Wort Chiller

[Doc]

I have just finished off my wort chiller.
I got a coil of copper tubing, and wrapped it around an 18 litre keg.
Sacraficed a bit of garden hose and fitted to the end of the copper coil and fastened with hose clamps. Added Nylex garden hose connectors with male to male fittings, and all is looking good.
Simply attach a couple of garden hoses (one to the water supply and one to the drain) and I'm in business.

Beers,
Doc

 

[dane]

Looks great Doc - top work.

Let us know how it works for you- how efficient / how quickly it chills.

Nothing beats a bit of time in the workshop and makes some homebrew equipment for your hombrew.

Looks like the new upload/attach system is working well

 

[RegBadgery]

This looks terrific - there must be 50 ft of copper there - should run like a train.

cheers
reg

 

[Doc]

Yep. Used a complete coil.
Couldn't think what else I was going to use it for so used the lot.
I also figured it is going in a 50 litre keg, so the higher the better.

Doc

 

[Doc]

I've done three AG brews now, and this immersion chiller works a treat. It will cool the wort down enough to transfer to the fermenter in 20 mins.
Last weekends brew was 24 deg in the fermenter after being cooled by the chiller.

Cheers,
Doc

 

[kook]

How long was the complete coil, 18 metres ?

I should be building one pretty much identical in a few weeks, sounds perfect for what I want.

Great work Doc

 

[Doc]

I'm not sure what the complete length was. I just bought a coil from the plumbing supply shop and used the whole lot.

Fits nicely into one of Linz's converted boilers

Cheers,
Doc

 

[Doc]

By the way, key to the design of the immersion chiller is that the ends point down. There is also a decent amount of length used for the overhang. This way if the hose blows off or anything unusual happens any spilt water will not make it into the boiler.

Cheers,
Doc

 

[GMK]

Kook

I like Docs wort chiller - but i would like to make a suggestion before you make yours.

I think it would be better to make two seperate coils.
Connect both coils together with some tube say 1m apart.
Sit one coil in an ice bath tub, and place the other coil in the boiler.

Now turn on the tap. You will find that the hose / tap water will first have to tranverse the ice bucket making it really cold - approx 4-5 degrees as opposed to room temp of 20 odd degrees.

You will now be cooling the wort with very cold water. This means that you will get a more efficient and quicker cooling of the wort than by using normal temp tap water.

will now be able to cool to lager yeast temp.

let me know what you think.

 

[RegBadgery]

That's very interesting Kook - sounds like a great idea. Last time I used my chiller - I used tap water to for most of the cooling and then pumped chilled water to get a larger drop at the end. However chilling from the outset would I imagine be more effective in getting a sudden rapid temp drop.

cheers
reg

 

[Doc]

Check out this ugly one from the HBD Gallery.

 

[Doc]

and from another angle.

 

[GMK]

Here is a set up of a mate of mine.

He just built his brewing bench. He uses a RIMS system to do all grain.

Note the St pats counterflow wort chiller hanging under neath

 

[GMK]

Here is a close up of the St Pats wort chiller.

It is a convoluted copper counterflow wort chiller.
http://www.stpats.com/chillers.htm

 

[GMK]

And here is a pic of the taps and drip tray i got him.

 

[GMK]

Sorry, Might help if upload the image.

 

[nicko]

nice

shame he only has lite ice on tap tho

 

[nicko]

my wort chiller is 18m of copper...ill post a pic soon, works a treat. takes about 20mins to get down to right temp, thats for a 45 litre batch

 

[Hoops]

I use an immersion wort chiller like the ones people have posted pics of, but i have been wondering if I have another device at my disposal?
I have a "miracle box" for chilling keg beer (metres of stainless steel tube encased in a huge lump of aluminium). I am thinking that this would do a fantastic job of chilling the wort instantly and give a very good cold break. The only problem I can see is that there will be a fair bit of resistance therefore a slow flow.
Anyone with any ideas?

Hoops

 

[jayse]

one idea could be use that to pre chill the water before it goes through the imersion chiller.
i think that would work the best.