copper tubing questions

[eleets2144]

my order shipped today

 

[mikeal]

Damn, don't have any saw but I guess i could pick up a used hacksaw for a buck or two at the flea market.

You can get a new hacksaw for that much at Harbor Freight. For that matter, they have a tubing cutter for $5.

 

[Palefire]

Ok, mine just showed up in the mail. I will say, it is very light, and very thin. The tubing deforms pretty easily when you squeeze it with your fingers. The thin-ness is probably a good thing for heat transfer, but I'm a little worried about it kinking too easily when I coil it up, or its getting crushed if I'm not delicate enough with the IC. Might have to build a fair amount of structural reinforcement into the IC.

Nonetheless, it'll probably work great once it's all put together. And the price was certainly right!

I should be getting to building it in a week or so ... I'll keep people posted.

 

[HomebrewMTB]

Going to make a dual-coil chiller. One 5/8" (or 3/4" - haven't decided yet) input split into two separate 1/2" coils, each 25' long. Then recombined at the output. More efficient than a single coil, plus this way I can fit the whole 50" into a 5 gallon batch.

Was planning on doing this anyway; this just saves me the step of cutting a 50' length in half.

THANKS!!! That dual coil sounds sweet. My 2 x 1/2" x 50" coils arrived this week and I'm definitely going dual coil now. I just need to find the 3/8" bits. I've been to HD, Tractor Supply, and Ace and they don't have anything in 3/8". Any leads on the 3/8" copper T's and elbows?

 

[Palefire]

Yeah, 3/8" (or even 1/2"!) pieces are hard to find. I looked all over before I stumbled onto this weird old junked-out plumbing supply place that had a few. They directed me to a refrigeration supply house, though, that carries a ton of brass pipe pieces in all sizes. Don't know where you live, but it's this company: http://www.arsnet.com/. Might want to check to see if there's one near you?

A little more expensive than HD, but they've got everything. If there's no specialty plumbing or refrigeration supply place in town, Mcmaster carries all that stuff, too.

 

[HomebrewMTB]

Thanks. I'm going to try coppertubingsales.com since they seem to have a nice kit already put together with the hose fittings and all. I'll see what they say about selling all the bits without the tubing. I wanted to get this done today but after two hours of driving around to three stores, I gave up on that idea. Interwebz to the rescue again. I already wound the copper so I just need to the elbows and Ts to get it functional. This took way longer than I thought.

 

[outside92129]

How are ya'll planning to split and recombine the wort? I'm pondering that question right now as i stare at two coils here.

 

[HomebrewMTB]

How are ya'll planning to split and recombine the wort? I'm pondering that question right now as i stare at two coils here.

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm making a dual coil immersion chiller. The wort doesn't flow through, just water to carry the heat away. Do a quick search here for dual coil chillers and you'll see some examples.

 

[outside92129]

ah, i was thinking dual coil CFC.