Another quick question on wort chiller.

[emissary]

Making an immersion chiller out of scrap copper tubing I have dug up around the house. I have about 30' of 1/2"id and about 30' of 1/4"id. I am going to run tap water through the 1st coil in an ice bath and into the second coil that will be immersed in the wort. But here's the question. Which one do I use for the ice bath and which for the wort.

My initial inclination was to go big to little just based on flow (i.e. I didn't think the smaller diameter line could "fill" the larger diameter line very well). But when I lay it out that way, I'm just thinking that I'm sacrificing all of that potential volume that could be in the wort.

So what does everyone think? Big line in the ice and little line in the wort, or vice versa? Thanks!

 

[bovineblitz]

I'd do big in the wort, more surface area = more heat exchange, and heat exchange in the wort is most important/a bigger temp difference.

Though, I could be wrong.

 

[lschiavo]

I would guess the larger line would do better in the kettle as there will be much more of a temperature difference there. The big line there would have more heat transfer capacity.

 

[emissary]

Yeah, that's what made me hold off on finalizing it the other way last night. I thought I'd toss it up in the air this morning, though, and see if anyone could tell me why the smaller line would be better in the wort.

Any takers on that thought?

 

[Marsdude]

This may be more complicated than you want to go - but what about cutting the 1/4" od tubing into two 15' sections and then run water through them in parallel using 1/2" to 1/4" t's?

 

[emissary]

...thereby increasing cooling potential while also increasing flow so that the water can better "fill" the larger diameter line, I assume. Great idea. (Oh, and it's 1/4"id, 3/8"od) Not sure if the return on effort/investment would be worth it, but I'll price the parts and go from there.