Copper Cooling Coil

[manga]

I will soon have a 50L S/S kettle (40cm diameter and 40cm height) and will be buying some copper tubing from a plumbing store to cool the wort.

Question (1)
I have the option of 10mm or 12mm diamter tubing. I am thinking to get the 12mm as it would have more surface area, hence better cooling, however am not sure how easy it would be to bend into a coil. I take it that the copper is only about 1mm thick so should be easy to bend ?

Question (2)
For my kettle, I am thinking I would need 10m of tubing. Would this length be sufficent ?

Question (3)
What average flow rate of water through the copper tubing can I expect ? I have read that is would take approx 20-30 minutes to cool your wort. The reason I am asking is that I want to collect the hot water for watering the garden and need to know how many buckets I will need to buy

Any help on the above question would be apprecieated.

Cheers

 

[Samwise Gamgee]

Make sure you get soft annealed copper otherwise you'll have a hard time bending it.

In regards to flow rate, i suppose it will depend on how hard your tap is turned. Not sure if there is a typical water usage in cooling.

 

[warrenlw63]

Manga

10m is good. 15 metres would be even better. I use 15m to cool 40 litres of wort and it takes about 30 mins to bring the wort down to 30c in summer temps. Beyond that you'll be hard pressed to get any cooler without using a pre-chiller or pond pump recirculation.

Hope this helps.

Warren -

 

[Screwtop]

I thought 18M would be enough, ended up with 25M in this baby. Definitely 1/2" for ease of connectors etc and Bunnings cheaper than plumbers supplies. Cost me something like $110 for one roll of 18M from plumbers supplies.

 

[fraser_john]

What a whopper! How long does it take to chill a kettle full?

 

[BoilerBoy]

I use 9m of 10ml copper tube roughly coiled to fit inside a 60L plastic stackable crate I got from BigW.

I drilled a hole down the bottom side to fit a grommet to seal round the tube at the outlet
.
I fill it up with water and heaps of ice and just stir it around regulating the flow of the wort through the tap to adjust temp.

With a digital thermometer at the outlet the temp bounces between 10C & 25C with a collected temp of 18C.

It may not look pretty, but Its very effective! and very cheap when finances are tight!

Cheers BB

 

[bindi]

25m Screwtop wow, makes my 18m look sad Ah, but seems to work for me.
By the way, did you enjoy my Belgian yesterday? big session :beer: will crack your IPA tonight.

 

[stephen]

Bought either 15m or 18m (can't remember how much) of 10mm annealed copper tude from my local hardware for some where around $75 (again memory is faded!) I wound this around one of my kegs leaving about 6m for future projects. As for the ends, I bought some normal hose connectors - the ones used to connect two hoses together - drilled them out to 3/8", smeared sealant around my tube and forced the connectors onto either end of the chiller tube. With the sealant fully set I haven't had any leaks whatsoever. As for connecting to the kitchen sink I modified a dishwahser connector with a tap connector.

View attachment 5669

 

[stephen]

My chiller connections:

 

[JSB]

Hi Wally,

Does the $86 bucks inc the 30% price hike ??

Cheers
JSB

 

[Rex]

I thought 18M would be enough, ended up with 25M in this baby.

Nice work, how did you get the coiling so neat? or is it soldered together?

 

[nonicman]

I picked up a little pond pump from Bunnings for 7.95, fill the cleaned Keep Cold mash tun with ice and water (15 litres approx) , found it needed elevation to pump through the immersion chiller and back into it'self. Kick the ice water in at around the 30-40 mark and recirculate.

 

[Screwtop]

The largest boil so far has been 15L have yet to do a full 30L AG with it. Typical I overengineer everything, it's the German and Irish in me to be sure to be sure. Took 22 min on a hot day to reach the water temp of 24. Love the crate and ice idea from BoilerBoy, what a saving in water and materials. Have seen some great inovative home brew gear lately (feel another thread coming on, maybe "Way out home brew gear"). Saw Bindi Bob's grain mill mount the other day, an invalid shower chair with adjustable legs, you gotta post a pic Bob.

 

[GMK]

25m Screwtop wow, makes my 18m look sad Ah, but seems to work for me.
By the way, did you enjoy my Belgian yesterday? big session :beer: will crack your IPA tonight.

[post="104229"][/post]​

Nice looking tap in the background :super:

 

[bindi]

Nice looking tap in the background :super:

[post="104301"][/post]​

[/quote]

A Guy in SA sold it to me <_< let me think.. YOU the red one is going beside it soon.

 

[manga]

Wow guys, that was a lot more feedback than I expected. I'll have a peek in Bunnings some day and see if they stock the 1/2 inch that you all rave about. But why the imperial measurements ? I thought Australia was on the metric system !

Anyway, many thanks. I may also post some pics of my first AG mash when I get the chance.

 

[bindi]

The largest boil so far has been 15L have yet to do a full 30L AG with it. Typical I overengineer everything, it's the German and Irish in me to be sure to be sure. Took 22 min on a hot day to reach the water temp of 24. Love the crate and ice idea from BoilerBoy, what a saving in water and materials. Have seen some great inovative home brew gear lately (feel another thread coming on, maybe "Way out home brew gear"). Saw Bindi Bob's grain mill mount the other day, an invalid shower chair with adjustable legs, you gotta post a pic Bob.

[post="104300"][/post]​

''
As requested the mill even two 'socialy confused brewers can use with a drill :blink:

 

[Screwtop]

Funny how the mill just would not turn until the chuck was tightened. Think this should move to a "Way-Out Home Brewed Home Brew Gear thread to see what weird/way-out gear others have produced. That was some funny mill base!

 

[Justin]

To throw a spanner in the works my immersion chiller is 3/8" and about 9-10m long. It works great, I imagine better than 1/2" but probably little difference in real terms. Just to correct you on your question in your first post, 3/8" actually has a higher surface area "to volume" ratio than 1/2" which is actually what your after.

Get whatever is cheapest-1/2" or 3/8". If you don't skimp on length you can't go wrong with either.

Cheers, JD

 

[Screwtop]

Would imaging 3/8 would have less pressure/greater volume and so more effieciency (greater heat transfer over time due to reduced thermal saturation) even without calculating additional surface area. Many ways to skin cat, grasshopper