boomtown25
Well-Known Member
So, I am pretty proud of myself because last night I built my own ribcage immersion chiller using $40 in parts from Lowes and I managed to build it in 12 minutes (to show you how easy it was). For the record, I got this idea from another person on this forum, so I take no responsibility for this idea.
If you do not know what a ribcage immersion chiller is, search it on here (I sure didnt come up with the idea and it is pretty damn cool. I was worried that I was going to crimp my copper tubing since I didnt have a tube bender so this is how I did it:
20 ft piece of copper tubing 3/8 inside diameter and ½ outside diameter, from Lowes ($24)- I knew this was 20 feet so I needed to straighten it out to the middle (10 ft). I unrolled it gently on one end and laid flat on carpet. The other side remained coiled. I then took a gallon pain can and right under the gallon paint can handle, I laid the can flat on top of the straight copper tube. I gently began rolling the straight part back towards the middle. I did not push down, but concentrated more on rolling the tube around the can. This worked like a charm. I then straightened the other side out and repeated the procedure, rolling it towards the middle. One thing you need to pay attention to is to have your open ends on the same side (top and top instead of one on top and one on bottom). If you keep you paint can facing the same position both times and wind the same way for both sides this shouldnt be a problem. Once done, I spaced out my rings and pushed to two coils towards each other forming the ribcage.
At this point, I took both open ends of the copper (right next to each other) and gently bent them upwards. I came close to kinking the copper doing this, but was fine. Take you time at this point because you have a better chance of kinking with no can to wrap tube around.
I then used 10 feet of ½ inch inside diameter vinyl tubing ($4.50) and cut one piece to around 4 feet and the other was 6. I heated the tube ends so they would stretch and slid them on the copper and secured them with stainless steel clamps (2 for $0.90). Then on the short tube on the other end, I fastened a brass hose nozzle ($7.50) that screwed onto my adapter ($3.00) I bought for the faucet. It worked like a charm!
If you do not know what a ribcage immersion chiller is, search it on here (I sure didnt come up with the idea and it is pretty damn cool. I was worried that I was going to crimp my copper tubing since I didnt have a tube bender so this is how I did it:
20 ft piece of copper tubing 3/8 inside diameter and ½ outside diameter, from Lowes ($24)- I knew this was 20 feet so I needed to straighten it out to the middle (10 ft). I unrolled it gently on one end and laid flat on carpet. The other side remained coiled. I then took a gallon pain can and right under the gallon paint can handle, I laid the can flat on top of the straight copper tube. I gently began rolling the straight part back towards the middle. I did not push down, but concentrated more on rolling the tube around the can. This worked like a charm. I then straightened the other side out and repeated the procedure, rolling it towards the middle. One thing you need to pay attention to is to have your open ends on the same side (top and top instead of one on top and one on bottom). If you keep you paint can facing the same position both times and wind the same way for both sides this shouldnt be a problem. Once done, I spaced out my rings and pushed to two coils towards each other forming the ribcage.
At this point, I took both open ends of the copper (right next to each other) and gently bent them upwards. I came close to kinking the copper doing this, but was fine. Take you time at this point because you have a better chance of kinking with no can to wrap tube around.
I then used 10 feet of ½ inch inside diameter vinyl tubing ($4.50) and cut one piece to around 4 feet and the other was 6. I heated the tube ends so they would stretch and slid them on the copper and secured them with stainless steel clamps (2 for $0.90). Then on the short tube on the other end, I fastened a brass hose nozzle ($7.50) that screwed onto my adapter ($3.00) I bought for the faucet. It worked like a charm!
But I love building stuff and mine didn't come with the same sense of satisfaction yours did.
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