CFC hose question: Garden hose vs. anything else

I am currently acquiring materials for my first CFC. I have 30 ft. of 3/8" OD soft copper tubing and the fittings I need, but can't decide whether or not to go with the cheaper 5/8" ID garden hose or the much more expensive rubber hose. Has anyone with more experience with actual CFC usage found one type of hose to be better than another? I have seen several CFC builds on YouTube suggesting that regular garden hose is able to withstand the temperature of the water that wort chillers need to be effective. Opinions?

As a noob, I would welcome experienced feedback. Thanks in advance!

On a related note, I've found that the 1/2" x 3/8" reducers I have seem much too big around inside to solder to the 3/8" tubing. There is a good sized gap between the outside of the tubing and the inside of the reducer. Should I just get a smaller terminal reducer (1/2" x 1/4"). or what? Help!

I made the same mistake with reducers as you did when building my immersion chiller. You need the 1/4" reducer, the difference is from measuring OD vs ID.

Curious about the answers to your first question, I'm planning to build a CFC and have the same copper tubing ready to go. If it makes any difference I plan to sanitize by running boiling wort through the CFC so think that means a higher temp rating for the garden hose.

I would try to use PEX.

baulz said:

I made the same mistake with reducers as you did when building my immersion chiller. You need the 1/4" reducer, the difference is from measuring OD vs ID.

Curious about the answers to your first question, I'm planning to build a CFC and have the same copper tubing ready to go. If it makes any difference I plan to sanitize by running boiling wort through the CFC so think that means a higher temp rating for the garden hose.

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Thanks, baulz, yep I got the 1/4" reducers today and after filing down the stops inside them, they juuuust slide onto my tubing! WOOT! Now all I need is the hose.

Bettersense, thanks for your suggestion! I've seen PEX tubing in the stores. What makes it a better choice?

If you have a junk garden hose then by all means try it. But if you are buying new you might as well hot water hose. A 25' hose is all of $22. Link: http://amzn.to/ZURfFC

Garden hose is thermoset and will eventually crack and deteriorate with age. PEX won't, in theory. It's also cheap.

PEX is certainly good to high temps. How are you attaching PEX to the copper? What's the bend radius?

Go to the local auto part store. 5/8 heater hose is rated for pressure and temps over 250. It's around $1 a foot.

If I could build my CFC over again, I'd use a hose rated for hot water. I don't like the smell of burning plastic when I'm running boiling hot wort through the chiller to sterilize it. One of these days it's gonna spring a leak on me.

Yea, I used 3/4" automotive heater hose (1/2" copper CFC). It was pretty affordable ~1.20/ft?

I used chepo green hose and it had lots of leaks after two years of weekly/bi weekly use. Duct tape works to seal leaks for a few batches. IMHO its junk. If I did it again, I would spring for something heat tolerant.

I've used a regular garden hose on our CFC for about 2 years with no issues so far. I don't think it's the very bottom of the line hose, which could be why. It was a hose we had lying around and decided it would make a better chiller than anything else.

Thanks for your input, all! I'm going to look more closely at something other than regular garden hose, maybe PEX or other more heat tolerant material. I want this CFC to be useful even if/when I start all grain brewing.

RevBrewer said:

Thanks for your input, all! I'm going to look more closely at something other than regular garden hose, maybe PEX or other more heat tolerant material. I want this CFC to be useful even if/when I start all grain brewing.

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The only concern I would have with PEX is getting it to bend tight enough at that large of a radius...but! I could be wrong.

So here is the finished project. I'm planning to test it tomorrow. That's about 30 ft. of 3/8" OD copper tubing wrapped with rubber hose (temp. rated to 160 F). It won't win any beauty contests, but all I care about is whether or not it gets my wort down to the right temperature.

Test results soon.

Thanks for all your input.

Looks a heck of a lot better than mine. Good work!

Something cool that I saw somebody else do (and I copied them) was to install a stainless 1/2" T onto the exit end of the wort pipe, and then one branch of the T goes to a 1/2" NPT thermometer and the other branch goes to the fermentor(s). It gives you a real-time display of your exiting wort temps. Very useful.

Other things that help:

* Attaching garden hose quick connects on each end of the water lines. Make one male and one female so you don't have to think about which one is in and which one is out.
* Attach a valve onto the "water in" pipe so you can regulate the water flow. Helpful for the cold winter months when you don't need the water on full blast and you're sitting there next to the chiller trying to dial in the exiting wort temps. Dependent on where you live, I suppose.
* Camlocks or quick disconnects for the ends of the wort pipes. Once I upgraded all of my tubing, valve ends and chiller ends to camlocks it made brew days a lot easier.

AllanMar said:

Yea, I used 3/4" automotive heater hose (1/2" copper CFC). It was pretty affordable ~1.20/ft?

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Very grateful to all who posted here. Needed hose to go with 1/2" copper I have and found myself tripping over 5/8" and nothing reasonable (cheap) in 3/4".

Just got 50' of 3/4" heater hose for $43 shipped on ebay!

Now need to decide if I should make two 25' CFC and sell one, or make a 50' monster...........

MrNatural said:

Very grateful to all who posted here. Needed hose to go with 1/2" copper I have and found myself tripping over 5/8" and nothing reasonable (cheap) in 3/4".

Just got 50' of 3/4" heater hose for $43 shipped on ebay!

Now need to decide if I should make two 25' CFC and sell one, or make a 50' monster...........

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Not much help to you, but to anyone else. Try auto-parts stores, they usually have it by the ft for a reasonable price.

The CFC pictured above is a beast! It took 1 Gallon of distilled water from 208 F to 50 F in less than 5 minutes. I obviously have to play with the cold water flow rate and maybe mix in a little hot to bring the exit temp up to around 70 F.

Any other thoughts/suggestions?

RevBrewer said:

The CFC pictured above is a beast! It took 1 Gallon of distilled water from 208 F to 50 F in less than 5 minutes. I obviously have to play with the cold water flow rate and maybe mix in a little hot to bring the exit temp up to around 70 F.

Any other thoughts/suggestions?

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You have two controls when using a CFC: a valve controlling the water flow rate and a valve controlling the wort flow rate.

If your wort is coming out too cold, then run the wort full blast while reducing the flow of the water.

If your wort is coming out too hot, then run the water full blast while reducing the flow of the wort.

Thanks Landolincoln, I'll try that in my next test.

The options you suggested also sound good. I didn't anticipate that once I had all the hoses and tubing attached the thing would become so unwieldy just to lift and drain. Until I upgrade to a pump, gravity is my friend.

Those quick disconnects would be helpful additions. Thanks!

Where are you all getting your 25 and 30 foot lengths of 3/8" copper tubing?

All I can find at the local HD and Lowes is either 20, 50 or 100 feet.

MikeInMKE said:

Where are you all getting your 25 and 30 foot lengths of 3/8" copper tubing?

All I can find at the local HD and Lowes is either 20, 50 or 100 feet.

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I got mine at a local plumber's supply store. They sell to professional plumbers. What was cool was when I asked for 30 ft of soft copper tube, the guy asked if I was making moonshine. I laughed and said, "No, homebrew." He said if I brought in some beer to share he'd give me the contractors price on the copper. I did and got a nice discount. Worked for me.

where are you guys finding the 1/2" to 1/4" reducers I looked at lowes but could not find them

ekjohns said:

where are you guys finding the 1/2" to 1/4" reducers I looked at lowes but could not find them

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I found mine at a local plumbing supply store that does mostly contractor business.

I ordered from www.pexsupply.com. I've seen them in my local ACE hardware.