Hi all,
I have been happy with my homemade hybrid shell chillers, but wanted something: with high flow, no possibility of clogging, and stainless steel only (no copper, etc.), are effective. Plate chillers have good flow but clog easily (I prefer to whirlpool) and are brazed with copper. Stainless CFC's seem ok but aren't highly effective, especially given my ground water temps here in South Florida. I tested a stainless tube-in-shell chiller made for other applications, and it worked ok but was not effective enough. So, I had a custom one made!
This tube-in-shell chiller is made entirely of 316 stainless, is about 36" long and 2.5" diameter. It has 3/4"NPT female ports all the way around. The inner tubes are convoluted and are about 0.20" ID. It has absolutely no flow restriction and could not be clogged by pellet hops - will make cleaning dead simple with the PBW flush. It has much higher temperature and pressure ratings than we could ever approach brewing. It's total reserved inner volume is about 1 quart. I did a test, chilling 7.5 gallons from boiling (meaning 212 degree water being pumped through it for sanitization before turning on ground water). My ground water temp was 79 degrees.
2:30: 167
5:00: 142
7:30: 123
10:00: 110
12:30: 105
15:00: 100
These times aren't as fast as my chillers, but I think they are very good for my use. In real world application I will chill back into the boil kettle initially, then switch to ice water for the pass into the fermenter. Thoughts?
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1482086411.351732.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1482086423.971421.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1482086437.685161.jpg
I have been happy with my homemade hybrid shell chillers, but wanted something: with high flow, no possibility of clogging, and stainless steel only (no copper, etc.), are effective. Plate chillers have good flow but clog easily (I prefer to whirlpool) and are brazed with copper. Stainless CFC's seem ok but aren't highly effective, especially given my ground water temps here in South Florida. I tested a stainless tube-in-shell chiller made for other applications, and it worked ok but was not effective enough. So, I had a custom one made!
This tube-in-shell chiller is made entirely of 316 stainless, is about 36" long and 2.5" diameter. It has 3/4"NPT female ports all the way around. The inner tubes are convoluted and are about 0.20" ID. It has absolutely no flow restriction and could not be clogged by pellet hops - will make cleaning dead simple with the PBW flush. It has much higher temperature and pressure ratings than we could ever approach brewing. It's total reserved inner volume is about 1 quart. I did a test, chilling 7.5 gallons from boiling (meaning 212 degree water being pumped through it for sanitization before turning on ground water). My ground water temp was 79 degrees.
2:30: 167
5:00: 142
7:30: 123
10:00: 110
12:30: 105
15:00: 100
These times aren't as fast as my chillers, but I think they are very good for my use. In real world application I will chill back into the boil kettle initially, then switch to ice water for the pass into the fermenter. Thoughts?
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1482086411.351732.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1482086423.971421.jpg
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1482086437.685161.jpg