Tightest possible copper tubing curves.

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Syncman

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I only brew 2 gallons. Small pot, not deep. My homemade 1/2" copper coil chiller is 50% out of the wort. I need a design that puts more tubing lower down in the pot, than a straight up coil. Can anyone point me to a design/instructions?
 
What are the dimensions of your kettle?

Also, calculate the surface area of your tubing that touches the wort.
Pi * diameter of tubing * length
A tighter or looser coil will adjust the surface contact and alter cooling rate.

Copper is a good conductor, recirculation of cold water is as important. As long as it chills fast enough for you, it may not be worth the time to reengineering.
 
You'll want to get a tubing/pipe bender. This will allow you to bend the pipe without crimping/collapsing it.
upload_2018-7-20_9-32-48.jpeg
 
3/8" can bend pretty tight. A cheap and easy way of not crimping it for tight bends is to braze a cap on one end ,fill with sand or water, then seal the other end. For water-filled, get a flared fitting with a valve or find a bolt that goes in tight. For sand-filled, just braze on a cap on the other end. When done, cut off the end pieces.

I have rolled 3" diameter with 3/8" tubing no problem. For the size you are dealing with, an 8" coil would be plenty.

You could do a double coil by using a Campbell's soup can (still full) as your inner coil and get a large diameter PVC pipe fitting from Lowe's for the outside diameter. inner coil goes top to bottom and outer coil goes bottom to top. pretty easy actually.
 
I was thinking you could go with a potato masher style pattern, with multiple levels. It will require quite a few bends. As a rule of thumb, you can generally bend a radius that is 3D, where D is the diameter of the tubing. Wall thickness also plays into this, but for the average copper tube, this will be OK.

upload_2018-7-20_10-22-18.jpeg
 
i made a 3/8 chiller with two interlaced coils that works really well for my 2-3 gal batches. not sure if you could make it since you've already bent your tubing into a single coil, but might be worth checking out. it wont put more copper at the bottom, but it definitely cools faster than the standard single coil.
 
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