Immersion Chilling with Keggle Batches

Having a keggle welded up for me, hopefully before New Years, so I don't have it to measure yet. Looking to buy an Immersion Chiller (not interested in the extra cleaning or storage requirements of other chillers) in the 1/2" x 50' size, perhaps 3/8" x 50'. The problem is, I'm having trouble determining if they'll be full immersed into the liquid.

What is the wort depth at flameout on a 5 gallon full boil in a keggle? I want to know how tall I can of an IC I can buy with it still being fully immersed in the wort.

Or instead, should I be transferring it to some other vessel for chilling? If I keep it in the keggle, I'm chilling the entire mass of steel that makes up the keggle in addition to the wort.

The wort level isnt that high, 1/3 of the way up since a half barrel keg is 15.5 gallons. If you are doing 50', imo the best way is to split it into 2 separate chillers. There are many designs on here for the 'interwoven' ones. (You can still have one cold water inlet, then it splits into 2, then you can join again for the hot discharge water.) I think that 2 25' in parallel is more efficient than one 50' run. Btw, im not an engineer, so take this with that in mind.

bucfanmike said:

The wort level isnt that high, 1/3 of the way up since a half barrel keg is 15.5 gallons. If you are doing 50', imo the best way is to split it into 2 separate chillers. There are many designs on here for the 'interwoven' ones. (You can still have one cold water inlet, then it splits into 2, then you can join again for the hot discharge water.) I think that 2 25' in parallel is more efficient than one 50' run. Btw, im not an engineer, so take this with that in mind.

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This is all probably true, and things I had considered before. Very good advice for most brewers, I'm sure. I'm in a slightly different situation, though.

I had originally planned to make my own out of copper tubing off eBay, until I realized I'll be storing it either in my wood shed or hanging from a porch rafter. I'd rather go stainless since it's possible that it will be exposed to the elements. There's a good chance it could get very green between batches if it were copper. Scrubbing off oxides is not my idea of a good time.

There's no way I'm going to be able to source, buy, and bend 1/2" stainless for less money and frustration than buying one pre-made. For example:

NY Brewing Supply: 3/8" x 50' stainless w/ hoses and fittings, $67. Link.
Stainless Brewing: 1/2" x 50' stainless w/o hoses or fitting, $99. Link.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any concentric type stainless chillers like you describe. Before deciding on stainless, I had drawn up plans to make my own convoluted design similar to the ones sold by JaDeD Brewing (Link) by building a PVC-and-wood wrapping jig. (I may still do that, and produce a writeup on it)

Bump.

Anybody know of 50' stainless ICs (3/8" or 1/2") that are split either into parallel or concentric designs?

Contacted NY Brewing Supply hoping that had 1/2" x 50' stainless model, hopefully split or concentric. No luck.

Looks like Stainless Brewing is the only ones making 1/2" stainless chillers. Guess they'll get my money by default. :\

I do 10 gallon batches in a keggle, with a 50 Immersion chiller I purchaed from Morebeer.com.

The chiller comes tightly coiled, no room for wort to pass between the coils.

I pulled every other coil about an inch out, this has the effect of making a simple rib cage design.

It works great, all the coils are immersed below the wort, with my automatic stirrer I made from a cordless drill, this chills the 10 gallons down to 65 degrees in 30 minutes, below 140 degrees in 10 minutes.

Grossy said:

I do 10 gallon batches in a keggle, with a 50 Immersion chiller I purchaed from Morebeer.com.

The chiller comes tightly coiled, no room for wort to pass between the coils.

I pulled every other coil about an inch out, this has the effect of making a simple rib cage design.

It works great, all the coils are immersed below the wort, with my automatic stirrer I made from a cordless drill, this chills the 10 gallons down to 65 degrees in 30 minutes, below 140 degrees in 10 minutes.

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Do you have a picture of that stirrer? Curious now.

thadius856 said:

Do you have a picture of that stirrer? Curious now.

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Simplest thing ever, I made it during my last brew during the mash. I will try and get a picture up tomorrow.

It's amazing what you can do with an electric screw driver.

Grossy said:

It's amazing what you can do with an electric screw driver.

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Hope you mean drill/driver or even drill. Electric screwdriver wouldn't get you very far.