Converting Copper IC to Counter Flow WC?

[37OliveStBrews]

Hi all,
Has anyone ever converted to a counter flow from an immersion chiller? I know you can make your own but wonder if the copper will stand up to be bent out of a coil and then back into a coil. I am very interested in converting since my IC doesn't cool wort nearly as fast in my keggle (stainless steel) as it did in my turkey fryer (aluminum) pot.

 

[724b]

Have you ever thought about adding a recirculation arm to make it a whirlpool chiller?

 

[37OliveStBrews]

724b,
I think a whirlpool arm would be over my head, I have no idea what one is other then it moves wort around. I don't have a pump and plan on using gravity to move the work through the counterflow.

 

[bigbeergeek]

I did it. 25 foot immersion to counterflow chiller was pretty easy. I used a hacksaw to cut through the soldered points that held the copper together, then carefully unrolled it. I had to cut off the goose necks as the bends were to extreme to hand straighten. I went with expensive rubber hose for the jacket but if I did it again I'd use a cheapo medium duty garden hose since I always use cold sanitizer to sanitize the lines, not boiling wort, thus the hose never gets hot (since the only time hot wort is in the lines it's surrounded by water). The hardest part of the build was ramming the copper up the hose... lots of thick soapy water solution poured down the hose in the opposite direction I rammed the copper did the trick.

 

[microbusbrewery]

I tried the whirlpool arm based on what I saw on Jamil's site. It seems to work well but like you said, you do need a pump. I had a problem with my pickup tube clogging with hop particles from time to time.

I just bought a hop back from B3 (daily deal) so I decided to try some experiments with an all-copper homemade CFC. Mine is based on PJ's design (http://pjmuth.org/beerstuff/counter_flow_chiller.htm). The only difference is I went with 10 foot lengths of tubing (SWMBO limited my budget). I've seen comments on here that 10 feet isn't long enough, but I noticed several of the commercial CFC's consist of 10-12 feet of tubing. I'm going to test it this weekend and see if it's sufficient for chilling five gallon batches. If not, I'll probably buy a little more 5/8" copper and cannibalize my IC and connect it to the 10 footer I have now resulting in two inlets/outlets. So the first 10 feet chilled with water from hose connect A, and the next X feet chilled with water from hose connect B. Hopefully that makes some kind of sense. I figure that should have better cooling capacity than running a CFC with one inlet/outlet since the cooling water is significantly hotter by the time it exists the CFC.

If I go that route, I'll post a picture at some point.

I like the idea of an all copper CFC better because eventually garden hoses crack, so if your budget allows, I'd go all copper.