Copper Cooling Coil

[Bobby]

i my built immersion chiller today. cost me an earthly sum of $35.
bargain. thinking of picking up another roll just for the sake of it. no doubt i will find a use for it...perhaps a prechiller.

 

[agro]

I have the good fortune of having a 2000 Litre tank of water to pump through my nice, shiney new immersion chiller. My plan is to pump from the tank, through the chiller and back into the tank to avoid wasting any water.

Unforutnately I don't have a torch to solder the copper joints... Anybody using compression fittings in the pot ?

Agro.

 

[warrenlw63]

Agro.

It's possible to use compression fittings. I used to do this.

Be very meticulous, tighten the fittings properly and use lots of plumber's tape. I found the pink tape that costs a few dollars more sealed the joints up nicely as they had some mild dripping with the regular stuff. You don't want any water (particularly tank) leaking into your wort.

Eventually I went down the copper elbow and soldering path though. It's not that difficult to do. :beerbang:

Warren -

 

[warrenlw63]

Before and after shots.

Warren -

 

[agro]

Cool

I have run water through the cooler for over an hour in the (empty) pot to check for leaks - all clear so it shouldn't leak. It will be interesting to see how well it works this weekend given the tank water is usually 2-3 degrees below ambient.

Yeh - the solderings easy... if you have a torch!

Cheers
Agro.

 

[apd]

warrenlw63,

Is that a dog turd in the bottom right of of the before shot?

You need to teach your dog to show some respect around your brewing gear!

 

[warrenlw63]

LOL! :lol: :lol:

Nup, a bit of fig tree that was giving me the irates. I took the loppers to it in a big way. It's gone completely these days.

That said I've got 2 Cocker Spaniels and sometimes walking through the yard at night is a bit like Tip-Toe through the Minefield.

Warren -

 

[browndog]

My chiller is made of 10m of 1/2" annealed copper tube and upon doing my first AG just recently freaked out a little about wasting a heap of water cooling down the wort. I had a brainstorm, I simply ran the waste water into my pool which was depleated by evaporation. Upon doing this I happily turned the tap as wide open as it would go. 25mins later the wort was at the same temp as the water coming out of the tap (about 26C) I now have no qualms about wasting water.


cheers

Browndog

 

[markws]

Similar to most people I am half way throught making an immersion chiller - Bunnings have ?12mm annealed copper tube/pipe for $49 for 15m.

All that remains for me is to fit connecotrs

Regards

MWS

 

[Bobby]

check your local mitre 10 first. they might be cheaper and they have a sale on now.

 

[Simon W]

Scrap metal yards are good. They only care about scrap value.
I picked up an unused 5m roll of 8mm copper tube for .... $1!!!
Didn't have what I wanted, could do with a bigger roll but eh, I can wait.
They've usually got all sorts of stainless stuff too.
Worth a try.

 

[agro]

Just tried the chiller out on the weekend recirculating water from tank->pump->chiller->tank at fairly high pressure. As an extra insurance I chlorinated the tank water earlier in the week 'just in case'.

End result - 20 lites of wort cooled from boiling 20 doen to 24 degrees in a little over 12 minutes. A heck of a lot faster than I expected. No noticable difference in the water temps going in and out of the cooler. Given the amount of water flowing through the thing that wasn't surprising.

The tank water was relatively cool at around 22 degrees which would have help considerably.

Given the water pressure and the way the cooler was vibrating - I think I will change from pressure fittings to soldered joints fairly soon.

Agro.

 

[Simon W]

I think I will change from pressure fittings to soldered joints fairly soon.

Lead free solders are available if you want go that route.
It's proobably not worth worrying about with such a small amount of solder in contact with the wort, but it's up to you.

 

[Screwtop]

I do zackary the same!

 

[matt77]

I'm thinking of pumping hot wort out of boiler. Into fermenter. Through a coil immersed in an esky full of ice n water.
Probably 3/8 , maybe even 1/4 .
A slow pump and that should cool to pitching temp once it's in the fermenter...
Is this wrong, because it seems the minority of people are doing it this way?

 

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

You probably don’t have enough thermal mass in the esky to take it down to pitching temp, but the esky is a good way to take it down the final 10C or so quickly.

 

[Tony M]

Matt, You may have to do both. The tap water here in Perth is 28C in the summer so I have to run a 15metre X 13mm immersion chiller in the boiler which drops the wort to the low thirties over 20 minutes or so then I pump out thru another 15 metres immersed in a 9 litre bucket filled with 4kg of crushed ice topped up with water. This gives me a final wort temp of 16-18C which is spot on for pitching. I crammed the secondary chiller into the bucket by making a double wrap of coils with a nominal 150mm dia. Have a couple of 2 litre containers of water which I keep in the freezer and break up into chunks with a welders chipping hammer. These figures are for 50L brews.
A quick hint--- Keep the wort circulating while the primary immersion chiller is running; it drastically increases the chill rate