Immersion chiller

[z-bob]

I have a chiller I made 20 years ago out of 20 feet (I think) of 3/8" OD soft copper tubing. It does a great job of chilling 4 or 5 gallons of hot wort from boiling down to about 90°, then gets pretty slow after that. I usually give up at about 75°.

I'm thinking of making another one with 50' of copper tubing. Would it be worth the extra expense (about $15 more) to use 1/2" OD copper instead of 3/8?

With 2 chillers, in the late summer when tapwater temperature is pretty warm, I can put the old chiller in a bucket of ice and salt to prechill the water before feeding it into the new one. The old one is not quite adequate even in the winter when the tapwater runs cold.

 

[b-boy]

I think 50' 3/8 would be fine for 5-gallon batches. If you're going bigger, I'd look at 1/2". I use a pre-chiller during the Summer too - even with my plate chiller.

 

[augiedoggy]

I found the most effect thing that made a difference with my old 25' 3/8 chiller was agitating the wort to keep it moving around in the kettle... Made a huge difference and told me that was the issue not so much my chiller.

 

[kh54s10]

I made the 20ft chiller then came summer. I made another one and coiled it smaller so it will sit inside the first when in the boil. I connected them with long enough tubing so one can go in the pot and the other in a bucket of ice-water. I find that stirring both the ice-water and the wort significantly speeds the chilling.

 

[WhoDatDad78]

I made the 20ft chiller then came summer. I made another one and coiled it smaller so it will sit inside the first when in the boil. I connected them with long enough tubing so one can go in the pot and the other in a bucket of ice-water. I find that stirring both the ice-water and the wort significantly speeds the chilling.

This^. I have a 50' coil of 1/2" copper tubing, submerged in a cooler with ice, tubing flows out of that tubing to my submersion chiller, which is in the kettle. I have a galvanized tub that I fill with ice water, set my kettle in it when I'm ready to chill. I get down to about 60° in 15 minutes.

 

[NeoBrew]

I made mine from 50' of 3/8", but put a Y in it to get two 25' coils running in tandem. It seems to work really well.

https://brewnanigans.wordpress.com/diy-2/diy/ (edited link so it works!)

One think to think about with 50' of 3/8 there is a lot of head pressure just from the pipe. With most city supplies the pressure is not a factor. If you are going to run it from a pond pump or something that head pressure can be a real problem.

Even with the double 3/8" coil on mine a pond pump struggles to push much flow through mine.

 

[wilserbrewer]

I have a chiller I made 20 years ago out of 20 feet (I think) of 3/8" OD soft copper tubing. It does a great job of chilling 4 or 5 gallons of hot wort from boiling down to about 90°, then gets pretty slow after that. I usually give up at about 75°.



I'm thinking of making another one with 50' of copper tubing. Would it be worth the extra expense (about $15 more) to use 1/2" OD copper instead of 3/8?



With 2 chillers, in the late summer when tapwater temperature is pretty warm, I can put the old chiller in a bucket of ice and salt to prechill the water before feeding it into the new one. The old one is not quite adequate even in the winter when the tapwater runs cold.

Rather than a second chiller, you could try an inexpensive pond pump to push ice water through your existing chiller once you chill down to 100 or so

Your biggest obstacle is warm tap water in the summer imo, feeding ice water through it will be a different story.

 

[jmos]

+1 on the ice water and pond pump. I tried a pre-chilling coil in a bucket of ice, and it helped, but not that much. I switched to an aquarium pump sucking from a bucket of ice water and works great. Mine's a bit small, but still helps a lot. In the summer I have 80*-85* degree cold water supply, the pump with ice water is the best way to get under 70*.