Triple Coil Immersion Chiller - with pics

Hi,
I have had this idea in my head for a 6 months.
I have had a pile of copper and fittings laying around for about 4.
Last night it all came together.

My previous double coil chiller, now with by EBIAB element shelf, rose above the wort a bit too much for my liking, so I made a triple coil chiller with more copper lower to maximize the cooling for 6.5 gallon batches.
The other reason I wanted this was to maximize cooling when I switch over to my ice bucket and recirculating pump to get wort down to lager pitch temps, 40's that is.

With about 6.5 gallons in my EBIAB kettle, there is only about 5" of wort above the stainless element shelf ( false bottom like ) so I designed this to get as much copper in the wort as possible.
With an 11 gallon batch the taller inner coil will help out.

I bought a role 3/8" of copper at HD then found the inner coil on CL for cheap, unwound it, then wound it to my design and merged the 2 roles into 3 coils.

I spent HOURS bending, cussing, re-bending, dry fitting, cutting, bending, cussing, cutting my hands and getting frustrated over a couple months.
Then I finally got it all together, dry fit, pulled it apart, cleaned/fluxed/re-assembled then soldered.
One coil flows one way top-down, the other 2 flow bottom up, depending of course which side supply water goes in.

NO LEAKS under pressure... could not believe it.

I dont think I ever saw a triple coil so I thought I would share.

I will post some test results soon, I would guess 6.5 gallons, stirred as cooling, with winter time water temps, would go from boiling to 60's in under 5 minutes.

thanks Kevin

Enjoy the PICS -
Last Pic is of my double coil chiller next to my new triple.

Edit - results posted on next page.

Looks like a lot of cooling capacity, assuming your water supply can keep up!

But any decrease in cooling time will be negated by the additional cleaning time for all those coils

Looks great !

Wow , now that's a cooler, well done.

So long as you have the volume in the pot for the cooler and the wort !

yup , I have real envy here.

Nicely done! I like it!

ryan_george said:

Looks like a lot of cooling capacity, assuming your water supply can keep up!

But any decrease in cooling time will be negated by the additional cleaning time for all those coils

Click to expand...

I have a 1/2" line plumbed next to my kettle with full port valve to supply this.
Hopefully it will be enough, house regulator is set to 65 pounds.

If that does not work I will have to run a 3/4 line with no regulation... about 100 psi

Cleaning chillers is easy... quick rinse and damp sponge will take most of crud off in a minute... Boiling it before chilling takes care of the rest.
That is why I am using a chiller, ease of use, also I can switch it over easily to run with my ice bucket/recirculating pump.

thanks for Kevin

Your regular house PSI should be plenty to feed this thing. The addition of a whirlpool arm for re-circulation would make this thing the bomb.

Son-of-a-...........!

Nice!
Sans a whirlpool. how ya' gonna' get in there and stir it, with a pot full of copper in the way?

?? I don't whirlpool till it's cold and the cooler is out !

fartinmartin said:

?? I don't whirlpool till it's cold and the cooler is out !

Click to expand...

You can do that to help with creating a trub cone, but what Stealth is asking is since there's so much darn copper in the pot, how's he gonna get some motion going on in the pot to aid in speedy cooling.

rgauthier20420 said:

You can do that to help with creating a trub cone, but what Stealth is asking is since there's so much darn copper in the pot, how's he gonna get some motion going on in the pot to aid in speedy cooling.

Click to expand...

Next plan is to put together my stir motor with homade prop to aid in cooling.

Also - This triple cooler is no bigger than my double was, inside, I used a big spoon with it and the spoon created plenty of cooling/whirling to move the wort around and help cool very quickly.

But to your point it will be tight stirring with all that copper.

thanks Kevin

With the efficiency he is going to get with that thing he won't need to ! There will be so much convection going on, it will be turbulent in there.
That's the way to man
Obviously the cooler has to be at the top of the brew ! Not sat on the bottom.

I fired it up tonight.
It went from boiling to 58F in 8 minutes, with 12.5 gallons of water.
Boiling to 150 in a minute.
The supply water was 53.
Temps measured were from the PID, below the false bottom, below the chiller as shown in the pics.
It worked very well...better than I expected.
I stirred the water with a big spoon in the center and rocked the chiller a bit off and on through the 8 minutes.

Hi All,
Another update, tested with actual wort this time.

It was a 6.5 gallon batch but still with impressive results.
With some quick change over cam lock hoses I can go from tap water to recirculated ice water and get down to Lager temps in minutes.

It got this batch to 44 with no effort.
To say this works well would be an understatement.

thanks Kevin

Awesome!