Heat Core for Cooling?

I was reading instructables today and saw a piece about making a ghetto AC from a Car Heat Core, pumping the Ice cold water thru it to a fan where it would pull all the air through the manifolds and creating a nice cold air.

I'm not much of a car guy, so I don't know if they are soldered or rather just one long piece of tubing.

If it is all one piece of copper or aluminum, I imagine there would be no lead solder the wort could come in contact with. If so, a new heat core might be neat to mess with since they're only about $27.

Figured I'd ask here in case anyone knew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heater_core
http://www.instructables.com/id/Portable-12V-Air-Conditioner---Cheap-and-easy!/

The one i replaced from a 300zx was copper tubing, however i didnt remove the cooling fins to see if it was one piece or multiple pieces soldered.

The vast majority of car heatercores are constructed of multiple thin copper tubes soldered to resivoirs at either end. They are pretty easy to identify:


However, a different style of heatercore that is generally not used (less efficient) consists of a single, long copper tube such as this:

I am fairly (like, 99%) certain that the 180* turns at the ends are soldred on though. Doesn't seem like it would be possible to assemble them otherwise.

EDIT: This is also why moonshine has such a bad reputation. They would use radiators assembled in the same fasion as the normal heatercores. Consequently, lots of lead, lots of death.

did you think about lead?

Thanks for cluing me in. I'll steer clear of using these. I wonder if you could find an RoHS-like compliant part that uses silver-bearing instead.

I actually saw somewhere some guy using one of these for his cooling...i can't remember details or where it was though

Someone used them as prechillers but not in direct contact with wort. Waste of time IMHO.

they'd be useable as a pre-chiller...but i wouldn't use them for anything that touched wort

if they diddn't have lead you could use them in a cooler for a draught box... Any way to get them lead free?

I think you could use it as a closed system immersion chiller. heater core in ice water pump water through immersion chiller out to core and back.

car nut chiming in....

hondas and a few other cars use plastic end tanks on their raditors, I don't think there is any lead solder

also intercoolers for turbos may work as well....you would have to be picky with your selection as they are meant to have air pass through them. the passages are typically a lot thinner, maybe too thin. But most intercoolers are solid aluminum.

I have been using a heater core as a wort chiller for the last 10 or so batches.. I'm not dead yet.. Now that I have gone to 10 gallon batches, it's just not large enough to be effective. Soon I will be building the standard-issue copper tubing chiller for my 15 gallon keg/pot/fermenter. The heater core worked great for 5 gallon batches... got 'er from flame out to 80 degrees in 15 minutes in August. Not bad for ~$25.

so why not just use two of them in series for 10 gallons batches?

Lead poisoining isn't an instant killer ya know, it kinda creeps up on you.

Seriously. Wort leaches lead from the solders, regardless. It is not an instant death, but something that builds up over time.


Here's an actual case of someone using a radiator in a still. There were 8 hospitalizations, resulting in one death and several requiring 2-18 days for recovery.

http://homedistiller.org/wiki/index.php/Safety#Lead_Poisoning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning

ByranZ, Do you have any links to those parts? It might be worth looking at.

ClutchDude said:

ByranZ, Do you have any links to those parts? It might be worth looking at.

Click to expand...

http://www.car-stuff.com/carparts/hondaaccord19941997replacementp14941.html

the top and the bottom are plastic, the actual core is solid aluminum, it's a pretty decent size radiator on this


http://www.nolimitmotorsport.com/koyo/
a nice all aluminum aftermarket radiator



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercooler
an intercooler...but if you look at the passage for the air to pass through, it may be too thin for wort