Building immersion chiller

[dabull25]

I am going to build an immersion chiller. I wanted to use 25 ft. of 3/8" copper tubing but all lowes and HD have is 20 ft. Would a 20 ft chiller be alright or is there a way to attach an extra 5 or 10 feet of copper to it to make it longer? Thanks!

 

[H-ost]

20ft should work fine. Just make sure the input and output can reach over the outside lip of your pot.

 

[baldric]

Although 20 ft would work fine, you could always make it longer by using a 3/8" compression x compression fitting to splice the two lengths of tubing together.

I use a 30 foot coil as a wort chiller, and sometimes I wish I had a longer coil. The 30 foot coil with pretty cold tap water can chill 5 gal of wort from boiling to pitching temperature in about 15 minutes, but I'd like to shorten that - get a faster chill and use less water in the process.

 

[luvinit]

I went with 20ft but used 1/2 inch copper more surface area for cooling

 

[aceinthehole]

I went with 20ft but used 1/2 inch copper more surface area for cooling

I think this is what I am going to do also. I want to soldier 90 degree elbows onto each end and have straight pieces running vertical and horizontal to allow for all 20' to be coiled up in my brew kettle.

Its just a matter of time before i do this. I just need the funds to make it happen. Being poor sucks...

 

[Surly]

Think of the future. Is ten gallon brews out there? If at all possible, do not purchase a chiller twice. (Although a counterflow build is nice.)

 

[luvinit]

Think of the future. Is ten gallon brews out there? If at all possible, do not purchase a chiller twice. (Although a counterflow build is nice.)

your right in that case will get another coil and solder together

 

[luvinit]

I think this is what I am going to do also. I want to soldier 90 degree elbows onto each end and have straight pieces running vertical and horizontal to allow for all 20' to be coiled up in my brew kettle.

Its just a matter of time before i do this. I just need the funds to make it happen. Being poor sucks...

thats exactly what i did cut off a piece about 18 inches bent a 45 on the bottom of coil toward the inside of coil 1 elbow and soldered the strait piece on 2 90 at top 2 female adapters and threaded pushlock fittings onto the female adapters 2 pieces of hose finished ...made some holiday ale last weekend and cooled from boiling to 70 degrees in 13 minutes its a beautiful thing.l:rockin:

 

[solbes]

Just remember that incoming water temp will almost always be the limiting factor. If I had to rank the factors by their potential change to chilling effectiveness:

1) Input water temp (number one by far)
2) Getting good contact with wort, gentle agitation greatly helps keep the chiller in contact with ALL of the hot wort
3) Factors affecting heat conduction of chiller (material of construction, total surface area including copper diameter and length)

Once you get past the first 50-100 degree of temperature change, the temp delta between the wort and the input water becomes the limiting factor. You could have a chiller 100 feet long, but it would have very little effect on time to crunch down those last 30 degrees, which is where most of your time is spent. I kept mine simple and went with 25 feet of 1/2" copper.

 

[JM_Huntley]

I'm sure this question has been asked but can you use your auto-siphon cold water from an iced bucket of water into the immersion chiller and have the output dump water back in the same bucket you are siphoning from. The siphon should stay primed and as long as you keep ice in the bucket you should have cold water going thru the chiller. I plan on testing this setup in the next few days but very interested in reading your thoughts.

Thanks

 

[beninan]

I'm sure this question has been asked but can you use your auto-siphon cold water from an iced bucket of water into the immersion chiller and have the output dump water back in the same bucket you are siphoning from. The siphon should stay primed and as long as you keep ice in the bucket you should have cold water going thru the chiller. I plan on testing this setup in the next few days but very interested in reading your thoughts.

Thanks

It wouldn't exactly work that way. To have a siphon work, the liquid needs to be draining at a point that is lower than the sucking point. So your drain from the chiller would have to go back uphill into the bucket, causing the siphon would stop. Perpetual motion would be awesome, but it's also impossible.

One way to kinda have this idea work, is to have the chiller drain into a second bucket, and set up a pump to transfer the water back from the second bucket into the first bucket.

 

[JM_Huntley]

So, what kind of pump? A $15 submersible aquarium pump? Could I just use it out of one bucket? I could see using it to pump cold ice water from the one bucket thru the chiller dumping back into the same bucket.

Appreciate the help

 

[beninan]

You could try that pump idea, but I'm not sure how efficient it would be. My cold sink water here is around 45 degrees, so I have no problem cooling my beers with my 50 foot IC. With my old 20 foot IC, I still had no problem, but it just took more than twice as long. What some people have done if their cold water is not cold enough, is take a bucket with ice water and build 2 immersion chillers. One chiller sits in the beer, the other sits in the bucket of ice water. The cold sink water flows through the first chiller sitting in the ice bucket, known as the pre-chiller, which cools the water even more before it enters the second chiller, which would cool the beer.

 

[Lost]

If your hose water is warm then do what everyone else does. Use hose water until the wort reaches 100 deg or so, then hook up an aquarium pump/submersible pump in a bucket of ice water to get it that last bit.

A siphon won't work for the reason mentioned (outlet must be lower than inlet) and it would also be painfully slow to boot which defeats the purpose of the chiller in the first place. Buy a cheapo aquarium pump from harbor freight for this purpose.

Edit: yes, with a pump you only need a single bucket of ice water to pump from/into.

 

[TyTanium]

+1 for cheap aquarium pump.

A siphon won't get you enough pressure - even if you put the ice water on a shelf way above the wort, you'd barely get 2-3 PSI, not enough to be effective.

A cheap pump will still be slow, but as one of the original posters mentioned, temp differential is the most important. A slow flow rate of ice water is better than fast, cool water for dropping those last 30 degrees or so. PS - I'd recommend collecting your outflow in a second bucket, otherwise you're just melting ice.

 

[luvinit]

I'm sure this question has been asked but can you use your auto-siphon cold water from an iced bucket of water into the immersion chiller and have the output dump water back in the same bucket you are siphoning from. The siphon should stay primed and as long as you keep ice in the bucket you should have cold water going thru the chiller. I plan on testing this setup in the next few days but very interested in reading your thoughts.

Thanks

very interesting idea

 

[Faseel]

Im at work now, but I built a pump cooling/recirculate ice water emersion chiller setup for under 60 bucks. Its been talked about frequently on the forums, so this is no where close to my idea, but ill post pics of my design. Cooling from boil to 65 degrees is 6 to 9 minutes and 1 - 10lb bag of ice.

 

[marshallbeer]

Have you looked in the price of copper where you are? I am getting into brewing and went to Lowes to check the same thing and it would have cost me as much to buy one already made as to buy the copper tubing and making it myself.

 

[TyTanium]

Sometimes you can get a deal on these things, especially if they stop carrying a certain length or diameter. Home Depot has the best prices & selection in my area.

 

[Lost]

Coppertubingsales.com

 

[Faseel]

I made my coil years ago before copper went through the roof. Here are a few pics of my ice water recirculation system.