DIY Interwoven "Rib-Cage" Immersion Chiller

[jimba009]

Hopefully doing this tonight or tomorrow morning. I am making the coils a little larger due to my pot dimensions but I have 50' so that should be cool. This should go a little easier than the last attempt since I know how not to screw it up one way.

 

[beersydoesit]

I just finished a rib-cage chiller.

I made it out of 20' of 3/8 ID, 1/2' OD tubing.
I put hose fittings on instead of tubing.

It cooled 5 gal of cleaning water, (boiling) to 65* in less than 15 min. ( I no longer trust my usual thermometer below 80*. The cooling kinda "stuck" at 80*, when I checked with two others, them temp had dropped to 65*)

Nice design. As I think about it with the rib-cage approach there are fewer largish pockets of wort where you don't take advantage of a temp gradient.

I think I would do better with more turns of smaller tube. I think 3/8" OD might be the sweet spot.

Regards and thanks for the design it will work great for me.

 

[oxiderush]

i don't have a keggle yet, but i hope to have one someday and this is not something you want to build twice. The coils do come out of my turkey fryer, but i can king of smush them tighter if i need to.

 

[worxman02]

I just looked through the post and i think i have made the biggest one so far:rockin:, so i have to post some pic's.

And, yes. Those zip ties are coming off when i am satisfied with it's shape & size. then i'll solder the vertical runners together.

I wouldn't solder the vertical runners together. It will reduce the efficiency of the cooler as the hot water in the outlet will heat up your cold water coming through the inlet. Its not much but it could add up to some extra cooling time. If you want to make it sturdier, put a piece of pvc pipe in between and zip tie the runners to that. Just make sure you insulate them from each other.

 

[RedIrocZ-28]

I wonder who the first commercial manufacturer will be thats going to steal my design and produce them

 

[Beau815]

cant you get a patent on it dude? cost like 30 bucks or something. Dont let them make a million dollars using your design without cutting you in on 10% or SOMETHING at least. 100,000.00 beans nooga. Or why dont you just make em on the side and sell for a huge profit... whatever your price would be will be cheaper than some commercial maker will charge... and it shouldnt be cuz handmade is always more.

 

[RedIrocZ-28]

I have been contemplating it actually, Patent/building them. Not that I have the first clue on how to do this patent thing. I'll look into it today though. Building them on the other hand... thats the easy part. Anyone who has built one already can attest its rather simple.

 

[Beau815]

not really, i built two because my first sucked @ss. I unbent it to a straight line in order to make it a ribcage one and circle from both sides... guess that was the wrong way, it kinked and broke in about 25 places. I then got a new 50 ft coil and LEFT it coiled. I dont know how you got 2 separate coils... id pay for one from you if i didnt have my good one. Also, i patented 32 songs I wrote thru the library of congress in washington DC. It was 30 bucks. All you have to do is send in your idea and pay for the patent. Then when someone sells it, sue their a$$

 

[RedIrocZ-28]

Wait what?! It can't be that easy to patent something can it? I'll have to post a video of how to build one. Anyone want to buy one off me? I'll give you a killer deal.

 

[Picobrew]

Wait what?! It can't be that easy to patent something can it? I'll have to post a video of how to build one. Anyone want to buy one off me? I'll give you a killer deal.

For something like this, a patent would require a decent amount of writing and diagramming. You also have to really understand the prior art.

Anyways, I need a chiller! How much do you think one of these would set me back? I have a 40qt giant stovetop pot that is pretty tall.

 

[Beau815]

I would but I spent SO much ruining 50 ft of copper and buying it twice. I only used it once and it worked great. Second time was the charm. If I messed that one up Id of bought one off ya. And yeah I think patenting is that simple, pictures of the end product and a note to explain the process. Copyrighting is that easy. Idk

 

[RedIrocZ-28]

For something like this, a patent would require a decent amount of writing and diagramming. You also have to really understand the prior art.

Anyways, I need a chiller! How much do you think one of these would set me back? I have a 40qt giant stovetop pot that is pretty tall.

Well, depends on what you want specifically:

25' of 3/8" tubing (not likely to do a whole lot for you - probably 15-20 minute effective cooldown) - 353in²
50' of 3/8" (most likely too much copper to fit in your pot) - 707in²
25' of 1/2" (probably your best bet) - 471in²
50' of 1/2" (I'd reserve this beast for a 60qt pot/keggle) - 942in²

Faucet or hose hookup?
How long for the input hose, how long for the output?
Inside width of your pot?
Height of the pot?

I can confidently say though, that it shouldn't cost more than $50 in materials, plus shipping. These things really don't take me long to put together so I would charge nothing for labor on yours. Or you could donate $5 toward a membership to me or whatever, but please not like the whole thing. I wanted these to be more efficient and cheaper to buy than standard IC's. Its the principals of the matter.

Reference specs of mine:
22' of 3/8" tubing
10' input and output hose
Faucet thread to hose thread adapter + hose thread to barb fitting for input side.
Stands tall enough to exit 32Qt turkey fryer pot.
Cools from 212* to 70* in 9-10 minutes with 42*F input water.

 

[jimba009]

Well, I made one of 50' 3/8" copper. I am going to boil her tonight and see how she does. If I can get 10 gal down to 70 in around 15-20 min I will be more than Happy!

 

[RedIrocZ-28]

Depending on input temp you should be able to do it in 10 minutes still. You are using more than twice the copper I am, on only twice the wort. I think you will be impressed.

 

[oxiderush]

i just made my first batch last night with a brewers best kit, and i was instructed to only boil 2 gal, so i did. Of course, following with murpheys law my propane was tapped out after 20 min of boiling, so it all got brought inside. If i did the full 5 gal, by ****ty stove couldn't keep a boil. back to topic, i had a massive ss pot that i could barely reach in between that and the hood fan, and that giant chiller in it and i feel that i cooled my 2 gallons in the time i turned the hose on outside and walked back in. I guess it wasn't a accurate test because 90% of the chiller wasn't submerged, but i wanted to say that i was very pleased. While cooling i actually spread the coils a little so there's barely a square inch in that pot that doesn't have a copper tube cutting through.

^ = good design, very happy.

 

[RedIrocZ-28]

i just made my first batch last night with a brewers best kit, and i was instructed to only boil 2 gal, so i did. Of course, following with murpheys law my propane was tapped out after 20 min of boiling, so it all got brought inside. If i did the full 5 gal, by ****ty stove couldn't keep a boil. back to topic, i had a massive ss pot that i could barely reach in between that and the hood fan, and that giant chiller in it and i feel that i cooled my 2 gallons in the time i turned the hose on outside and walked back in. I guess it wasn't a accurate test because 90% of the chiller wasn't submerged, but i wanted to say that i was very pleased. While cooling i actually spread the coils a little so there's barely a square inch in that pot that doesn't have a copper tube cutting through.

^ = good design, very happy.

Damn nice to hear man!

Again, to reiterate for those just glancing at the last few pages, standard chillers don't work, in my opinion, as well because the coils are so close together that in effect, the coil below is trying to cool the same wort that the coil above has just cooled due to convection currents causing the cooling wort to fall over a cold mass and thats not mixing hot and cold wort. Hence the reason for the spaced coils. Lots of coverage of the wort, minimal amount of materials, same or better cooling than vertical column coolers.

 

[Seabee John]

here's another way to do a "rib-cage" style chiller that has a way of evenly distributing the cold over the available surface area of the copper

 

[Beau815]

WOW that looks like ALOT of soldering! MAN, did you drill holes in the big pipes and solder? that must have taken forever! Is it really worth the chill rate compared to the regular IC?

 

[ArcaneXor]

Anyone want to buy one off me? I'll give you a killer deal.

I think you could easily sell several dozen of these things to HBT members. I may be interested once we find out what job my wife will be assigned to in the summer (complicated story, but it does affect the family's bottom line).

Could you PM me a cost guesstimate on a 25' of 3/8" chiller with kitchen faucet hookups, 4 ft of input hose, 6 ft of output hose for a 22-qt pot 11 3/4 in inner diameter and 12 in tall?

 

[oxiderush]

***Public Service Announcement***

When trying out your massively over sized chiller in a tiny 2 gallon boil, make sure that after you check for leaks, empty it out, or you will drop a lot of cold into a boil that's struggling on it's own already on the stove. not that i did that or anything.....

 

[Seabee John]

WOW that looks like ALOT of soldering! MAN, did you drill holes in the big pipes and solder? that must have taken forever! Is it really worth the chill rate compared to the regular IC?

Yeah there was a bit of work involved, and there is a risk of joints breaking due to rough handling, but if you test the system before putting it in the kettle it's not anything to worry about. As far as the efficiency, it does out perform a straight line system.

EDIT: There are more photos of this in my profile gallery including the build

Look at it in terms of temperature disparity: The heat is removed because of the temperature difference between the chill water and the hot wort. Copper is a great medium because it transfers heat quickly. So if you were to measure the temperature of the water in the chiller as it flows along the line, it heats up (absorbs more heat) as it moves down the line. If it takes 5 feet for 50 deg F water to heat to 200 deg (I'm supposing for the sake of explanation) and your chiller length is 25 feet the water stops removing heat after the 5 foot mark. So the rest of the way, it does nothing... basically equal to one chiller with 5 feet of pipe. Now imagine 20 - 5 foot chillers chilling at the same time - way more efficient. I've got 18 - 3 foot x 3/8 dia. "ribs" that flow evenly. I distribute the temperature disparity over a greater surface area more quickly.

heat flow rate = thermal conductivity (in k)× temp difference (in k) × area / length

Copper = 385.0 Thermal Conductivity, k (in unit of W/m·K)

There's the equation if you feel like doing the math.

 

[Seabee John]

***Public Service Announcement***

When trying out your massively over sized chiller in a tiny 2 gallon boil, make sure that after you check for leaks, empty it out, or you will drop a lot of cold into a boil that's struggling on it's own already on the stove. not that i did that or anything.....

I begin the boil with the chiller in place - this gets rid of that problem

 

[oxiderush]

yeah, it's a pain to stir with it in, so im just going to put it in empty 15 min before flameout for sanitation.

 

[Beau815]

It seems like you would need ALOT of water pressure in order to disperse down the big channel while filling all the outer coils with pressure leaving thru each one, then up the center channel and thru all the inner coils. i would think the inside coils wouldn't get much running water especially near the top.

 

[Seabee John]

It seems like you would need ALOT of water pressure in order to disperse down the big channel while filling all the outer coils with pressure leaving thru each one, then up the center channel and thru all the inner coils. i would think the inside coils wouldn't get much running water especially near the top.

If you look closely, the outer coils on the left, enter on the inside on the right and vice versa... this ensures equal pressure (the flow on the first rib is the same as on the last, because they exit in the opposite order. also, the flow rate drops as the water enters the ribs, which gives the copper adequate time to exchange the heat....

 

[Beau815]

sounds good!

 

[RedIrocZ-28]

Seabee, how fast does your setup bring boiling wort to 70*? And as important as that question, whats the water input temp?

 

[Seabee John]

Seabee, how fast does your setup bring boiling wort to 70*? And as important as that question, whats the water input temp?

Depends on the temp of the chill water... In summer w/ 50 deg F water used to chill from 212 deg F down to 100 deg F, then switching over to a recirculated ice bath, I can get 5 gallons to 68 in under 7 minutes.

Now that I've gone to 10 gallon batches, (I haven't used an ice bath with 10 gal yet) but it takes a little under 20 minutes for 11+ gallons to go from boil to 68 deg F.

 

[jimba009]

I used my chiller that i modeled after your RedIroc, chilled 8 gallons of wort to 70 in about 15 min. Very nice!

 

[RedIrocZ-28]

jimba, thats quite a feat. Did you do a waterbath and the chiller? Like I put my pot in my sink and use the spent water from the chiller to circulate around the outside of the pot so I get a double usage from my water.

Got any pics? How long did it take you to make it?