20 feet too short for a chiller?

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xumbi

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Greetings all!

I'm hoping to move to full boils soon. I have a 7.5 gallon turkey fryer. I'm hoping to build a wort chiller.

I found 20 feet of copper tubing for $19.77 at Lowe's. Is 20 feet too short? Should I wait until I can afford something longer?

Thanks!
 
I used 20' of copper for a CFC and last time it worked too well! Brought my wort down to 52 degrees in a matter of minutes. 20' will probably work for an immersion chiller although it will take a little longer to get it down to pitching temps, but if you plan on eventually moving to 10 gallon batches, 20' will definitely not be enough.
 
I started with 30' and it was fine. Of course, the ground temp at the time (Feb) was around 50 degrees.

A lot will depend upon the temp of your water.

Go ahead and start with that. You can always sweat on another 20' when you get the scratch to buy more.
 
Buy 2 lengths of tubing, make two chillers and submerge one in a bucket of ice water and another in your wort, and run water through them in series. This will chill it wicked quick.
 
Trodd said:
Buy 2 lengths of tubing, make two chillers and submerge one in a bucket of ice water and another in your wort, and run water through them in series. This will chill it wicked quick.

I was going to say buy the 20 ft to tie you over for now and later if you buy a bigger chiller, you can always use the 20' section as a prechiller in a bucket of ice.
 
I made an immersion chiller out of 25ft of 3/8" and it'll bring 5 gallons from boil to 70 degrees in about 15 minutes Now I used an actual water hose rather than vinyl tubing. I cut a piece of hose about a inch or two long and split it in half and wrapped it around the copper and trimmed so it wouldn't overlap and slid the garden hose over that for a tight fit, and clamped. (make sense?) It does leak I tie rags around the in and out port to keep it from spraying everywhere but I can hook it to a hose and open the spigot wide open no probs, pushes alot of water through it so much that the water coming out of the chiller is only slightly warmer than the water going in.
 
What size is the tubing?
I was looking at Lowes a few weeks ago and the only 20 foot roll I saw for 20 bucks was the 1/4" inch tubing (and this is the Outside Diameter). Ultimately, I decided this was too small inside, but would result in a slow flow so it probably would work for a counterflow chiller. In the end, I opted for 3/8 tubing..
 
you should hit the hardware store for a comression fitting to go right to a hose connection. it is about $6 and there will be no mess or chance of spillage. The compression fitting has a sleeve that goes inside a female threadeed fitting then you get a standard male thread one end(to fit compression fitting) and a hse thread on other end. you may need a female/female hose connector too.
 
1/4" is too small of a diameter, the ID is like 3/16". You should start with at least 3/8" OD. 25 feet would be great for 5 gallons while 50 (or an upgrade to 1/2") would be better for 10 gallons.

You're up in NH so your tap water right now is about 40-50F and will cool really well. In the summer you'll need to look at a pond pump to push icewater through it.
 
Trodd said:
Buy 2 lengths of tubing, make two chillers and submerge one in a bucket of ice water and another in your wort, and run water through them in series. This will chill it wicked quick.

I'd recommend you first measure the temp of the water coming out of the tap, and then hook up your prechiller in icewater and measure the temp coming out. You'll be disappointed to see that the temp drop is really small considering the cost of the additional copper and ice.

The highly preferred method is to get a pond/aquarium/sump pump from like Harbor Freight and put it in the bucket of ice directly. It's so much more efficient and about the same cost as a prechiller.
 
has anyone tryed using 2 chillers in sequence backwards, like a post chiller when recirculating? You start in ice water with pump to wort to frozen bucket with second chiller back to ice water bucket? It is alot of buckets but maybe less ice is needed to be bought? Or I just am an idiot
 
5 Is Not Enough said:
Do a search for refrigeration tubing. Eventually, you'll end up here

Have you ordered from them before? Their prices seem too good to be true
 
I just ordered 50' of 3/8 a week ago and it arrived in one or two days. Great price and I measured the tubing and it seemed to be within a foot or two of 50' so they are a good fast company as far as I could tell.
 
20' will be better than bathing the primary in a sink, so I say go for it... nothin to lose if you already have the copper. Worst case it takes a few more minutes.
 
No need to feel like a fool. I got 20' from Home Depot, added some compression fittings, and I went from knockout to 75 degrees in 20 minutes.

That's not too shabby, especially when you consider that I used the hot water at the beginning to rinse out my dirty mash tun, and clean off the back porch, which had suffered the effects of a massive boil over. 20 feet is fine for winter time.
 
5 Is Not Enough said:
Do a search for refrigeration tubing. Eventually, you'll end up here

I paid almost as much for 25' from the local hardware store as 50' costs on that site. Always a day late ...........

Thanks for that link.:rockin:
 
Check ace hardware storese for copper. I went to one the other day and they had 25' of 1/2 for 39, which i thought was a steal, i dont need it but i bought it anywways. I got home and it was actually 10' and i was pissed. I returned and happned to go to another ace hardware and they had the same thing for 39and it was actually 25' this time. I think they havnt changed the pricing in a while becuase it rang up as $50 but i told them it said elsewise and they changed it for me (they did this at both stores) . TO be more specific go to rockys ace hardware in massachusetts.

The 20' chiller works well espescially wiht nh water (i seems to be a bit colder), And if you move to ten gallon batches i ahve a 25' 1/2 chiller and my 20' sits on top of it a perfect fit for 10 gallons in a keggle.
 
OMG that place rocks. $129 for 50' of 3/8 at lowes vs $35 here?? Does seem too good to be true, but also too good to not at least chance it. The IC might be coming my way sooner than I thought.

3/8 OD is what most people use right?

How much do all the fitting cost? You can buy one from NB for 56.99 with hose fittings. 25 feet. Prolly about what it would cost to make a 50 footer from the website above but having the it shipped to your door ready to go if you don't wanna buy a torch
 
It's true, I ordered from them a couple months ago and got everything in good condition and everything
 
Yep. I ordered from them a few weeks ago. They shipped pretty quick and got here in pretty good shape.

The fittings are pretty cheap, regardless of whether you go compression or torch. Shouldn't be more than $10-15 to get 3/8 to garden hose for both.

You can also make a CFC on the cheap as well per the tutorial if you wanna make two CFC's and sell/gift one.
 
I also purchased some tubing from ICS Industries. They had the tubing to me within a week, I would do business with them again and have no reservations about recommending them as well.

Hoping to fire up my 23ft CFC very soon. Right now the city water here is freezing so it should be no problem to get the wort down to cool. In the summer my water has been really warm so that will be the true test.

:rockin:
 
IrregularPulse said:
OMG that place rocks. $129 for 50' of 3/8 at lowes vs $35 here?? Does seem too good to be true, but also too good to not at least chance it. The IC might be coming my way sooner than I thought.

3/8 OD is what most people use right?

How much do all the fitting cost? You can buy one from NB for 56.99 with hose fittings. 25 feet. Prolly about what it would cost to make a 50 footer from the website above but having the it shipped to your door ready to go if you don't wanna buy a torch
Do take into consideration the type of tubing that is being sold at the hardware stores. There is a substantial price difference between refrigeration, type L, and type K tubing. For all intensive purposes (and correct me if I'm wrong) brewers won't need anything but refrigeration rated tubing.
 
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