Wort chiller made of plastic tubes...possible?

I dont want to spent 120 dollars on a copper wort chillers (that's how much they cost in Europe).

I am kinda thinking about making one from plastic tubes.....bending them and creating a spiral shape...that I would put in a bucket full of icy water. And obviously I'd siphone the wort thru this plastic chilling system

Is it a good idea? Will the wort slightly melt the plastic tubing?

I think you'd have problems with melting or at least softening. You'd have to find some heat resistant tubing.

Also, the metal acts to transfer the heat. Plastic doesn't conduct heat as well, so it would be much more inefficient.

You can make a wort chiller yourself. Can you get 10 meters of copper tubing for a decent price?

The problem with plastic for that purpose is that, compared to copper and even stainless steel, plastic has very poor heat transfer properties and heat transfer is the whole purpose of a wort chiller. BTW almost all commonly used plastic is going to have a maximum continuous use temperature of 82C/180F so it probably isn't the best idea to continually plunge it into boiling liquid. My advice is to save up, bite the bullet and buy the copper chiller. If you take care of it it's a one time expense and will last you as long as you brew. Making your own is not that difficult even for the less than skilled. Consider buying a coil of copper and some connection fittings and DIY to save some money.

To put this in perspective, when people say plastic is a poor heat conductor... copper has a thermal conductivity that is on the order of 1000 times greater than plastic. So yeah, this is not gonna work well at all.

I agree, good idea fairy has not visited the OP

oneandahalfshepherds said:

I agree, good idea fairy has not visited the OP

Click to expand...

Thanks

Make your own chiller. Mine's not the prettiest thing...made over 15 years' time. It'll cool in less than ten minutes in spring with a paint auger going.

You can buy flexible (copper) micro bore piping from loads of places in the UK and there so easy to make for £20-£30 it's well worth the effort!