Refrigerator parts as a wort chiller?

[conpewter]

Has anyone looked into the idea of taking apart an old fridge and run the coolant through copper tubing in the wort itself?

It would be like the usual immersion chiller but without all the hose hookups and instead just plug it in to the wall and set it in the pot.

 

[Scimmia]

I was thinking about this the other day, but I would think that the evaporator in it is made for air at fairly reasonable temps, things would have to change quite a bit to make it work in boiling hot wort. I'm no expert on refrigeration, so I just wrote it off for now.

 

[Seabee John]

You guys should PM nicksteck he's in the Heating, A/C, & appliance business. If anyone would know it would be him...
In fact...

here is what we've talked about so far

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=41690

 

[Scimmia]

Thanks for the link Seabee John, I'd only read the first page of that thread, so I didn't realize the turn it took.

I'm sure it's doable, but I'm nowhere near that point yet, I just like thinking about things.

 

[kladue]

The idea for using a refrigerator is not a bad idea but you need to remember that the refigerator compressor can not move a lot of heat quickly. A practical application would be to use the refigerator to chill a 10-20 gallon water container over a 1-2 day period then use the chilled water for the immersion cooler for the quick heat exchange. A remote chiller for water fountains is easier to use to cool the water for use in wort chilling as the coolant/water heatexchanger is built in, but would not have enough capacity to direct cool a 5-10 gallon batch.

 

[Seabee John]

Thanks for the link Seabee John, I'd only read the first page of that thread, so I didn't realize the turn it took.

I'm sure it's doable, but I'm nowhere near that point yet, I just like thinking about things.

If you are brave and trust your soldering / brazing skills you could run a glycol system... we've talked about it, but not sure how efficient it would be.