HERMS question, coil size

[hillhousesawdustco]

I'm finally getting around to putting the HEX coil in my HLT. On a lot of the newer builds I see these giant, long coils of 1/2 or 3/8 inch copper/stainless....how much are ya'll using successfully?

I'm planning, unless there is good reason not to, to simply cannibalize my old 25 ft, 3/8" immersion chiller and using it for the coil inside my keggle. The keggle is heated with a 5500w uld element, the pump is a march 809. I'm not concerned with being able to REALLY quickly raise the temperature of the mash, but I certainly want to be able to do so in some reasonable amount of time.

Thanks for any input, especially from anybody that has a similar setup!

 

[moparx12]

that should be fine. I am building mine with ~20 ft of 1/2" soft copper. Also, copper is a much better heat conductor than stainless ~ 20x better thermal conductivity. I am assuming your immersion chiller is copper.

 

[moparx12]

that is of course pure copper compared to SS. copper tubing probably has other metals alloyed in.

 

[microbusbrewery]

I use 10 feet of 1/2" copper in a standalone heat exchanger and it works pretty well. The heat exchanger is a 2 gallon Rubbermaid cooler with a 1500 watt element. Mine is a five gallon system and I can typically raise the temp about 1 degree Fahrenheit per minute. It's not as fast as a lot of direct fired systems, but it's not horrible either. So 25' of 3/8" should be plenty long for efficient heat transfer but it might restrict the flow more than you want. I'd probably shoot for 10-20 feet of 1/2".

 

[audger]

remember longer does not equal "better". 10 or so feet of 1/2" is plenty.

 

[scottland]

I used 20' of 1/2" in my small HEX, and it works fine.

 

[hillhousesawdustco]

Thanks a bunch for the input, sounds like it is a go!