redesign my home-made wort chiller

[jlatenight]

Hi all, I just brewed my first batch yesterday and I'm using mostly 2nd-hand stuff. I bought a home-made wort chiller that is kind of oddly designed (it was thrown in with the other stuff I bought). It's very tall and the coils are very spread-out. I have a 30qt aluminum pot and it fits great, but it's pretty ineffective. Took much longer to chill than I was hoping. I was thinking of desoldering the joints to the vertical tubing and basically collapsing the coils and resoldering. I figure that way, it will do a good job of cooling almost all of a 2 gallon boil. Couple questions: Is there a special tool needed to bend tubing so it doesn't crimp? Do I heat it up with a torch? Also, is regular lead-free solder ok to use? I may just use some thin wire and twist-tie it to hold it into place instead. Thanks everybody!!

 

[day_trippr]

Once you free the coils up from the riser you'll be easily able to collapse them without worrying about kinking...

Cheers!

 

[outside92129]

Btw, lead free doesn't mean it's for plumbing purposes. Look for the plumbing solder or even silver solder.

The coil is a bit tall for 2gallons...

Q: Immersion chillers don't work well if the wort (or chiller) isn't moving. The volume near the coils will just sit there in pockets while the rest of your pot stays hot. Are you moving the coil around and/or moving the wort?

 

[jlatenight]

yeah I did move the chiller around as water was running through it to move the beer around. Thanks guys. I'll give it a shot. I don't have plumbing solder, just electrical stuff, so I'll just use thin wire to hold it together. Thanks!!