OK after 11 yrs of ag brewing, im finally sick of using an ice bath to chill worts and am ready to make an immersion chiller. Any suggestions? I thought it would involve taking about 20ft of copper tubing (for kettle made from 1/2 keg) + coiling it + soldering to a female garden hose connector.

I wound mine around a paint can, wish I had used a larger diameter. I also brought the ends out
and over the top of my brew pot. To the ends of the copper tubes I slipped vinly tubing over and clamped. One vinly tube runs over to my picnic cooler to catch hot water If you are really cheap like me, you use the tubing that was inside the stainless steel hose braid we use in the bottom of the cooler, as the connection to the water source.

Here is a video of making one from my buddy (via message boards) BobbyM. Check out his other videos. He is a master fabricator in the brewing world!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8EolKTDZUQ

HTH
JOHN

How many gallons of cold h2o do you have to run thru the thing to cool it? Sounds like youd have to fill the cooler bucket several times to get it cool as i hear it takes 1/2 hr when hooked to a hose. This idea sounds simpler + cheaper to fabricate though.

Good question Nate, I've wondered the same thing. I have a counterflow chiller and lately have been thinking about moving to an immersion chiller. I have been wondering the chill time and water cost of the 2 systems side by side.

Oh yeah, kick ass video. That guy makes me want to break out the butane torch

I collect my hot immersion discharge water into 3, 5 gallon buckets to be used later for cleaning. By that time, I'm around 110 degrees (depending on my water temperature), so I switch to a pump and recirculate ice water. I'm guessing that I use about 15# of ice and another 5-7 gallons of water. This is for a 10 gallon batch of beer and these are rough numbers.

10 gallon batches are part of the reason I want to change to an IC. My CFC is 3/8" flexible copper tubing which takes quite a while to drain 10 gallons. I am not using a pump, but the chiller is my bottle neck. I have a 1/2" spigot and pickup tube with a full port 1/2" ball valve. If I build an IC it will be 50 ft. 1/2" tubing.

Brewboy, have you used your pump with the Jamil Whirlpool chiller method?

I made mine out of about 23 feet of 1/2 inch OD flex copper tubing and bent it with a spring type tubing bender that costs about $1.75. A paint can or corny is what a lot of folks use, just be carful not to collapse the tubing around the bend. I just modified mine with come compression elbows to bring the tubing up an over a larger kettle. Just make sure the hose connection is over the kettle rim so any leaks don't fall back in the kettle. I just slip a half inch garden hose over the ends.

FYI, I've read that it is easier to bend the tubing if you fill it with water first and cap the ends before you bend it, less chance of crimping

I should have mentioned that. Yes, I whirlpool the wort, not like he did it, but the same results. Whirlpooling makes all the difference.

germanskyy says

"FYI, I've read that it is easier to bend the tubing if you fill it with water first and cap the ends before you bend it, less chance of crimping"

Actually, the soft copper tubing comes coiled. It is easy enough to tighten the coil around the a keg or a pot then it is to straighten it and then recoil.

John

It really couldnt be much easier to make. I bought my self a new roll of 1/2 dia copper. Length varies to your pot depth and dia. It comes in a roll, correct! Take it out of the box,with the pot you plan on boiling with by your side. Now what you need to figure out is as much loops you can get in your pot, then just take the already boxed coil and starting at the top of the coil of copper,remember about the first foot or so will be the neck straight up and over the lip of the pot so your connections to the water source are outside the pot.(now having a copper bending tool is handy for close bends, don't even try to do it by hand, you'll fuck it up,but you could solder a 90 fitting in also) lift and slowly start making the loops smaller to fit the dia of your brew pot. I did this and also repeated with a smaller coil within the first where at the bottom of the coils I soldered two 90 degree angles which will bring your water back up to the out leg witch is next to the in leg and actually I brazed them together both having a garden hose fitting on each. Now maybe you dont know how to braze copper( all the materials should be at your local hareware store which you can write back and I could give details on this)and is really not that hard to do. Extremely effective! I have the chiller in the pot throughout the entire boil and I can chill 5 gals down to 60-70 in about5 mins with 55 degree well water. I too used ice baths and was blown away with how fast this worked. Now if I could only get myself to spend the money on a great grain mill. I tried making one of these also, works, but eff's are only about60's. Still fine tuneing. But thats another story. Good luck on your chiller!

That guy in the You tube video put a couple of joints in his to make the 90 degree bends. I wouldn't do that, if at all possible.

I bought my chiller from More Beer, because at the time, I couldn't buy 50' of 1/2" copper tubing for what I could buy a built chiller with all of the fittings.

I have heard of filling the tube with water, but that sounds more difficult to me. Just don't try to bend the tube, let the tube bend itself. That may sound a little philosophical, but what I mean is that you should not try to wrap the tube around the round object. Start with the end of the tube against the round object and slowly push the tube up against the surface. Or rotate the round object with your hand pressed against the copper so that it is forced to maintain contact with the surface as it rotates. If you have ever seen how a pipe-bending tool works, it is the same thing.

Hard to describe, easy to do. Probably one of the few things easier done than said.

Edit: I actually straightened the coil and then rewound it. This may be necesary if you don't want to change the original diameter of the coil by a lot.

I have the exact dimensions of your chill BB, I think I bought it from NB... it was cheaper as well than the supplies to make one.
I do have a 75 feet of 1/2 copper tubing I got for free a couple of months ago, not sure if I'll ever have time to make another chiller

My brew buddy and i made one quite easily and it works great compared with the way we were doing it. we wrap a hose around the inside of a large plastic bin filled with ice, then connect it to the chiller. our boil pot then sits in the ice water while the water pumps through the chiller.

with that said though. we are seriously considering upgrading to a counterflow chiller. a guy near me who i bought some stuff off of is selling his for cheap, and it has an oxygenator added to the end.

anyway, noticing that many of you use an immersion chiller, is there a downside to CF chillers?

so,Brewboy, tell me why fittings wouldnt be a good idea.

Possible leaks that you can't see and you have to use lead free solder because it's in the wort. Neither is a show stopper, but why do it if you can get by without them. Might require a bender to get the radius that you need (want).

I used fittings with perfect results. As long as you can solder them together fine and do a test run, all should be kosher. I soldered garden hose fittings (in and out) onto mine so i can feed it from the side of the house, and use the "waste" water to water the lawn via a sprinkler.

well as I mentioned-brazing doesnt have any lead and if you do a leak check you wont have any leaks- not sending a rocket to the moon here.

I would definitely trust a brazed joint before I did one soldered with that lead free stuff. Keep in mind that these aren't stationary in a wall like your house plumbing. They are subjected to extreme temperature changes and are moved around a lot.

When you end up with more wort than you started with, you'll know you have a leak.

I have mentioned this before but a double barreled IC of 2 20 foot coils connected to the hose by a Tee tube chills a lot quicker than a single 40 IC-the reasons are mentioned in this earlier post which U can find.....be sure to jiggle the IC every few minutes to increase chill rate....I switched to a large diameter Cu in a Cu tube CFC because the IC took up so much space in the boil pot...

So BB, whats up, The soldering I've done on my home copper pipes with "lead free stuff" all hold fine.

But you are the welding guy so, what am I missing here?

CLB

I can weld (a little), braze and solder with the lead stuff, but I cannot get a good joint with the lead free stuff. I truly haven't tried that much, but my first experience was a disaster.

I know of no reason to fool around with brazing,sweating etc when all one needs to do is to clamp a hose securely onto the IC

Absolutely, Hank! It's cheap, it's easy. it's pragmatic....

If you look at the video nwcw2001 posted you would see _a_ reason even if you don't feel it's valid. Using 90 degree angle pieces will help things look a bit neater and possible more solid. I made my own with nothing but the copper tubing, a paint can, and some compression fittings. That being said, the one in the video looks much nicer than mine.

I take pride in the funkiness of my chiller....

Many of us take pride in the major efficiency benefits the color blue lends to our coolers so we can agree there's room for aesthetics.

I get better efficiency with the orange cooler myself.

Oh, man, don't go dissin' blue coolers!

Saw this on ebay a minute ago...cheep! http://cgi.ebay.com/New-30-ft-WORT-CHILLER-3-8-Homebrew-Beer-Brewing_W0QQitemZ160238915503QQihZ006QQcategoryZ38172QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

MORE PRAGMATISM from hank!! RE ebay...I was looking for a bit of cheap Cu tubing a couple of years ago and found a convoluted Cu in Cu Chillzilla CFC for less cost than just the materials and I grabbed it..this IC also seems to be near or below materials cost and I would get it if I were U

Be sure and get a prechiller.