Questions Concerning Wort Chiller

[Photohype]

FedEx delivered my brew kit today and I am getting anxious to get everything prepared for brewing soon. I'm going to build a wort chiller instead of purchasing one in order to save money. I have watched many YouTube videos about building a wort chiller and have seen some basic designs to some designs that were quite fancy. I do have three questions I would like before going purchase what I need.

1. What diameter copper tubing is recommended? I notice that 3/8" seems to be the standard wort chiller size that is sold online. Many people on YouTube use 3/8" tubing yet some use 1/2" tubing.

2. I have seen one version wort chiller designed as a coil within a coil, all from one 50' piece of tubing. Does this help cool the wort down significantly?

3. What length of copper tubing is most recommended? I am not sure if I should purchase 25' or 50'.

 

[day_trippr]

Might help to know what your batch size is going to be, but when I started with 5 gallon batches I built my IC using 50 feet of 3/8" soft copper tubing in a single coil, wrapped around a corny keg as a form. Works great, but I'm blessed with a deep well that runs in the mid-50s all year round.

1/2" tubing provides a lot more surface area and increased water flow, so if you could work with that there is the potential for significantly faster cooling.

Coil-within-coil configurations work best if the two coils are run in parallel - separate connections to the water in and water out plumbing - and require a lot more finesse to construct. But, again, there is the potential pay-back in faster cooling...

Cheers!

 

[Photohype]

Might help to know what your batch size is going to be, but when I started with 5 gallon batches I built my IC using 50 feet of 3/8" soft copper tubing in a single coil, wrapped around a corny keg as a form. Works great, but I'm blessed with a deep well that runs in the mid-50s all year round.

1/2" tubing provides a lot more surface area and increased water flow, so if you could work with that there is the potential for significantly faster cooling.

Coil-within-coil configurations work best if the two coils are run in parallel - separate connections to the water in and water out plumbing - and require a lot more finesse to construct. But, again, there is the potential pay-back in faster cooling...

Cheers!

I am going to be making 5 gallon batches at a time using a 20 qt. brew pot.

 

[MindenMan]

I am going to be making 5 gallon batches at a time using a 20 qt. brew pot.

50 feet of even 3/8" tubing will cause a huge amount of displacement of the wort in the brew pot. I can pretty well say, unless you are doing partial boils, and topping off later, short boils may be needed due to the volume of the coil. I have an idea though, look at the diameter of the next pot you plan to buy, versus the one you have now. As far as I remember, the store bought ones are all pretty close in size, and if you used that as a template for yours, you will probably be worry free. I accidentally wound both of my coils the same direction, so my chiller uses both coils at the same time. I am okay with that now, but initially I was bonkers. It occurred to me having a "single pass" coil was like adding two ice cubes to a liquid, instead of one. Two ice cubes is always faster than one.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, assuming you submerged the entire 50 feet of 3/8" tubing, the total displacement would be ~1.1 quarts.

That's way less than the boil-off on a 5 gallon batch, so it's a safe bet that fitting a 50' chiller wouldn't be a problem at the end of the boil...

Cheers!

 

[MindenMan]

Thanks for the calculation. There are times when I really want to be wrong, less displacement more beer volume left in BK.
day trippr what is the displacement of my 5/8" x 50' chiller ?

 

[day_trippr]

OD radius squared * Pi * 12" * 50' = displacement in cubic inches

So, [.3125 squared] * Pi * 600" = 184 cubic inches, which equals ~3.2 quarts.

That starts getting into the range of "could be close" if one is just barely fitting the pre-boil volume for a 5 gallon batch in the kettle...

Cheers!

 

[TheZymurgist]

FedEx delivered my brew kit today and I am getting anxious to get everything prepared for brewing soon. I'm going to build a wort chiller instead of purchasing one in order to save money. I have watched many YouTube videos about building a wort chiller and have seen some basic designs to some designs that were quite fancy. I do have three questions I would like before going purchase what I need.

1. What diameter copper tubing is recommended? I notice that 3/8" seems to be the standard wort chiller size that is sold online. Many people on YouTube use 3/8" tubing yet some use 1/2" tubing.

2. I have seen one version wort chiller designed as a coil within a coil, all from one 50' piece of tubing. Does this help cool the wort down significantly?

3. What length of copper tubing is most recommended? I am not sure if I should purchase 25' or 50'.

With 5 gallon batches, go with 25' of 3/8" tubing. Especially since you're trying to cut costs. That will cool your wort just fine. That's what I use in a 15.5 gallon keggle for 5 gallon batches, and I'm usually down to pitching temps in less than 20 minutes.