Counterflow Chiller idea

[trabus]

I've been looking at all sorts of chillers, specifically counterflow, and I had an idea. Instead of using one 3/8 tube for the wort, use two, and twist the length of them together.

The idea is that it would cause the desired turbulence around the copper tubes, and allow you to move more wort at once. Then at the ends, the tubes would use a T and reducing couplings to seal off the water hose from the wort tubes. It would obviously require a larger hose, and larger T fittings. The twisting of the tube would require some care, but I think it could be done. The input would use a dual copper rack cane, and the output would join into a 1/2" T to accommodate the increased flow.

If the hose implementation would be too difficult, I figure it could also be applied to a hybrid design, with a 4" pvc pipe instead.

So does this even sound like it could work? I should note that I'm completely new to brewing, and have yet to brew my first batch. I hope my idea doesn't reflect that.

 

[clayof2day]

Wouldn't this also effectively reducue your cooling surface area by half. I assume that in order get them into your our tube with the counter-flowing water, the two inner coils would have to be pretty tightly coiled. In this scenariou you would have a lot of copper on copper which wouln't be exposed to your coolant as well. Don't know, but that was my first thought.

 

[trabus]

Ah, That's a good point.
Maybe it would be better to just use two separate coils inside a hybrid chiller. I'd still like to investigate using two 3/8" tubes with a dual rack cane though.

 

[bradsul]

I'm not sure you could coil up a twisted pair of copper tubes anyway, they would kink massively even if you completely filled them with sand I think.

 

[bradsul]

Ah, That's a good point.
Maybe it would be better to just use two separate coils inside a hybrid chiller. I'd still like to investigate using two 3/8" tubes with a dual rack cane though.

I'm not sure you'd get any benefit just from 2 coils inside the same cooling jacket. You'd have too much heat for your cooling water to handle would be my guess. Unless you also increased your cooling jacket capacity. At which point I would think it would be easier just to make your chiller longer.

 

[trabus]

Well, I was figuring on a loose sort of twisting, nothing too extreme. Regardless, I'm now realizing the effort wouldn't be worth it, and any difference in chilling would be probably be minimal.

 

[bradsul]

You never know, it might end up being the best chiller ever. But with the price of copper I'm not sure I'd want to be the innovator that tried to find out.

 

[trabus]

I'm not sure you'd get any benefit just from 2 coils inside the same cooling jacket. You'd have too much heat for your cooling water to handle would be my guess. Unless you also increased your cooling jacket capacity. At which point I would think it would be easier just to make your chiller longer.

I was thinking along the lines that it would move the wort from the pot faster, so it spends less time sitting. I do see what you're saying about the water though.
What if I were to put the two coils in two separate jackets, then rejoin the wort to go into the carboy?

 

[bradsul]

Yes you could certainly do that, but you've again basically just made a chiller that is twice as long. I would do as you suggest rather than combining two inner tubes into the single jacket though, definitely.

 

[Bobby_M]

Check this out... a single coil in a single jacket works wonderfully well already and doesn't really need improvement. The only variable is the temp of the coolant water and there's nothing you can do to the chiller design to change it. The solution? A pond pump and a bin full of ice water.

 

[trabus]

Yes you could certainly do that, but you've again basically just made a chiller that is twice as long. I would do as you suggest rather than combining two inner tubes into the single jacket though, definitely.

It would also be twice as fast.

The main goal was to move a larger volume of wort in less time by doubling the number of tubes coming from the pot, the twisting was just one idea on how to implement it (with what I thought would be an added bonus of turbulence). I'm going to be using gravity/siphon power, at least for a while, so that's why I'm so intent on improving the speed that the pot empties.

 

[Bobby_M]

The difficult part is getting a good seal between the two tubes and the end "tee". It's easy when you run a single tube because you can use a compression fitting or solder a reducer in. You'd have to do some crafty forming and a lot of soldering.

 

[trabus]

The difficult part is getting a good seal between the two tubes and the end "tee". It's easy when you run a single tube because you can use a compression fitting or solder a reducer in. You'd have to do some crafty forming and a lot of soldering.

Yeah, I was intending on using a 1/4" to 1/2" reducer to connect the two lines to a 1/2" line. I'm actually heading to my parent's place for Thanksgiving so I'm going to have access to all of my father's toys (so I could even weld something if I need to).

Anyhow, I'm probably just going to start with one tube for now, I was looking at using something like this design-
http://www.concentric.net/~vsabbe/pdf/WortChiller.pdf

It should be easy enough to make a second and couple them together later.

 

[trabus]

I was going to try and make this monstrosity of an immersion chiller, but thought better of it. The idea was that the larger intake and output (1/2") would distribute through ten 2.5' lengths of 1/4" tube. The smaller tube would transfer the heat to the water faster, so shorter lengths could be used.

I made a prototype out of some pvc and vinyl tubing to see if the flow would work properly, and it did, but I realized that 25' of 1/4" tubing still has very little surface area, and would be difficult to implement.

 

[BeerCanuck]

Anyhow, I'm probably just going to start with one tube for now, I was looking at using something like this design-
http://www.concentric.net/~vsabbe/pdf/WortChiller.pdf

Thats a pretty nifty looking chiller thanks for sharing

BeerCanuck

 

[meatbeagle]

My god, that beast is cool! You should make it just for bragging rights.