Counterflow chiller too small?

[ABI Brewery]

I have built myself a CFC and now am wondering if it is too small, It is 25 ft. garden hose with 3/8" copper tube inside, I brewed a couple days ago and it just seemed to slow, I have MK II pump and love it but I could not get a whirlpool going when sanitizing during the last 20 min of the boil.
Do i need to upgrade already, although I just built it, i did build it so there's not much $ out the window, but its new, but could it have a kink? or for 10 gallon batches in a keggle is it just too small.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Wort going slowly though the CFC improves its ability to chill.

I think if it were kinked then wort wouldn't flow at all.

 

[Gonefishin]

What dia. is the garden hose? I am considering a CFC as well and I'm thinking a 3/4" hose with 3/8" tubing is what I'll use.

 

[mongoose33]

For starters, I'd do a dry/wet run with it to see what kind of throughput you're getting. By using water you should be able to test the temperature drop using different flow rates.

When you say you're using 3/8" copper tubing, is that ID or OD? If it's OD, you probably have 1/4" ID or so, which isn't particularly large for this application.

Again, a test using water is in order. When I was starting to do whirlpooling I'd test using hot water and toss in a scant handful of grist to see how well it worked.

 

[greywolf]

Mine is 50’ of 3/8 in garden hose. Chills a little slow but it chills in one pass.