Does an immersion chiller's diameter matter?

[JayUnt]

A little while ago when Home Depot was having their copper tubing clearance, I got a 50' - 5/8" OD copper tubing. I finally want to turn this puppy into a immersion chiller. I currently have a 20" (or even less) and it doesn't cool my batches fast enough.

I currently have 2 pots. The one I started with that is a 6+ gallon pot, that I've used for my full boil extracts. Since I wanted to get into all grain, more specifically BIAB, and doing some 10 gallon batches, I bought a 20 gallon pot.

I was originally thinking that I would make this new chiller just fit my 20 gallon pot. But now I'm thinking that if I ever want to do a smaller batch, or even a 5 gallon extract again, I'll want to use my original pot, and not the humungo 20 gallon.

So my question is, if I make the chiller to fit within my smaller pot, will it have any affect on using it in my larger pot? Is the chiller supposed to just just fit within the pot, or is it fine to be more in the center of the pot and not that close to the sides?

The only thing I can think of is that with the wider pot, more of the chiller will stick outside of the wort. Then.... (sorry this is kinda all over the place) I was thinking about making the chiller 3 coils wide, instead of 2. That would put more of the chillier in the wort for the wider pot. There would be some wort above the chiller in the narrower pot, but with stirring (eventual whirlpooling), i would think that is fine.

Thanks for your help.

 

[day_trippr]

Life is full of compromises. The same can be true when feature-creep gets into brewing equipment

You'll have to size the coil for the smaller kettle and pay the Time Piper when chilling the larger kettle. I'd leave at least an inch and a half gap around the coil to the (smaller) kettle wall...

Cheers!

 

[cluckk]

I use a chiller that fits into my 11 gallon kettles. When I brew in my 20 gallon kettle it just takes longer to chill. Perhaps some day I'll buy the copper to make a bigger one for the other kettle, but don't think it would be the best place to put my hobby funds.

 

[MaxStout]

There's a nice chiller design spreadsheet to help you with the calculations.

 

[MindenMan]

What do you mean by "3 coils " wide? I also bought a 50' section of 5/8" awhile back., and used all but 3 or 4 feet to make a dual pass chiller. The water enters the top of both coils at the same time, and exits at the same time, in theory anyway. I goofed when I wound it, as I had planned on one 50' long coil, but since I wound both coils the same direction, I had no choice at that point. I would say at this point, two ice cubes cool a beverage faster than one does, so I have built a "two ice cube" chiller coil.

 

[JayUnt]

I was planning on doing a dual coil, with the water going into two different coils to cool off the wort. I didn't know if instead of doing 2, I did three coils to cool the wort. In the end it's the same amount of coils, But for the wider put, more would be submerged.

I've never seen more than a dual chiller, and I'm assuming there is a reason for that. I'm not sure there would be enough water pressure.

Thanks for all of your input!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[JayUnt]

There's a nice chiller design spreadsheet to help you with the calculations.

I tried to take a look at this file, but its an xml, but I think its the same one i found somewhere else. It has a different name ChillerCalculator.xlsx, but it seems to be the same thing.

Thanks

 

[MindenMan]

JU, I'm confused, are you talking stacks of coils together? My coils are 12 rows (turns) high, around 13". As far as three coils vs. two coils, there comes a point of diminishing returns in heat transfer, so it isn't worth it.
I believe we are talking about water volume, not pressure. There still becomes a point of diminishing return when the water is flowing in the coil(s)