My Immersion Chiller - Was Work In Progress, Now Updated

[haz66]

Very impressive i admire the effort you must have put into this

[thankyousam]

That looks fantastic... Good effort! I'm sure you'll get a serious cold break

Can't wait to hear how long it takes you to get from boiling to under 30C with this mother!

I used it for the first time on Sunday evening. It took 16 minutes to get 25litres down to 25C.

[escapizm]

I used it for the first time on Sunday evening. It took 16 minutes to get 25litres down to 25C.

Could i be so bold as to ask you for a bill of materials so i too could labour over such a work of art...

[thankyousam]

Could i be so bold as to ask you for a bill of materials so i too could labour over such a work of art...

10mm copper microbore - this is by far the bulk of the financial expense. I got 25m for £45 from Screwfix and used 19m in total.

15mm copper pipe - about 2 metres to provide the vertical and horizontol pipework.

2mm x 20mm x 3m aluminium for the spacer stand and the horizontal bracing. The outer spacer is 40cm high and the inner is 35cm.

4 x 15mm to 10mm reducers
5 x 15mm elbows
1 x 15mm equal tee
3 x 1/2" or 3/4" washing machine values
3 x hose connectors - these and these
Some hose
Various M3 nuts and bolts for the bracing some pipe clips to hold the upright pipework to the coil.

Tools: Pipe cutter, spanners/mole wrenches, files of various sizes, drill and bits.

I used compression plumbing fitttings as this is what I was comfortable using. Solder would have been neater and cheaper, but I don't have the tools or the experience to do soldering.

I had to build the outer coil to stand above my kettle elements in my boiler and within the hop filter, so you'll need to decide what height and diameters you want to go with. The top of my outer coil is slightly higher than the 32 litres of wort in my boiler, so in hindsight I could have had one less rotation on the outer coil.

The holes in the spacers are drilled at 20mm intervals, meaning the gap is 10mm, so this will allow you to work out the total number of rotations you require in order to achieve your desired coil height. Mine are 16 on the outer and 14 on the inner.

My tip is to roll the microbore around something solid which is the same diameter as you want. You'll want at least half a rotation extra to allow some margin of error when connecting everything up.

THIS BIT'S IMPORTANT: when you mark out the series of holes on the spacers remember to make the holes on the second and third spacers progressively higher to allow the coil to rise About 7mm higher in my case as the hole interval is 20mm: 20/3 = ~7. So the first spacer has holes at 7cm, 9cm, 11cm etc, the second spacer at 7.7cm, 9.7cm etc and the third spacer at 8.4cm, 10.4cm etc. The holes are 10mm in diameter, but if you can find one I'd go for 10.5mm or 11mm as the microbore isn't always 10mm - which is why it took me so long to thread the spacers on to the coils!

When you thread the spacers on make sure you put the third spacer (with the highest series of holes), i.e. the highest hole is threaded on the bottom of the coil first. My brain hurts if I think about this too much - you'll figure it out

I think that's about it - it does take a while though

[WishboneBrewery]

The holes are 10mm in diameter, but if you can find one I'd go for 10.5mm or 11mm as the microbore isn't always 10mm - which is why it took me so long to thread the spacers on to the coils!

Good write-up

I found the ally spacers I made with 10mm holes in were annoying to thread on due mainly to the sticking on the 10mm copper as you, I'd have expected 10.5mm holes to be much easier but I bet its still a bit annoying as the ally strips are always pushing at an angle against it and took some jiggling about

[haz66]

Try this place for copper tubing, about the cheapest place i`ve found
Clicky

[FiercelyFuzzy]

Did you wash it before you used it in wort for the first time? I was thinking of soaking mine in a white vinegar solution overnight.

[thankyousam]

Did you wash it before you used it in wort for the first time? I was thinking of soaking mine in a white vinegar solution overnight.

After I'd finished it I filled my boiler up with water, brought it to the boil and put the chiller in and left it for a while. I don't remember there being much dirt coming off the chiller, nor did it look a lot cleaner afterwards.

Before I used it in the wort I stood it in the shower and thoroughly sprayed it with a Isopropanol based cleaner/sterliser - one of the spray and wipe surface cleaners from the supermarket. Then it had a lengthy rinse with cold water, before going into the boiling wort for the last 20 minutes of the boil. I couldn't see any other way of cleaning it further.

[thankyousam]

Good write-up

Thanks. I don't think I've credited you though and I should have done! I saw your single coil chiller and robbed your design

[Scooby]

Take the top shelf out if need be and a dishwasher do a good job of cleaning IC's