Transfer pipe / wort chiller

[numbskul]

Good day to all,

I just moved to this new house and am getting ready to move my brewing area. I have a basement that has sketchy stairs and I like transferring to my carboys / fermenter buckets while they are on the basement level.

I have a carport that wraps around the back of my house that I plan to brew in. My plan was to add a 1/2" copper pipe from the back of the house, through the crawl space (abt 20') into the basement, where I was planning on passing through a plate chiller.

The idea came to me a few weeks ago, that I would pass the copper pipe through a hole drilled in a into a 1'' PVC pipe, and pump ice water through the PVC "jacket" and have a return PVC pipe (1/2 or 3/4") back to the basement, into the ice bucket. The pipe / jacket would be between 19' - 20' long.

Goals:
Maximize cooling rate
Minimize expense and water usage
control cooling with the cooling water rather than gating down the wort rate.
Waste / consume only water from melted ice

I plan to leave the water in the jacket when not in use, so I am thinking about perhaps using 1 1/2" PVC to increase the mass or maybe doubling up the 1/2 copper pipes in a larger PVC pipe jacket.

I have attache a pdf image of my setup. I welcome any and all constructive feedback.

Cheers!
Scott

View attachment TRANSFER PIPE.pdf

 

[Cdburkhart]

I wonder if you could design in some sort of support in the middle of the PVC to help minimize the copper pipe from sagging in the PVC.

 

[numbskul]

I was thinking of getting 1" long pieces of 3/4" copper and bending it into an oval, then soldering in place every couple of feet to center it in the PVC pipe.

 

[theonetrueruss]

seems like cleaning and sanitizing the 20 foot run of pipe could be challenging

 

[Cdburkhart]

If it's a straight run, I think building a snake to scrub it wouldn't be that hard. Also just running line cleaner, vinegar and hot water after use would make life easier.