My Immersion Chiller

[OCB tilly]

So moving into an apartment had me worried about brewing but this new immersion chiller has me pumped! Before I was just using an ice bath to cool the wort....

So I just put this together today; bought a faucet converter, fem hose to barb adapter, 20' vinyl hose, and 20' of 3/8" soft copper. Total cost was less than $40 CDN.

As you can see in the first pic I'm testing my stove with 6.5 gallons of water; going to bring it to a boil and put my IC to the test. :rockin:

IC beside my brew pot...


Faucet adapter...


Temp of brew pot...

 

[Flyin' Lion]

Excellent first post, OCB tilly.

Congrats on the ingenuity, that's part of what homebrewing is about.

BTW, welcome to the forum.

 

[KwaiLo]

Looks good. Did you buy your pot local to St.C?

 

[OCB tilly]

Unfortunately the first results weren't as good as I expected; took 40 minutes to bring 7.5 gallons of boiling water down to 80F.

I'm going to test it again and put the extra input hose in my sink with ice and water. See if that will help my times...

All in all not too worried about it, this immersion chiller is a huge upgrade from a simple ice bath....

Looks good. Did you buy your pot local to St.C?

Nah, earlier in the year Canadian Tire had a turkey fryer with a 7.5 gallon aluminum pot and 65k BTU burner on sale for $50. So the pot you see is the one that came with that deal....

 

[ScubaSteve]

Don't forget to stir with a sanitized spoon! It REALLY helps!

 

[FlyGuy]

40 minutes is probably about right for 7.5 gals of water. But if you are doing 5 gallon batches, I expect you will boil down to about 5.5 or 6 gals of water, right? That will take some time off it as well.

Don't forget to stir with a sanitized spoon! It REALLY helps!

Yep, you gotta whirlpool that wort while it is chilling with the IC. You might get your cooling (of a 5 gal batch) down to 20 - 25 mins easy.

 

[OCB tilly]

40 minutes is probably about right for 7.5 gals of water. But if you are doing 5 gallon batches, I expect you will boil down to about 5.5 or 6 gals of water, right? That will take some time off it as well.


Yep, you gotta whirlpool that wort while it is chilling with the IC. You might get your cooling (of a 5 gal batch) down to 20 - 25 mins easy.

Haha crap I forgot about boiling 5 gallons as opposed to 7, too excited I guess.

Yeah this second try took 30 minutes; I whirpooled a bit, slightly pre-chilled with ice water and that's about it.

Definitely happy with this chiller :rockin:

 

[Big "A"]

You could also try to add 5 or ten feet of coiled copper in the ice bath in the sink to cool the faucet water even a touch more.

I need to upgrade to a Chiller my self I have been lugging my pot to and Ice bath also. Serious pain in the but!!

 

[Bernie Brewer]

Don't forget to stir with a sanitized spoon! It REALLY helps!

Fcku the spoon. Just swish the chiller around in there every once in a while.

 

[Dr_Deathweed]

You could also try to add 5 or ten feet of coiled copper in the ice bath in the sink to cool the faucet water even a touch more.

I need to upgrade to a Chiller my self I have been lugging my pot to and Ice bath also. Serious pain in the but!!

EDIT: deleted my post, it made no sense, see my post below....

 

[Dr_Deathweed]

wait, no, nix that, I must be having a massive brain fart.... he used a post chiller after the CFC.... duh, my bad.... Forget everything I say and may God have mercy on my soul....

EDIT: fixed above problem, editing is fun... Makes me feel omnipotent.... I need sleep....