any last minute advice before i build my chiller ?

gonna build my IC tomorrow. if you got any pics, tricks, or other advice please chime in now. i wanted to build it with a 8 gal pot in mind knowing it will be too big for my 5.5gal pot right now. i have 50ft of 1/2 OD copper tubing and one male and one female connection....

 

Just make sure your connections are outside the pot so if they leak they don't leak into the pot. I put a slight bend down at the ends where you put the connections. if they leak, they won't run down the pipe and back into the wort, they will leak back toward the hoses.

 

...or just make your copper connections without any leaks. People sweat water lines for inside of homes everyday. They don't put the connections outside just in case they leak someday...

On the other hand, any copper to hose connections should be off to the side of the kettle, because those can and likely will leak at one time or another. Don't let a leak scare you, though. If you're sweating the joints, as I think you should, just take your time, clean very well, make clean cuts, and flux, flux, flux....

I actually made my chiller with a step in the bottom to clear the filter that runs across the bottom of the pot out of the spigot.

 

thanks for the input ! how much room should i leave between coils ? how much room from the sides of the pot ? is a double coil ok ???

 

I made an IC with only 20' of 3/8" tubing immersed that can take 5gals to pitching temps in 17 minutes with the pot sitting on the counter. My design was a dual "interwoven" coil setup. I got mine to have coils close to the edge of the pot as well as spaced evenly throughout the pot. Coils are about 1" apart.

 

Head over to the DIY section here at HBT - I think Bobby_M even had a video posted making a homemade chiller. So far my homemade chiller is one of my most useful pieces of homebrew equipment. I like the setup RedIroc has - simple but looks effective!

 

I do not know if anyone else has tried this, but instead of wrapping the coils around something, I used the inside of a bucket to form my coils. Make sure this fits inside your pot though (obviously). I used the Bobby_M 3/8 90s (yes, 3/8) rather than bending, and the 5/8 hose fitting to barb fitting drilled out with a 1/2" bit. Soldered everything together. I also took apart some 14g romex, and wound that around the coils (woven, weaved?) in and out and soldered the top and bottom. It is a lot less flexy that way, but still allows for some expansion and contraction.

 

fun ! i used a corny keg for mold. was gonna post pics but i am not allowed ? do i no t have the right membership for that ?

 

I've sweat miles of cooper pipe over the years and I find the Mapp (yellow can) gas works better for the smaller jobs. I also use a damp towel to take a swipe around the fitting to smooth things out.

 

I'm not a member yet, and I've posted pics. There is a button that should allow you to link to a picture on a server. Oh, yeah, you have to have your picture hosted somewhere first. I think members can host pictures on this site, others have to use a different host.

Making stuff is fun, yeah?

 

Here's mine. It's simple, no soldering necessary.

I wrapped it around a coffee tin for the shape.

 

Nebuch-

That's exactly the kind of immersion chiller I aspire to put together. What length is that, and what's the OD of the copper? You just bent it by hand?

 

that looks like 3/8" OD, I just made one yesterday similiar to that but with sweated joints on the end. They sell a set of springs at Lowes for $8 , used to bend the copper. It was easy enough and they help keep the copper from kinking.

 

Yup, that looks like 3/8" OD which is respectable for 5 gallon full boils. Anything more than that and I'd go 1/2".

 

I'm just curious why go with the 1/2"? you would think that the 3/8" inch would be more effecient at transfering heat from wort to copper to water going out.

 

I guess this is where we get into a discussion about cooling efficiency and to that extent you have to clarify if you want to cool faster or with less water. Faster? Large tube diameter, longer length, faster flow. Ultimately it presents a lot more water/wort surface area than 3/8 would. Less water? 3/8" diameter, longer tube, slower flow.

 

Unfortunately, the change from 3/8" to 1/2" isn't quit so simple.

What you must remember, is that with larger tube (say 1/2" vs. 3/8"), you're sacrificing length in favor of diameter, because simply put, you cannot fit as much 1/2" tubing in the same pot as you can 3/8" tubing.

For example, if you consider a 10" high stack of 8" coils, you would in effect have about 678.5 square inches of cooling surface with 48' of 3/8" tubing, whereas, your surface area would only be about 629 square inches with the 33' of 1/2" which would take up the same space. This is because you can fit only about 16 coils in the same 10" height as you can fit 23 coils of 3/8" tubing (assuming a 1/8" gap between tubing for increased cooling).

With such a nominal change in actual surface area, I'd love to see a side-by-side comparison to verify the impact of varying the flow rate.

 

First rule:

Make sure it is as handsome as the rest of your equipment.

 

Heat transfer coefficient - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That should explain in clear as mud terms.

Bottom line is this, get as much surface area inside the pot as you can, and space the coils so that they are not too close to eachother. There is no point in trying to cool wort thats already been cooled by the coil above/below it, and the one above that. etc. Hence the reason for my "rib-cage" design, even horizontal and vertical coil distribution.

 

I know what you're getting at and it's a fun exercise to think about but it usually is that simple. I don't know anyone that trims down their 50' coil because they couldn't fit it all in the pot. If your chiller had to be 10" x 8" diameter, the pot is tiny and you don't really need all that chilling capacity anyway.

 

my 1/2" IC is the Sh!t I've used it twice and was able to cool to 70 in 8 minutes, I'm making one modification to bobby_M's design I'm adding a ball valve on the in side of the chiller to control the water flow. (pics to be posted when its done)

 

The point is, you can fit a lot more 3/8" tubing in any size pot than you can 1/2" tubing. Though the 1/2" tubing has more surface area per foot, if you can't fit enough feet, the 3/8" tubing will still result in greater overall surface area.

I used an 8" coil diameter and a 10" coil stack for simple comparison. Though I bet most chillers won't vary from that much if you went and measured a few. For most 36 qt pots (9 gal) which are pretty common, an 8 or 9 inch coil diameter will put you roughly 3 inches from the walls of your pot. 10 inches tall will put you just below the surface after a 6 or 7 gal boil has decreased to your 5-5.5 final boil volume.

 

Well it's too early to do the math, but what I was thinking was really in terms of the ratio of copper to water flowing through it at any point in time. You would think that with 3/8" copper , the ratio of copper to water in the line is higher , therefore there is greater heat exchange from copper to water flowing out. Am I incorrect in thinking this. If bigger was better wouldnt we be seeing bigger pipes running through car radiators?

 

i know from working on cars that flow rate is just as important as heat transfer. if the water flows through too fast it does not have a chance to do its job. i think to split hairs on which chiller is more efficient would take some good apple to apple testing. 90 degree bends in the pipe restrict flow too. i also bet if you have an aerator on your kitchen sink spigot the amount of air in the water would also affect heat transfer.

 

Yup you're right that's why we have thermostats installed in a car's cooling system. That kinda supports what my thinking is on the bigger pipes in a chiller. It would seem that if you are gonna go with the 1/2", you would want to throttle down the water flow, so that heat transfer is more efficient. When using the 3/8", it would seem heat transfer to a bit more efficient because of the restricted low flow.

 

It's meaningless to speak generally about efficiency if you don't clarify speed or water use.

The faster you flow the water, the faster you chill but the more water you use. The reason it's faster is that the temperature delta remains the highest at all times, even the water that is just about to be ejected. If you want to use less water, you want to slow the flow down or keep it in contact with the tubing longer by making the tubing longer.

You could say that if your goal is to save as much water as possible, 3/8 x 50' would be good because the water coming out is going to pretty well close to the wort temp. If you want to chill fast, 1/2" x 50 would be better and you'd use a bit more water.

It doesn't really need to be this complicated again because the price difference is $5.

 

You cannot compare 50' of 1/2" to 50' of 3/8" is my point. It's more like 30 or 40' of 1/2" in the same space as 50' of 3/8"... that's where the tricky math comes in.

 

i'll tell you what. my 50' 1/2 OD chiller took a flame out wort to 70 degrees in 15 min flat. who cares ? it seems like they are all overkill for a 5 gallon boil.

 

Ok, I'll concede that if your pot is small enough that you have to make a choice between 30' of 1/2" and 50' of 3/8, it's probably a wash.

I think it's an impractical exercise though because if your pot size is the limiting factor, you wouldn't have really needed 50' of 1/2" anyway. However, since I noted that 1/2" is $5 more, you'd be better off building a 50 footer anyway, even if 4-5 coils stuck out above the wort so that when you upgrade to a bigger pot, you're not rebuilding.

Wanna talk about overkill? I pumped 11 gallons of wort through my plate chiller into my fermenters as fast as the March pump would push it and it only took 4.5 minutes. The output temp was 58F. I love winter brewing.

 

What the... wait a minute!

You mean to tell us that the man who posted "the" definitive how-to-build for Immersion chillers...

the man who convinced me that I too could sweat copper,

the man who single handedly put coppertubingsales.com on the internet... (well, that one might be a stretch)

Uses a... a... PLATE CHILLER!!??!!

That's hilarious.

 

Let's not get too crazy now.. I've used all three types of chillers now and I think they all have merit. Let's just say I wanted to round out my chiller experience and I just happen to be on my plate chiller learning phase.