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PeteOz77

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Canberra, ACT Australia
One of my mates (Who loves my home brew) came over the other day and Said "Hey! Look what I found.. can you use this?"

Chiller1.jpg


I put an extract in to show the size. It's too big to fit into my keggle, so I will have to re-roll it, or cut the keggle hole bigger.

Now, how do I get it clean?

Oh, BTW, this much copper would cost me around $110 new.
 
One of my mates (Who loves my home brew) came over the other day and Said "Hey! Look what I found.. can you use this?"

Chiller1.jpg


I put an extract in to show the size. It's too big to fit into my keggle, so I will have to re-roll it, or cut the keggle hole bigger.

Now, how do I get it clean?

Oh, BTW, this much copper would cost me around $110 new.

I'd suggest a good soak in oxyclean or PBW to clean it. That's a nice amount of copper! Now you just have to solder on some hose connections...god I hate soldering. :eek:
 
I just can't justify running the garden hose here (Second driest contintent on the planet behind Antarctica), so I may not need hose fittings. I have a rain barrel that holds 225 litres, so I will use a pump to push that water throught the coil and back into the rain barrel. I guess hose fittings would make the most sense, rather than clamps on the hoses.
 
I'd suggest a good soak in oxyclean or PBW to clean it. That's a nice amount of copper! Now you just have to solder on some hose connections...god I hate soldering. :eek:

Will Oxyclean or PBW clean off teh oxidisation on the copped and make it shiny again? How about CLR, I have some of that!
 
You could always stick it in boiling wort for awhile, that'll get the oxidation off! Of course, you might be seeing things or go blind or something. I think oxyclean will get it off. It's worth a try. I've never heard of CLR, so I dunno if it'll work or not.
 
I just can't justify running the garden hose here (Second driest contintent on the planet behind Antarctica), so I may not need hose fittings. I have a rain barrel that holds 225 litres, so I will use a pump to push that water throught the coil and back into the rain barrel. I guess hose fittings would make the most sense, rather than clamps on the hoses.

Wow! Waters that rare in your area and I can dig 7' and hit water. At 25' with 6" casing I can pull all the water I need for for the garden plus the chiller thru a 3/4 hp pump. Ground waters at 63 degrees F almost year round on an island in San francisco bay. My big problem is water spots from well vs city water from the minerals and the 7.23 PH factor.
 
Boil it in water with a bunch of vinegar and a bunch of salt - and/or give it a good long soak. Works a lot better than using vinegar alone.
 
I just soaked it in a fairly high concentration of CLR and it come up SWEET!

If I had know that vinegar would do the trick, I would have used that instead.
 
Well, lets see what it looks like now!~

Oh yeah!

I was actually going to do it last night, but was too busy drinking homebrew.

Chiller2.jpg


That's what it looks like aftr just soaking it overnight. No scrubbing involved. I reckon 5 minutes with a scotchbrite or steel wool would make look as good as new.
 
Barkeepers Friend does wonders on copper. Not much scrubbing involved.

An overnight soak in dilute starsan will strip it to bare metal too.
 
Does anyone know which is more efficient, IC or CFC? I am looking at using the least amount of cold water as possible to cool a full boil. Water is a rare commodity here is AUS, and I plain to use captured rain water for the cooling and will most likely only have 200 litres to work with. I can cycle it through as many times as I need to, but in the summer, when the water will be 85° or so, I can only get teh wort so cool before I will need to use a secondary water wource with ice blocks in it. I am happt to convert this to a CFC if they are more efficient.
 
CFC's use alot less cooling water than a IC. My chilling water is down to a trickle when I use my CFC.

Thanks for that input, I think maybe I will convert this into a CFC, it should be easy enough, and if it is a lot more efficient, then that's the GO! I struggled with it a bit, since I can't see the inside of the tubing, and wasn't sure about how to keep it clean and sanitised.
 
I actually found 15' of copper tubing in my pole barn that is in worse shape than this cooler. I know I can clean the oxidation off, but I am more concered with the knicks in it. Will being in the boil for 15 min be enough to sanatize even if there are deep scratches in the copper that may be harboring dirt?
 
You guys know what these copper coils you're finding probably were right?

Can you say moooooonshiiiiiiiiine? Hehehe...
 
Does anyone know which is more efficient, IC or CFC? I am looking at using the least amount of cold water as possible to cool a full boil. Water is a rare commodity here is AUS, and I plain to use captured rain water for the cooling and will most likely only have 200 litres to work with. I can cycle it through as many times as I need to, but in the summer, when the water will be 85° or so, I can only get teh wort so cool before I will need to use a secondary water wource with ice blocks in it. I am happt to convert this to a CFC if they are more efficient.

Pete I would use the rain water to get it down to 85 or so then I would use Ed worts pond pump and recirculate the water in a cooler filled with ice and water. I tried it this weekend worked great my tap water is running about 75 right now so when it hit 80* I started the pump and it knocked it to 60 in a few minutes. I am even toying with the idea of making an external SS chiller for my chonicle with a Johnson controler.
 
I actually found 15' of copper tubing in my pole barn that is in worse shape than this cooler. I know I can clean the oxidation off, but I am more concered with the knicks in it. Will being in the boil for 15 min be enough to sanatize even if there are deep scratches in the copper that may be harboring dirt?

It should be fine. Keep in mind what a fantastic conductor of heat copper is. If you drop that coil into boiling liquid, the entire coil should be boiling (of the same temp as the liquid) almost immediately. The boiling temps are what kills the bacteria.

If you are really worried about it, make a counterflow chiller out of it instead.
 
Pete I would use the rain water to get it down to 85 or so then I would use Ed worts pond pump and recirculate the water in a cooler filled with ice and water. I tried it this weekend worked great my tap water is running about 75 right now so when it hit 80* I started the pump and it knocked it to 60 in a few minutes. I am even toying with the idea of making an external SS chiller for my chonicle with a Johnson controler.

Good plan... That's exactly what I'll do!
 
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