3/4" ID copper chiller..

[TheKodiakWay]

While in Lowe's today I ran across a 60' roll of 3/4" ID copper for.... $40. I'm undetermined on how well this will work for cooling, but decided to swoop it up anyways. I currently BIAB and have a 24 plate chiller, which drops 5.5 gals from boil to 70 in 7 mins. I run a March pump and whirlpool back into the bayou kettle to get a nice gunk cone before I pump to the fermenter. Standard operating procedure...

My thought is to run an outer jacket around my current kettle, and place this copper between the kettle, and metal jacket. Chiller flowing top down through the copper, and H2O running bottom up through the jacket. This way I can use the extra jacket volume as insulation/temp control during mash, and change to cold H2O for the cooling. I'd be chilling through the copper, and the outside of the kettle simultaneously while also whirlpooling.

I could even put a triclover in the outer jacket, and install a removable heating element. The element would never touch the wort, just the outer jacket water. With the outlet opened on the top, there's no chance of pressure build up. Would a 5500W element get the inner 7.5gal of wort to boil though?

While the current system works quite well, I'd like to give this a try. In my head this should work.. Or would I be better to run some 3/8"-1/2" through the inside, and create an all copper CFC? Or some 1-1.5" pipe over the 3/4" copper and create a large CFC?

 

[MitDaseinBier]

Problem with such a high ID with copper coils is that it becomes rather difficult to coil without proper equipment. You can very easily coil up a 3/8in coil with a coffee can or something similarily sized. You have to be more careful with 1/2 in, but it's still doable. Higher than that you are going to want a tube bender and for 3/4 using heat might be advised, depending on the size of your pot.

 

[LandoLincoln]

I personally would get a second coil of 1/2" tubing and coil that to the same diameter as to whatever your 3/4" coil currently is. Then thread the 1/2" tubing inside of the 3/4" and make a 50' CFC out of it.

This saves you from having to mess with the bending of the 3/4" stuff and should give you some excellent cooling power combined with a 1/2" flow.

 

[Stealthcruiser]

I personally would get a second coil of 1/2" tubing and coil that to the same diameter as to whatever your 3/4" coil currently is. Then thread the 1/2" tubing inside of the 3/4" and make a 50' CFC out of it.

This saves you from having to mess with the bending of the 3/4" stuff and should give you some excellent cooling power combined with a 1/2" flow.

??????? Huh?

I would like to see this........happening!

 

[TheKodiakWay]

After a 2 hour cleaning marathon on my plate chiller today, and STILL watching chunks come out, I've decided this idea will work. Even if I lose some cooling efficiency, I'll make up for it in cleaning time. Quick math says it holds a little over 1.25 gallons, and has a surface area of 1700sq inches for cooling. My plate chiller is 3"x6", and 24 plates, totaling just shy of 1300sq inches of surface area?

I'm hoping bending the coil won't be too bad. I could see how a carboy would be tough, but it's going around a 14" diameter pot. If need be, I'll throw the weed burner on it to help with the rolling. I could even do it over the propane burner for a little extra help. If it's still a pain, I can make a larger diameter. Once it's rolled out I think I'm going to pull it off the kettle, and try it in a drum of H20 before I go all crazy attaching a jacket to the kettle. Especially since I haven't totally figured that part out yet.

 

[MindenMan]

My only suggestion to you is, start making your coil from the inside of the roll, not from the outside in. I did it from the outside in, and when I got near the center of the coil, keeping kinks out was a real chore. I used a 50 ft length of 5/8" O.D., a made a really ugly rib cage style. It couldn't have any more perfect for using in my 30 qt pot. The problem was, I thought I designed to use in my 40 qt pot, but it is too tall and narrow to work effectively. I have a 50 ft roll of 1/2" O.D. tubing to make my next IC out of, but next time, I will plan better size wise.

 

[TheKodiakWay]

Well we opened the box, set the kettle in the middle and thought "how hard can this really be..." at the end I had arms of mush, a tired toddler, and 15 wraps of 3/4" copper around a kettle!

 

[Cyclman]

Woah, that is awesome. I bet the forearms will be sore in a couple of days.

 

[day_trippr]

It looks totally awesome.

But I doubt it's going to perform very well at all.

Too many things working against the effort.

Stainless is a poor thermal conductor.

And the contact area of the entire length of tubing probably doesn't add up to more than a square inch or two.

That's the killer right there.

Recoil it into an epic IC and you're in bidness...

Cheers!

 

[TheKodiakWay]

There's actually 1/4" or so between the copper pipe, and my kettle. I'm running another kettle/drum around the outside of this, as a jacket. The wort will be pumped through the copper pipe, and the cooling water will be pumped into the jacket. The entire copper pipe, and majority of the brew kettle will be in contact with the cooling water. In my head it's a CFC, and waterbath at the same time.

I'm hoping I can heat the outer jacket, and have the heat transfer through the water, and into the kettle. Kind of a single vessel Herms set up. (admittedly, I haven't really done much research on Herms) I'd like to put a triclover, or maybe a weldless fitting into the outer jacket, and go electric. In theory I can boil everything as one, without the flame/element coming into contact with the wort.

 

[TheKodiakWay]

I guess it's a cross between a worm for condensing likker, a cfc, and waterbath. For heating, best I can think of is a single vessel HERMS steam jacket kinda thing.