another daft idea...

[Fil]

Whats wrong with using plumbing solder to join copper pipe fittings externally to a SS tube?

im considering a sort of cfc build with .2mm thick 10mm ss tubes, and to jacket the SS tube with a cooling tube im considering using solder on copper pipe fittings as they are cheaper than heavy brass compression fittings and as my SS tubes are 500mm long, for a 5m SS tube length im looking at 10 end and return fittings based on a T and reducer for the water cooling jackets.

the idea im trying to formulate is a filterless boiler, hops infused via a removable spacious spider, and the hot wort recirculated thru said 5m SS tube based chiller returning to the pot and jetted to create a whirlpool which hopefully will collect the break material formed during the cooling. So chiller length is less important as it will have an accumulative effect.

the reason i like the 10mm x 500mm ss tube length is its accessible for opening up and cleaning with a long thin bottle brush, and using soft silicone tube to join the SS tubes allows them to be pulled post use boiled cleaned dried and stored between brews so negating the possibility of a damp spot existing festering within something.. ( ok its my paranoia ) and yes im opening the tubes up as spider hotels between brews..

the other options open are a plate chiller which without a filter may gather break material during the process?? or a coil cfc, and since my current copper coil IC allways seems to retain enough water to wet my foot when i pick it up between brews i have my reservations about them too.

[Hogarth]

Do you mean something like this -- cleanable counterflow chiller?

[Fil]

pretty much, but im trying to use SS tubes to carry the beer,
and i was thinking wall/board mounting rather than piling up on itself.

tho thats very interesting as if im reading the ad and looking at the pic properly it validates the idea, Cheers Hogarth it has 6 x 12" copper jacketed cooling lengths .. Hmmm thats less than 2m and thats sufficient to chill 5 US gallons in 13mins?? so If my .2mm ss tube is similar in heat conductivity as the 1mm? copper tube or better?? then my circa 5m length should be ok for my upto 70l brews in the big pot i was thinking i may need to do 2 builds of 5m or perhaps even 3 , Phew!!!!

[EccentricDyslexic]

I have a SS counter flow, with 3m of 10mm OD tube from BES. I coiled it around a 48kg gas bottle by rolling it across the lawn. Works a treat, but then I'm only flowing 456ml of boiling hot wort through it per minute....I recon you are gonna need more pipe:-)

Steve

[Fil]

Cheers Steve, valuable input, i did a bit of a google on thermal conductivity and the value given for copper was 400 and the value for SS was 16, so if my dumb reckoning is correct copper is 20 times or therabouts more thermaly conductive than SS. (very rule of thumb i know..)

So to be as effective with the same thickness wall it looks like a ss version needs to be 20 times as long as a copper version

Assumming a 1mm copper wall thickness as my ss walls are .2mm thick.. i will divide the 20 times as long by 5, leaving me with a factor of 4 to deal with ...

So to compare with a 6ft copper chiller as in Hogarths post my SS version should be 24ft long.. just under 6m... Hopefully my wider bore 1" id jacket tube will be more efficient than the thinner 1/2" copper used in the cyclone product too ???

so daft idea or not im still pursuing this one..

Ideally i would like something twice as efficient as the copper jobby Hogarth found So 12-15m to be on the safe side,
Ouch soon mounts up..

however im leaning to a low tec solution for sealing the jacket ends the good ol holed rubber bung seal and hold the SS beer tube central in one, and at a fraction of the cost of a copper or brass solution.. wish i had thought of it but am happy to test it

now if i can find a ultra cheap solution to ajoining the cooling jackets made from PVC, i can also drop the 2 x 22mmx22mmx22mm Ts per length for joining the water flow up as well

[EccentricDyslexic]

I was wondering, if you just want to be able to physically clean the insides of the CFC, doing as I have, ie coiled around a large diameter, it should be doable to use some stiff plastic wire like cat 5e or the earth from flat twin and earth cable to push through it and tie a blob of sponge to the end and pull it through? Actualy, I might just give that a go, see how clean mine is on the insides;-)

Steve

[Hogarth]

I was wondering, if you just want to be able to physically clean the insides of the CFC, doing as I have, ie coiled around a large diameter, it should be doable to use some stiff plastic wire like cat 5e or the earth from flat twin and earth cable to push through it and tie a blob of sponge to the end and pull it through? Actualy, I might just give that a go, see how clean mine is on the insides;-)

Steve

Good luck with this. I tried with strimmer line and got it two metres into the CFC (out of eight) before it stuck fast. That was with lashings of Fairy Liquid.

[Hogarth]

now if i can find a ultra cheap solution to ajoining the cooling jackets made from PVC, i can also drop the 2 x 22mmx22mmx22mm Ts per length for joining the water flow up as well

My plan was to use 22mm plastic overflow pipes. Instead of being connected with Ts, their ends would be set into two solid sheets of plastic about an inch thick, one at each end of the chiller, into which channels had been cut to take the coolant from one pipe to the next. The inner, copper pipe would go all the way through.

[john luc]

When all is built what sort of pump are you going to use to push the hot wort around with all the hop material flowing with it. The initial flow will be full of hops either pellet or whole and I have being trying to deal with my system with using a filter mesh to hold back the hops before they enter the CFC for recirculating back to the Kettle.

[EccentricDyslexic]

I was wondering, if you just want to be able to physically clean the insides of the CFC, doing as I have, ie coiled around a large diameter, it should be doable to use some stiff plastic wire like cat 5e or the earth from flat twin and earth cable to push through it and tie a blob of sponge to the end and pull it through? Actualy, I might just give that a go, see how clean mine is on the insides;-)

Steve

Good luck with this. I tried with strimmer line and got it two metres into the CFC (out of eight) before it stuck fast. That was with lashings of Fairy Liquid.

How tightly coiled was your CFC when you tried this and what size pipe was it?

Steve

[Hogarth]

It's 10mm pipe in a 25cm diameter coil -- pretty tight.

[EccentricDyslexic]

Well mines about 40cm diameter so I may well get away with it. You must have had fun coiling that up that tight?

Steve

[Fil]

When all is built what sort of pump are you going to use to push the hot wort around with all the hop material flowing with it. The initial flow will be full of hops either pellet or whole and I have being trying to deal with my system with using a filter mesh to hold back the hops before they enter the CFC for recirculating back to the Kettle.

I hope to keep the majority of the hop material in a hop spider..



but have an Italian pump with film impelar blades which can handle particulate matter in the liquid stream, good ol ebay,

I arrived at the plumbing shop afrer they shut at mid day today found 50 jubillee clips on ebay for just over a tenner,, so its looking like a rough cost of £55 per 5m lengh so far. plus any fixings for mounting feed hoses and fittings etc.... Not exactly a budget option , but its keeping me entertained ....

with a 5m length built i can test performance, the non permenant fixed design, i use the word design loosely will allow for adding turbulance aids to both wort and water flow if necessary such as a coil of copper wire spiraling down the outside of a beer carrying tube, or twisted ss blades snipped with metal munchers to slip in the beer carying tube ends..

Steve, Hogarth how about to clean your coils first pass a thread down your coil inner, co2 will blow a slug thru with a thead/fishing line tied on. then pull thru thicker n stronger cord. to clean round the bends in my ol horns i use a leather shammy tied round a ball smaller in diameter than pipes the trailing shammy skirt then cleans as its pulled thru.. google saxophone cleaner for the idea..

[darkonnis]

Is there a reason it needs to be stainless?
I really like the look of that straight chiller, much easier to see internally than other ones I've seen and the 1/2" diameter gives it really nice flow rates.
I've got a few projects which I need to build before I can realistically get one of these on the go to try it, starting with a hopnik so if you do this fil or somethign like it do a build thread, always interested to see your thriftiness

[Fil]

Appart from having been investing in shiny components for a shiny SS bigger brewkit.
So preferring to keep it all SS, My reasons for preferring SS to copper to transfer the beer are also based on using a copper coil IC, it comes out of my beer post chilling bright and clean. and that leads me to suspect the acidic wort is slowly eating/disolving some copper??
So recirculating a larger quantity thru SS tubes which is more resistant to weak acids should be better?