Length and Size vs Speed and Flow?

[WishboneBrewery]

Ja, das ist eine Liebig!

I'm going to go the IC route, it makes sense

[trucker5774]

I built my CFC today! It cosists of 1.5 metres of 8mm copper tube tightly coiled inside a 400mm length of 42mm copper tube. I will test it tomorrow and post the results. I anticipate I will build an IC but wanted to do this just to see if it would be efficient. It will certainly make a good still!

[WishboneBrewery]

That sounds promising

[Grahame]

This idea got me thinking - how about a very similar setup to what you have here, and coil some 4mm copper tubing inside, instead of the wavy piece you have now. Then find a way to make wort flow out and down the 4mm pipe.. that would be a huge surface area for cooling.. Not sure if the flow would be far too slow though?? There are larger diameters available, I guess anything up to 8mm would coil inside a 22mm pipe

Something like this coiled inside a standard 22mm pipe:



G.

[WishboneBrewery]

are we missing an Image?

I think 4 or 6 mm pipe would be OK, the gravity / syphon effect I have going with a 400-500mm drop empties the boiler pretty fast with about a 6 or 8mm bore on the outflow end. Though how easy (or hard) it might be to cram a coil into a 22mm pipe I'm not sure! *maybe wrap it round a broom handle or something!*
Could be worth the experiment though

[yashicamat]

are we missing an Image?

I think 4 or 6 mm pipe would be OK, the gravity / syphon effect I have going with a 400-500mm drop empties the boiler pretty fast with about a 6 or 8mm bore on the outflow end. Though how easy (or hard) it might be to cram a coil into a 22mm pipe I'm not sure! *maybe wrap it round a broom handle or something!*
Could be worth the experiment though

I'd suggest you build into this a way of hooking up the pipework the wort runs through to the mains water supply, so you can give it a good blast of high pressure water to clear any debris out of it after use. At the sorts of diameters you're talking about, I don't think I'd like to rely upon just a dribble of water through it to clean it.

[WishboneBrewery]

I'll leave that experiment to someone else... IC 4 me!

[trucker5774]

Here's the results!!!..............Wort starting temperature was 97C. The mains water temperature was 16C. I have a plastic tap on my boiler so control was limited. The first test was a flow rate of 7 litres in 5 minutes. The temperature in the FV ended at 36C

2nd test was at a slow trickle........about 3 litres in 5 minutes. This ended at 29C in the FV.

I will be building an IC at a cost of £10.00 (about the same as the materials in the CFC experiment) It was a bit of fun proving to myself that I could produce a working CFC, but I reckon the IC is the better option. I think dropping to 4mm tube would be too restrictive and prone to blocking should any debris enter the system.

If anybody wants the experimental prototype I have built, and is able to collect it, feel free to PM me!

[WishboneBrewery]

Got any Pictures of your Invention?
Its good to prove/ disprove these ideas to yourself, an entertaining way to learn

[trucker5774]

Got any Pictures of your Invention?
Its good to prove/ disprove these ideas to yourself, an entertaining way to learn

Oh yeah....pictures mmmm. I had good intentions when I started, but forgot to photographs the internal coil I will try a few snaps of the finished article and if I can work out how to post them I will do so (computerizationalism isnt my strong point!!)

DSC00050.JPG (26.17 KiB) Viewed 1334 times

DSC00051.JPG (43.05 KiB) Viewed 1334 times

Sorry the pictures are a little poor (took me 2 hours to work out how to do it) In the full picture, the wort flows horizontally (as viewed) The device is used vertically as in the better pictures posted by pdtnc. The mains water coolant enters and exits through the ports which are both on the same side of the chiller.
As can be seen, the outer surfaces of the device are straight from the workshop and have not been cleaned up. The inner coil is new pipe and clean and sanitised.