 7 minutes is definitely much faster than my previous IC, but Buffalo, NY water at this time of year is very cold as well. What I was most amazed at was the even chill that I got and didn't require any stirring.
 
First post, been lurking for a while...

Made mine today and yesterday. Used 50' of 1/2" refrigeration tubing, split into two coils and about 5' of additional 1/2" for the spouts. This thing dwarfs my brew kettle right now, since I'm only doing partial and extracts, but I'm hoping to get into a larger kettle and AG in the near future

Finding the tees and elbows was a bear, I finally found a HVAC wholesaler that would sell me the parts without a contractor's license. Formed everything by hand, which was a bear, and I haven't done any plumbing-type soldering in about 25 years. Water tested it just now, and am going to test with a kettle of boiling water. I also have to figure out some way to keep it standing upright on its own. Any suggestions appreciated.

Chiller1.png

Chiller2.png

Chiller3.png

Chiller4.png
 
Thanks for all the ideas fellow homebrewers, especially you RedIrocZ-28! This setup works perfectly for the 30qt turkey fryer pot.

Start by acquiring 50ft of 3/8" OD soft copper refrigerant pipe (coiled). You can un-slinky it (yes I know, very scientific terminology here) and find the location of the center point of the length of pipe. Once that is determined, start on one end of the pipe and coil it around a paint can (I was able to get enough coils from 25ft of the pipe to cover the entire surface area of the paint can. Once I got to the middle, I went to the other side, using either another paint can or the same one, start by coiling the pipe up again, except this time, go in the opposite direction as the first side (if you spun CCW on one side, go CW on the other, making sure the end of the pipe will both be on the top of bottom of the two coils when they are side by side. A good picture of this can be found on this youtube video posted by immolateus here.



Once that is done, take the two sections and mash them together, interlocking the coils. the straighten out enough length on both sides to create you input and output points (preferably outside of the brewpot). To make you life easier when doing this, you can use pipe benders (picture below)

DSC01346.jpg

DSC01348.jpg

To finish it off, I used 5/16" ID vinyl tubing (Lowes didn't have any 3/8" or else I would have used that) and then and connected two separate lengths of tubing to the two ends of the coil. On on tube, I affixed a nylon hose barb adapter WATTS A-300 and a hose adapter WATTS A-672.

DSC01347.jpg

All done! Thanks for the help guys!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Just wanted to say thanks for the idea. I'm making mine right now. I still gotta get the tubing bender to do the uprights. I bent mine around a paint can and it worked perfectly.

Edit: The picture was too big, so here is a link to it- http://imgur.com/0kgcO
 
Just an update. I had a brewing session on Father's Day, 6/19/11: It was a pretty hot day here and I wanted to see how it performed. It took my 6.5 gallons of wort from boiling to 70F in exactly 20 minutes. The last few degrees I just bumped my kettle only once or twice to just slightly agitate the wort. I didn't do any stirring of lifting of the IC. I was very happy with the results.
 
I have read thru this entire thread and I am inspired to make one myself. At LowesDepot the runs come in 20' and 50" runs. Now will a 20' be efficient to cool wort (extract brewer) to the desired pitching temp or should I just spring for the 50'??

Thanks for the idea's RedIroc!!
 
really interested as to how this design works, chill time/input temp/heighth of top coil. Seems like the exact thing I was thinking of.

jimmayhugh said:
First post, been lurking for a while...

Made mine today and yesterday. Used 50' of 1/2" refrigeration tubing, split into two coils and about 5' of additional 1/2" for the spouts. This thing dwarfs my brew kettle right now, since I'm only doing partial and extracts, but I'm hoping to get into a larger kettle and AG in the near future

Finding the tees and elbows was a bear, I finally found a HVAC wholesaler that would sell me the parts without a contractor's license. Formed everything by hand, which was a bear, and I haven't done any plumbing-type soldering in about 25 years. Water tested it just now, and am going to test with a kettle of boiling water. I also have to figure out some way to keep it standing upright on its own. Any suggestions appreciated.

Chiller1.png
Click to expand...
 
ACESFULL said:
Thanks for the reply. Got the 50' going to start the project sometime this week. Will post pics and details as I go. This is so much cheaper than buying IC from the LHBS...

Thanks All!!
Click to expand...

Went with the 50" and this was super simple to do. Thanks to all that posted instructions and or videos to assist us all. Here is the finished product.

IMG_3560.jpg
 
cliffhanger1821 said:
really interested as to how this design works, chill time/input temp/heighth of top coil. Seems like the exact thing I was thinking of.
Click to expand...

Well, I've used it several times now, and it's MUCH faster than an ice bath. My problem now is that my local cold water temp is starting to approach the low 80s (Las Vegas summers, don't ya know). I'm seriously considering using this as a pre-chiller in a cooler filled with ice water, and making a smaller one for my brew kettle, as this one is a little large for my 32q kettle.
 
RedIrocZ-28 said:
Guys, I have gotten some pretty good results with this new chiller design I made last week. I have done 2 brews with it thus far and the results are better than expected.

I used 22' of 3/8" Refrigeration tubing. I don't have pictures to show how I made it, so I will be as descript as possible.

I began by marking the center of the length of tubing. I then wrapped the tubing using a paint can to make the coils. I started at each end of the tubing and wrapped toward the marked center point. When I was done I had 2 opposing coils and 12" of straight tubing at the beginning end of each of the coils. Next I spread the coils apart a little and then meshed them together much in the same way you would do with your fingers like you are taught to pray when you are a little kid. After that I bent the straight ends so they went vertical and then bent the downturns so they would reach up, out of, and over the side of the pot.

Here is the finished product.
Feb21_0005.jpg


Feb21_0004.jpg



This will stand up high enough to reach out of a 7.5gal turkey fryer.

Feb21_0003.jpg


The results are kind of hard to believe but this was done with a timer last night so I have to just accept that I have created a fantastic chiller for next to nothing.

I chilled 5gal of wort from a boil to under 70* (67* to be exact) in just shy of13 minutes. I did immerse the pot in my sink, using the "spent" water to circulate a cold water bath around the pot. I also raised and lowered the cooler in the wort every few minutes to make sure that everything was stirred up nicely.
Click to expand...

Patent the design man!
 
Well, I've used my rib-cage chiller a few times now, and it works fine. My few complaints are that it takes up a lot of space in my kettle, can get in the way of late additions (I was making a chocolate milk stout, and a lot of the cocoa powder ended up on the chiller instead of the wort), and it's very difficult to stir the wort for whirlpooling.

So I went out and got another 50' of 1/2" tubing and built a new chiller that uses the dual spiral, but with a larger center to facilitate additions and stirring/whirlpooling:

NewChiller1_480.png
NewChiller2_480.png
NewChiller3_480.png



I also modified the old rib-cage design, and will now use it as a pre-chiller in a cooler of ice, since Las Vegas summer tap water temperatures average 85 degrees:

PreChiller_640.png



I'll let you know how it works.
 
I made this from 20' copper coil yesterday...

I have to warn anyone trying this that bending straightened copper tube is difficult to impossible! My hands are a bit raw (yes, gloves would have helped) and I kinked the tube in a few places (caught myself, so water still flows without leaks). I DID use a tube bender... it helped, but not a lot (and it's hard to get it around kinks... luckily I was able to get it off the tube.

Soldering was MUCH easier... I went for added expense with soldered and screwed fittings (there is a 3/8" MIP soldered copper connection that the Watts parts fit on).

The intake has a cheap 6' hose with quick disconnects that I'll leave in place. I'm not sure what to do for the out hose... the cheapo hoses can't take much for heat and I don't want to spend more on this one! I guess I can just line it up to feed onto the pavement.

Next time I would get two 10' (or two 20' for a 40' chiller) and solder a join between them at the bottom. That sounds like a good project for when my wallet feels better and I'm in need of a pre-chiller.
 
Huge props to this thread. Made my 50' rib cage this afternoon using a couple of paints cans and some patience. Probably took about 30 minutes to do all the bending. Didn't quite hit my midway point perfect, but it is by far close enough. Can't wait to give it a try!
 
malweth said:
I made this from 20' copper coil yesterday...

I have to warn anyone trying this that bending straightened copper tube is difficult to impossible! My hands are a bit raw (yes, gloves would have helped) and I kinked the tube in a few places (caught myself, so water still flows without leaks). I DID use a tube bender... it helped, but not a lot (and it's hard to get it around kinks... luckily I was able to get it off the tube.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...are you sure you bought soft copper refrigeration tubing? There are several different types of copper tubing and perhaps you bought the wrong kind? I picked up a 50' coil of 3/8" OD refrigeration tubing (Cambridge-Lee Industries, Inc. brand) from Lowes for $23 and it was very easy to work with and I didn't need a tube bender. I bent it around an empty 1-gallon cider jug and it took me like 15-20 minutes to make the whole interwoven structure. I unwound 25' from the coil and wrapped it around the cider jug by rolling it across the floor. Then I repeated the same process on the remaining 25', wrapping in the opposite direction. Using the clear glass jug made it simple because I could see the tubing as I rolled the jug across the floor, making sure I got the coils tight together.

When the whole thing was completed I noticed that I could compress it down quite a bit so I used some "paddle wire" I had on hand to tie the adjacent coils together. When I was done the whole structure was shorter and much more "solid" (no slinky effect when picking it up). However, when I was cleaning it in a boiling vinegar/water solution I realized that the paddle wire was made of iron and would probably rust/corrode which is obviously not desirable. So I took it all off, and in that short time of soaking in the vinegar solution it had already left dark marks on the copper. D'oh! So now I'm gonna go out and get some copper wire, because it was real nice when all the coils were lashed together.

Update: used the chiller for the first time a couple nights ago. I'm only doing 3.5 gallon boils and topping off to 5 gal in the fermenter, but it cooled that 3.5 gallons down to 70 degrees in about 10 minutes, holy crap! That sure beats waiting an hour and a half for it to cool down in an ice bath in the sink.
 

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