20' works fine. I end up with 19' after cutting the six 2" sections for the fittings. which also works out great because you need about 6in extra on each end for the hot line to extrude out from.
I have made them as short as 15'... you just have to adjust the flow rates of the liquids.
Quick look at hooking it all up.
Garden hose adapter for the kitchen sink faucet.
A garden hose barb connertor for the cold water input line
attach cold water line to the barbed a connector on the CFC
attach a spent water output and run it back to the sink to drain.
Slip the hot wort...
I use copper CFC on a gravity fed system. It usually takes about 5-7 minutes to get a 5 gal batch from full boil to 75 degree. The project runs are $90 to build. 1 hour +/- to build
Quick heads up-
a. There is sweating of the pipes and soldering involved. If you have never soldered copper...
Here is mine. Pretty simple- normal cpu fan, hard drive magnet, cheap plastic box and control knob from radio shack. The only thing that sets mine aside is the funky sticker I pinched out of my sons video game :)
Used a weldless bulkhead fitting. Very easy to find on the internet.. pic below.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/catalogsearch/result/?q=weldless+bulkhead
I use Muslin bags for the hops. Have not needed to filter so far.
Yeah man; currently my setup is gravity fed.
Normal operation I will have the kettle on the countertop; the CFC slightly below the kettle-(w/ a ball valve) and the carboy (or bucket) on the floor. Adjust the flow rate of the wort so the output wort temp is in the ballpark to recieve the yeast.
Ah I guess I did not point the flow out... I have an adapter for my kitchen faucet that I attach a barbed fitting that carries the cold water via normal run of the mill tubing;to the cold (large tube) input on the CFC. I use high temp thermo tubing for the hot liquid (small tube)input to the...
If I was the college type I would say this thread made me ready for a thesis paper on the pros and cons of the secondary! Thanks everyone for the input; I'm a new brewer and this thread was very helpful.
:off:I noticed there are a handful of biker/brewers... I re-furbished a wicked 68'...