Blichmann Hopblocker and Immersion Chiller

Hi all,

I've been following the forum for a while but new to adding to it myself!

I recently had to solve an problem that I couldn't find a good solution for and thought I would share my creation.

I have a 10G Blichmann boilermaker and just received a new hopblocker for Xmas. I had a 10 inch diameter 50 foot 1/2 inch copper coil immersion chiller which I built that provided excellent chilling capability but would no longer fit into the boil kettle without sitting on top of the hop blocker. Not only did I just not like this, but half the coil would hang out of the top of the wort and I could not easily access the hopblocker to slide the screen up.

I know there are many opinions on other cooling options, but for me I wanted to stay with an immersion chiller due to the simplicity, rapid chilling of the whole batch at once and clog free operation without brew bags (I love my hoppy beers).

So I created a dual coil immersion chiller from 50 feet of 3/8 inch copper tubing with two 5.5 inch diameter coils instead. I did this by wrapping half the coil at a time around a 4lb jar of PBW and then placed flare fittings on the ends to add garden hose fittings. This chiller fits nicely into the pot and I can easily access the hopblocker screen to lift it. To help boost the chilling capacity I added a third copper tube output to make it a whirlpool chiller. I also added a small copper support spring to brace it against the top of the pot so the weight of the hoses doesn't pull it out of position and there are a couple SS hose clamps to hold it all together.

I can chill a rolling boil of 6 gallons down to 140F (to get under DMS production) in 90 seconds with this setup using the whirlpool. However my ground water is also very cold in the winter, around 50F.

Hope this helps provide a solution to those out there looking for a similar solution to this problem.

Happy brewing...

I solved this problem in a slightly different way. I coiled the bottom coils around a paint can and the upper coils around a keg. As you can see, the upper coils rest atop the hopblocker. I almost did exactly what you did but for cleaning I liked the idea of just plopping it into a standard bucket to soak.

Did you manage to get dimensions that would fit into a bucket? If not, how will you clean it?

Beautiful job by the way. It's gorgeous.

Thanks Mtn_Brewer,

That's a great idea for a design as well. I would imagine you would also have a better whirlpool effect with that design since it's shape is more "circular" in terms of not resisting the whirlpool flow like mine does.

For me I always clean my chiller in the brew kettle itself. After I'm done, I flush out the hop and break material and then fill the kettle with my captured hot water from the chiller and add my PBW right into there. Then scrub the chiller and kettle at the same time with my carboy brush and recirculate for a while to keep my kettle nice a shiny.

But yes you are right, this design does not fit in a standard brew bucket. The diameter of both coils was almost the same at the top of my plastic brew bucket when I checked it tonight. Perhaps a slightly smaller coil diameter, say 4.5 - 5 inches would fix this to make it fit into a bucket.