Stainless shell and tube for chilling

Found these on eBay and wondering if any has use these for brewing? I have some people use custom copper ones with PVC, just no mention of these all stainless ones.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/262110805629

It definitely looks like a heat exchanger. I dont see how it would be more efficient than a plate chiller or CFC, which can be had for $100 less.

I want one of these, not that I think it will work for anything, just want it part of my rig, for cool factor.

I would polish it of course.


>>>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/Refrigeration-Heat-exchanger-Copper-7-5-HP-BH750-Refrigeration-Research-Unused/400694790996?_trksid=p2047675.c100010.m2109&_trkparms=aid%3D555012%26algo%3DPW.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D35829%26meid%3D700edae550804a93a1625caa3cd93b3e%26pid%3D100010%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D20%26sd%3D262110805629




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Actually think this one would work and is 125
http://m.ebay.com/itm/55K-BTU-316L-...3D262110805629&_trksid=p2056116.c100408.m2460

Probably will not clog like a plate, and maybe more efficient than a stainless CFC?

I ordered the following heat exchanger.

http://r.ebay.com/e7z5gS

I currently have a chillzilla copper CFC and a stainless CFC, so if I can find the time, I can do an experiment and compare. I just got the stainless CFC off CL, so have not compared it to the copper one.

Current plan is to use this for my herms and chilling. I been using my copper herms coil for 5 years and have been looking at changing to stainless. If this exchanger works, will be one less piece to buy and clean in brew day.

Just be careful that welds/soldering etc. is done with stainless and not something with lead or something else bad in it. These things are designed for boilers and not food applications.

CUrchin said:

Just be careful that welds/soldering etc. is done with stainless and not something with lead or something else bad in it. These things are designed for boilers and not food applications.

Click to expand...

was just going to chime in about this. there are several of these at my work (milk company) that are much larger and none of them are product contact. all are for cip or hot water set

Was thinking about that this am, asking the manufacturer. Hope I did not just waste 120

If this wasn't made for potable water or for food application, there is a good chance the welds / solder aren't food safe. Also, those welds are not sanitary so it may be quite difficult to clean and sanitize.

I did ask another seller of a similar product and they said it was food safe

If these are truly 316 SS, don't even worry about lead based means of joining any of the components. If solder is used, it will be silver based.

following, this look like they will work great. obviously stainless isn't as good at heat exchange as copper but i don't see how this can be worse that then stainless CFC chillers.

I looked into these heat exchangers a while ago, but unfortunately they weren't able have custom fittings made such as triclover instead of those huge threaded ports.

There's also these:

http://stilldragon.com/index.php/2-long-product-shotgun.html

http://stilldragon.com/index.php/condensers-conp3l1.html

Let us know how well it works once you get it.

I called the manu. He said no problems. All stainless welds, no lead at all. Pretty nice company. Will post my results

Can they do custom pieces?

Did not ask, but when I called, no automated prompts, when right to a human being. I bet you could ask them. If these work well, be a great market for them to get into

Are the internal convoluted tubes welded or soldered?

Welded, he said no solder

Showed up today. Looks well constructed. Giving it a soak to clean any machine oils out of it. I order some 3m lead test pens to verify there is none in there.

Wish I order the larger ones as I am going to mount horizontally and have the room for it. Will look nice mounted in the front if my stand.

Hope to get to test this weekend, will report findings, but thinking about it, then inner tubes are probably 18" long, there are 19 of them, so the gives a linear length of say 28 ft. They are twisted, so there is turbulent flow. I am hopeful it will work.
Edit: internal tubes are 16, Still 25 linear ft

Can't wait to hear how this turns out. I'd expect it to clog really easily and perform no better than an IC for the size, but I love to be proven wrong!

Can't wait to find a suitable replacement for my plate chiller. Love the performance but it clogs too easily.

Do not think it will clog on my setup. I use a 300 micron hop spider for hops and a 28x28 mesh hop taco around my dip tube. I get zero hop debris in my carboy.

Either way, the tubes are my 1/4", I bet they could handle a lot

milldoggy said:

Do not think it will clog on my setup. I use a 300 micron hop spider for hops and a 28x28 mesh hop taco around my dip tube. I get zero hop debris in my carboy.

Either way, the tubes are my 1/4", I bet they could handle a lot

Click to expand...

With that level of filtration i suspect you'll be ok. I swore off the hop spider a few years ago due to poor utilization and flavor and i've been happy with the decision, but now i end up clogging a lot more, which sucks.

Have you run any performance tests with it yet?

No, kids and work will prevent me from trying this week

I used 5 3m lead test pens, all negative. I feel safe about using it. No test runs yet, but I plumbed it. Working in how I will mount it. Think I will mount in a board and wing nut it to my stand so I can remove it for easy draining. Pic below was just testing the idea.

Pic

View attachment 1457578214999.jpg

It will be interesting to see how fast this things cools and how easy it is to clean afterwords.

Test run underway. I used some multi position pins to attach the chiller to my stand. Will make removing it easy.

View attachment 1457957896838.jpg

I am first testing this as a replacement for my herms coil.

First observation. Flow. This thing is is fast. Twice as fast as flowing through my 50 ft 1/2 copper coil. I think to fast. Will probably need to throttle it down for better heat transfer. Letting it run full throttle for the first run though

As a herms tube, it is pretty good, a tad slower than running my submerged herms coil. I think it has to do with the air temp. It seems to be losing some heat in the tube. I be some insulation will help.

Here is my chart. 13 gallons in hlt, 8 in mash.

View attachment 1457963523789.jpg

milldoggy said:

I am first testing this as a replacement for my herms coil.

First observation. Flow. This thing is is fast. Twice as fast as flowing through my 50 ft 1/2 copper coil. I think to fast. Will probably need to throttle it down for better heat transfer. Letting it run full throttle for the first run though

Click to expand...

I see you have a CFC, any reason not using that as a HERMS replacement.....or were you using the CFC as a HERMS originally?

milldoggy said:

As a herms tube, it is pretty good, a tad slower than running my submerged herms coil. I think it has to do with the air temp. It seems to be losing some heat in the tube. I be some insulation will help.

Here is my chart. 13 gallons in hlt, 8 in mash.

Click to expand...

It's possibly slower because you have less surface in that straight tube than a coil of 25 or 50 foot herms coil. Even the CFC has a lot more surface area than the straight tube as that's at least 12 feet.

I wrapped it with reflectix and it helped, was only 3 degrees of my hlt. So I would say a successful replacement for my herms coil. Chilling now.

I never used my CFC for my herms as I had a coil. No other reason

Also, I noticed I rigged this up opposite what the doc suggest. I have my wort going through the inner tubes and cooling water in the shell. The docs says the opposite, the boiling or heating/cooling water in the tubes, pool water in the shell.

I guess I need to reverse it and repeat the test

Here are the cooling times, system wide open, hose wide open. This is 12.5 gallons from boiling to 100 in 25 minutes. I slowed the output to about how fast I typically fill up my carboys and it is coming out at 59.

I would success

Edit, left numbers are temp of hlt, middle number is exit temp of water from hex

View attachment 1457971064496.jpg

Testing heating right now wired as suggested in doc. As my system is already hot, will not be able to report ramp numbers, but I will see if I get closer to hlt temp in mash tun and then will test cooling from boiling

awesome thanks for keeping us updated

Ok, wiring it as the directions stated did not help. Hlt was at 159, mash would not go over 151. I would say I am keeping it as I have it set. Think I might skip the boil test as I would like to keep one side water only.

Either way. I am real happy with it and ready to try it in beer.

Only comment so far would be that the 155 k one( I am testing the 85k) would probably would help out a lot and only cost a bit more.

Wort through the shell and water through the tubes was about the same. Will stick with wort through the tubes as it appears easier to clean.

Base on my test. Here is how I replumbed the chiller.

View attachment 1458097490882.jpg

Nice. And I love the idea of using cotter pins to hold it in place, easy removal for cleaning. If you haven't done so, place a small metal bracket or piece of wood over the pins on the back. That way the pins stay in place and makes it easier to mount the chiller back on and insert the cotter pins.