BYO Double Pipe Wort Chiller

[erikrocks]

I am definitely interested as well. I may end up building one but with hunting season here time is valuable and just buying something is fairly attractive right now. I have a brand new Chillius Convuluted Chiller waiting to go but I live out in the country and am on a well and am looking at every opportunity to decrease the amount or water usage and load I put on my well.

I love the fact that you're back with Derek St. Holmes!

 

[Docbruw]

For anyone that has made one of these do you just run straight copper pipe? I would think putting something around the outside of the copper pipe to agitate the flowing water would improve efficiency.

 

[mrjofus1959]

For anyone that has made one of these do you just run straight copper pipe? I would think putting something around the outside of the copper pipe to agitate the flowing water would improve efficiency.

Rather than agitate the flowing water it should be more effective to agitate the flowing wort, a la the convoluted chillers. There was another setup similar to this in a Zymurgy issue a while back I believe. That setup was implemented with some strips of copper perhaps 4-6" long and just slightly less wide than the ID of the wort tubes. These strips were twisted into a spiral of sorts and inserted into the wort tubes. That would have pretty much the same effect as convoluted copper. I've thought about adding those to my build, but I'm happy enough with its performance that I haven't done so yet.

 

[mrjofus1959]

Rather than agitate the flowing water it should be more effective to agitate the flowing wort, a la the convoluted chillers. There was another setup similar to this in a Zymurgy issue a while back I believe. That setup was implemented with some strips of copper perhaps 4-6" long and just slightly less wide than the ID of the wort tubes. These strips were twisted into a spiral of sorts and inserted into the wort tubes. That would have pretty much the same effect as convoluted copper. I've thought about adding those to my build, but I'm happy enough with its performance that I haven't done so yet.

Here's a pic of the twisted copper strip from the Zymurgy Jan/Feb 2013 Gadgets Issue.

 

[yewtah-brewha]

Is this working for any of you? how much did you spend in materials?

 

[nwmarach]

In terms of food safe if you get the parker fittings:

http://www.parker.com/portal/site/M...ault#a2c2ae1d10921310VgnVCM10000048021dac____

They are food safe.

 

[MindenMan]

I am definitely interested as well. I may end up building one but with hunting season here time is valuable and just buying something is fairly attractive right now. I have a brand new Chillius Convuluted Chiller waiting to go but I live out in the country and am on a well and am looking at every opportunity to decrease the amount or water usage and load I put on my well.

I just wrote a long post and the back button ate it...
Instead of running water straight through on to the ground, set up a little cooling tower of sorts. Something like a "keg" bucket with a small pump independent of your circulation pump, or if you have one large enough "bleed " a little water into the air like a small fountain aimed into something that would diffuse the stream like a piece of metal, plastic or whatever it takes to splash it.
My concept here is like a regular swamp cooler. The water in the pump coming out is usually 50-55 F. So, you have a closed loop system version of a cooling tower, that doesn't use a lot of water (I don't think), and will continue to cool until the water temperature and the wort are in stasis. At that point since I don't know off the top of my head how much water a keg bucket holds, when done brewing use the water to garden with, fill the washing machine, etc. I hope this idea helps you out.

 

[Bwin]

Hello guys! Happy to see the construction of this type of chiller has worked well for someone else. I built the smaller all copper version with static mixers that came out in Zymurgy, and later on i constructed the larger pvc frame chiller. The static mixers do help the heat transfer if you are pumping the wort. I use this wort chiller in a 2 stage cooling process as most of the time I am brewing lagers. First, a single pass from the brew kettle into the fermenter running tap water through the outer shell. Then, i use a recirc loop (fermenter-chiller) for wort and a recirc loop with ice-water through the outer shell. That does require the use of two pumps but it allows me to quickly chill down to 50F (or less) for my lagers at the peak of summer in Tucson, Arizona. Cheers!

 

[yewtah-brewha]

Hello guys! Happy to see the construction of this type of chiller has worked well for someone else. I built the smaller all copper version with static mixers that came out in Zymurgy, and later on i constructed the larger pvc frame chiller. The static mixers do help the heat transfer if you are pumping the wort. I use this wort chiller in a 2 stage cooling process as most of the time I am brewing lagers. First, a single pass from the brew kettle into the fermenter running tap water through the outer shell. Then, i use a recirc loop (fermenter-chiller) for wort and a recirc loop with ice-water through the outer shell. That does require the use of two pumps but it allows me to quickly chill down to 50F (or less) for my lagers at the peak of summer in Tucson, Arizona. Cheers!

How long does it take to cool your wort useing your method? Do you have a video? I'd like to see your setup in action.

I have been doing 10 gallon (ale)batches and chilling with my traditional coil wort chiller, it takes about 30-40 minutes to get it to 80 degrees, but I want to do some lagering this spring and dont know if Im going to be able to get it that low.

 

[thekraken]

I built something similar back in January, and I can confirm it works quite well. Here's mine for reference:

http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=296442#296442

The only issue I've had was the JB Weld that holds the copper in place in those photos wants to leak during chilling. I've since rebuilt with brass compression fittings on the ends, with o-rings to seal to the copper pipe. Those too had to be drilled out for the pipe to pass through.

...At the risk of resurrecting the dead...

@mrjofus1959, @Chopilot, and anyone else who has made this with pvc: How has it held up over time to this point.

I'm thinking of building one with the following configuration, and I figure it's as compact as I can get it. 26'-8" of copper in 8 sections. Any criticisms? Too long/too short for ~12 gal batches (70F tap water, recirc ice water in the summer)?

I could make this even more compact if I used 3/4" pvc, while the 1/2" copper will fit inside the 3/4" pvc does that restrict coolant flow too much?

 

[mrjofus1959]

Sorry it took me so long to respond on this...

My setup has held up fine after almost 3 years in use and 40+ brews chilled. I just have mine suspended with bungee cords on the back of my brew stand, and the only "issue" is that the PVC pips will sag from the heat over time. So I've flipped it over a couple of times. What I should do is mount it to a piece of plywood using pipe straps so that the PVC is fully supported in a couple of spots in between the tees.

As to using 3/4" PVC I can't say how that would impact the performance. I would stick with the 1" for the minimal cost differential.