Immersion Lagering Coil

[kenc_zymurgy]

How about an update on this? How's it working for you?

Offhand, that coil length seems like WAY overkill, and takes up precious volume in that Corny. Just using some very rough estimates, a 25' SS immersion coil will drop 5 gallons of wort from ~200F to 100F in about 20 minutes (lots of variables here, tap water temp and so forth, but bear with me).

So that's ~ 5F/minute. Considering that slows as the temp delta decreases, lets say ~ 1F/minute near the end. I doubt fermentation would add 1F an hour, but lets just say you want to drop 5F an hour for initially getting to lager temps - so compare 60F/hour for 25' SS versus your desired 5F/hour. That's 1/12 so 25/12 ~ 2' of coil, with some pretty generous assumptions, so 2' is probably even overkill.

A single straight section going down and looping back up should be plenty.

You could experiment with some copper and water. The difference in conduction between SS/copper isn't that big a deal - really. It's not the limiting factor that people make it out to be - trust me on this.

Pls let us know how it worked out.

-kenc

 

[DaleP]

At the NHC this year, the Brewhemoth guys kept ten gallons of water at 40 degrees pumping ice water thru their fermenter chilling coil. Very cool!

 

[StainlessBrewing]

This was one of our very first small coils. We have advanced drastically over the last 6 months.

 

[kenc_zymurgy]

Very nice.

Is that for a Corny, or a larger fermentor? Do you have any performance data? It still seems like a lot of coils to me for a Corny. I know my estimate was a wide, wide shot at it, but even a single down-and-back-up loop would be almost 4', probably sufficient, and a few twists could add to it if needed.

Have you thought about making these for bucket fermentors (or maybe I missed those threads, have not been on much lately)? The tubing could just go through a couple extra grommeted holes in a lid, and depending on how they are terminated, could be pulled through to disassemble and clean. I've been meaning to build one like that for years, but I am lazy.

-kenc