Stainless Steel/Copper Heat Exchanger Build

[FireManDan]

After four infected batches of beer this last year I demolished and examined all of my brewing equipment only to find that my copper/garden hose counterflow chiller had a kink in it and was harboring some nasties. So what do you do.....? Toss it by the wayside and build a stainless steel/copper parallel tube chiller here are some pictures of the build so far. I have not added the straight shots of copper pipe just yet but I will update with pics as we progress. Questions, comments and criticism welcome!

 

[brick_haus]

Wow...that is going to be nice! And big! And pricey!

 

[jerbrew]

That's going to be a hellova chiller by the looks of it. Can't wait to see it built.

 

[FireManDan]

Fortunately I live in an area where the dairy industry is prominent and I have many resources for scrap stainless. If I were to have purchased all this stainless tubing and components I would venture to say that it would have run approximately $3-375. Also it does help that I have the ability to weld stainless in my garage. As far as size the outer cooling tubes , they are 54" long and the copper pipe will extend out past them at 60" OAL in order to connect them using silicone tubing. My thoughts as of now are to be able to hang this monster on the back of the brewstand (being used as the table in the pictures). I may build another one just for the hell of it!!

 

[BeardedBrews]

What are you using to pump through that monster? Don't forget that a chugger can only push wort through so much tubing before it loses all of its flow rate.

 

[FireManDan]

What are you using to pump through that monster? Don't forget that a chugger can only push wort through so much tubing before it loses all of its flow rate.

That is very good to know. I was actually going to use one of the two chuggers that I would be putting on my brewstand (brewtus killer). I will have to check the pump curves to make sure that it'll work but also being a tight -a** I couldn't bare the fact of losing 12oz of wort in the chiller so it has a gravitational pitch to every tube so the thought, and hopes are that I don't loose much in the chiller. Thank you for the heads up as I have never used a pump in my brew day to date.

 

[FireManDan]

Here are some more progress pictures.