Immersion Coil Wort Chiller Ideas

[barneey]

I`m after a bit of inspiration for building a new copper coil wort chiller.

I thinking along the lines of a double coil effort.

Any ideas / pics of your builds please?

Cheers

[Blackaddler]

Check out this thread

[orlando]

I`m after a bit of inspiration for building a new copper coil wort chiller.

I thinking along the lines of a double coil effort.

Any ideas / pics of your builds please?

Cheers

Hello, what's wrong with the plate chiller then? I thought that's what you used?

[barneey]

Check out this thread

Cheers for the link, exactly what I was after, after a quick read through Scooby`s wort chiller is what I need, either that or the amount of times it was mentioned in the thread has brain wash me

Hello, what's wrong with the plate chiller then? I thought that's what you used?

Nothing wrong with the plate at all, just wanted to try a coil out again with another pump + it gives me something to build

Cheers

[FUBAR]

Check out this thread

Cheers for the link, exactly what I was after, after a quick read through Scooby`s wort chiller is what I need, either that or the amount of times it was mentioned in the thread has brain wash me

Hello, what's wrong with the plate chiller then? I thought that's what you used?

Nothing wrong with the plate at all, just wanted to try a coil out again with another pump + it gives me something to build

Cheers

Now that is a work of art,I have on my last brew used a combination of my IC + plate chiller and was pleased with the result a really fast run off with very little water used,infact had to keep backing the flow off to keep the temp up.

[boingy]

Not as neat or shiny as the one pictured above but I made this one a few years back. My boiler is relatively wide and shallow so I wanted a wider cooling area:



It did the job admirably until relatively recently when it was made redundant by a plate chiller.
IC vs plate chiller is no contest imho....

[darkonnis]

I'll agree with that boingy, I had it in the FV inside of 10 minutes of turning the boiler off, cool and ready for yeasting.

[orlando]

It certainly can be that quick but I usually use protafloc and let the boiler settle for a few minutes as I want to minimise trub going through the chiller, if I don't cleaning becomes a much greater pain and as I can't disassemble mine I have to hope nothing is going on that is going to turn around and bite me later, hence it takes me probably longer than an IC user.

[barneey]

With the chiller that have the spacer bars in them how much of a pain is it to thread the pipe through them?

Cheers

[darkonnis]

I immediately unhook it and backflush with the hose pipe. this goes on until I finish cleaning everything else up. Then into the oven at 200c for 30 minutes to ensure its dry, then allow to cool in the oven, then once cool seal it with the caps it came with. Ready for next time. My hop filters are absolutely immense at stopping crud and the FVs are clear in the bottom except yeast so i believe the above to work well... I MIGHT flush it with starsan in future but for now I'll see how i get on.

[barneey]

Just a quick question on the scooby design, would the water flow quicker (less meterage) around the centre coil as opposed to the outer coil? therefore leading to inefficiency? or is this over thinking the design? If so would it be better to design the thing with a larger diameter aand smaller diameter flow pipe?

Cheers

[Kev888]

I suppose it would, though you could add a bit extra restriction, perhaps flattening its tube slightly somewhere. Possibly you could not join up the outlets initially so that you can judge the flow through the shorter coil whilst making adjustments.

I haven't done this with mine in the past, but it could be worth it if the coils are 'very' different in length; to optimise water-efficiency presumably you'd want the flow in the small coil to be slower than the bigger ones rather than the same, as theres less distance over which it can absorb the heat and if it were the same flow rate then it would exit cooler/less-utilised than water from the other coils. Perhaps a way to ballance it would be by use of a thermometer in the exiting water, rather than by judging speed?

Cheers
Kev

[barneey]

At the moment the WIP is the following idea outside coil 250mm x 20 coils x 10mm, 200mm x 16 coils x 8mm, 150mm x 20 coils x 8mm, which should in theory equal an equal flow through them all.

At the moment it works out at approx 35m of copper = 1m2 area of cooling

[Fil]

bear in mind what will happen if the pump flow to recirculate gets clogged, or blocked for any reason. in order to chill effectively, you gonna need to get a paddle or spoon in to stir rapidly, so allow for this with the design, too big a structure and you wont get a spoon in ..

my own small double coil chiller when left in a static kettle takes a good 45mins plus to chill down circa 23l.. when i get stuck in stirring with effort that time gets cut down to circa 15mins.. so wort movement over the coils is crucial for efficiency..

[barneey]

In theory, I think????, I have covered those problems.

I will have a large pump for the idea (60litre PM) which should get everyting moving, as for the filter I`m going to try the external filter one, so if things do get clogged it should be easy to declog. Thats the therory at least, in practice thats another thing.