Maximum viable brew volume for immersion chiller

Hi all

I'm trying to determine the maximum size of a brew where an immersion chiller is viable. I build double coil immersion chillers on the side, and the largest I have built has been for a 15 gallon brew pot, and it works extremely well with about 140' of 3/8" coil.

Now I have a request for a chiller for a 50gallon brew. I've worked out that I can easily build one, using 300' of 3/8" (it's very expensive though).

What I am concerned about is whether this is a viable method of cooling for batch this size. To me a counterflow is a better and cheaper solution.

Any thoughts on this?

Hmm I would agree that counterflow is the better way to go, but if it needs to be an immersion chiller then I would make sure that you are recirculating the 50 gallons while you cool, and that you can actually get a decent flow rate through 300' of 3/8" tubing. You may have to go up to 1/2". I built a gardenhose/3/8" copper counterflow chiller and it works well on my 5 gallon and 10 gallon batches.

After a certain length of piping, you are just pushing the heated water through. I would imagine that a larger diameter piping would be a better option than a longer one. I am not basing this off of any real world experience.

Also, you are using 140' long IC for 15 gallon batches?! I use 50' for 10 gallon batches and am chilled in 7-10 minutes.

bknifefight said:

Also, you are using 140' long IC for 15 gallon batches?! I use 50' for 10 gallon batches and am chilled in 7-10 minutes.

Click to expand...

Is this 3/8". I find that hard to believe that you do 7-10 minutes with 50' for 10 gallons, unless your domestic water supply comes from the arctic. Even in the middle of winter our domestic supply rarely goes lower than 18 degrees C (in Summer its about 25 degrees C), and without a prechiller it's almost impossible to get the wort below 22 degrees C in a reasonable time. a 50' 3/8"chiller does 5 gallons in about 20 minutes at best.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind. You will lose efficiency as you increase length. At some point it will be better to use 2 or more coils in parallel. As to using 1/2 inch tube instead, smaller diameter coils will be more efficient as the surface area to crossectional area is larger, more coils in parellel with the same total corss-section will be better.

At some point (probably at about 1 bbl) I think the approach to brewing should change. Some things work well in a home brew setup that don't work quite so well on a larger scale. At sizes over 1 bbl I would suggest a plate chiller (not the brazed type used by home brewers, but the type used by pros which come apart for yearly cleaning). It will take a long time to cool a larger volume of wort, with a plate chiller you can keep the kettle boiling (to keep DMS off gassing) and then go directly to your fermenter.

SimonB said:

Is this 3/8". I find that hard to believe that you do 7-10 minutes with 50' for 10 gallons, unless your domestic water supply comes from the arctic. Even in the middle of winter our domestic supply rarely goes lower than 18 degrees C (in Summer its about 25 degrees C), and without a prechiller it's almost impossible to get the wort below 22 degrees C in a reasonable time. a 50' 3/8"chiller does 5 gallons in about 20 minutes at best.

Click to expand...

It is 3/8". I am also recirculating the wort while running the chiller. This helps out a lot. Letting your chiller just sit there without the wort moving (even a simple stirring would help A LOT) is going to take forever.