The gatling chiller

bobsbeer · Jan 17, 2014

After much thought and wanting to upgrade the cfc chiller I have I came up with this design. It has 6 10mm copper pipes contained in a 54mm outer jacket. The wort flows back and forth through the 10mm pipes and cold water through the 54mm pipe. Not quite tested in anger but it has been pressure tested and no leaks.

dennisking · Jan 17, 2014

Looks good Bob.

desmosteve · Jan 17, 2014

I like that, looks like it'll have high capacity, presume the ends need connecting up to get the flow path set up? You an HVAC guy? Nice job!

bobsbeer · Jan 17, 2014

And one showing the construction

Fil · Jan 17, 2014

test results???

bobsbeer · Jan 17, 2014

Not tested yet as I'm waiting for the 8mm silicone and kink springs to come so I can join the wort tubes. The water jacket has been tested and that holds mains pressure without leaks. :thumb: I will have to remember in use to have the water outflow open when I start pumping wort or it will blow up due to the pressure build up when running without cooling water.

loady · Jan 17, 2014

thats basically a steam engine in reverse ?..should work well.

bobsbeer · Jan 17, 2014

That's what gave me the idea. I figured if it worked like that to heat steam then it should work the other way round.

bobsbeer · Jan 25, 2014

Gave the gatling chiller a first run today. Not bad at all. Initially it was dropping the temp by 25c as it passed through the chiller. I had the wort flow set to 9lt per min and the cooling water on full. Then I dropped the wort flow to 3lt per min, which is probably the fastest it will pull through the hop bed. I need to run another test as this was set up to recirc the 25lt back into the boiler, as I plan to do this with my brewery and hopefully filter the cold break material through the hop bed. It took 19 mins to recirc the whole 25 lt down to 20c, but that was with the wort flow at 9lt per min for 10 mins and 9 mins at 3lt per min. At that point the wort temp in the boiler was 46c. So I need to do it again set at 3lt per min flow for the whole test. I'll try to do that tomorrow and report the results.

Papa G · Jan 25, 2014

Looks good Bob, looks just like a small scale version of the steam condensers I worked with in the navy, they cooled low pressure steam in the turbines.

Dronfieldbrewer · Jan 25, 2014

Looks good Bob. Did you just drill holes in the end caps and solder it up?
Ive thought about having 2 of these with 4 lengths of 15mm in it. That way the flow through the chiller should be higher. If you have a split on a rising main then plenty of water will flow through the jacket.

bobsbeer · Jan 26, 2014

Dronfieldbrewer said:
Did you just drill holes in the end caps and solder it up?

Yes I just drilled the endcap to make a snug fit and then once all the tubes were in place soldered them in. Now that they are in place and connected up, slightly bigger spacing would have been better. I can get hose clips on all the outer tubes, but the center one is too tight to fit one on. Although the pressure in use is not that high so there were no leaks. I used 8mm silicone on the 10mm tubes so they are a snug fit. 2 units would be more efficient, and easier to connect up, with the flow always going against the cooling water flow. I have a short length of 54mm tube left over so I may just construct a second unit and see how it works.

Dronfieldbrewer · Jan 26, 2014

This is my next project...

I've worked out that 4..15mm pipes within the jacket will have a little more water flowing around it, wire wound and soldered around in a spiral to form a swirl within the jacket to aid efficiency. .
I plan to attach this to my brewstand and let the wort fall through by gravity with the counter water flow the opposite way
Lots of peeps use 10meters of 10mm for counterflow chillers to good effect so would be interesting to see how big or how many Gatlins would be needed.

If it works well then I could use a much bigger version on the big kit... (currently the plate chiller is hopeless)

evanvine · Jan 26, 2014

bobsbeer said:
I can get hose clips on all the outer tubes, but the center one is too tight to fit one on.

Could you not just extend the centre tube?

alanywiseman. · Jan 26, 2014

Would the efficiency not be increased using smaller bore copper pipes as you could have more wort in contact with the cold pipe?

Dronfieldbrewer · Jan 26, 2014

alanywiseman said:
Would the efficiency not be increased using smaller bore copper pipes as you could have more wort in contact with the cold pipe?

In theory yes.
however the speed of flow comes into it too...if you think about it the thinner tube will heat up the immediate water in contact with the pipe if the cooling water and wort is wipping through then it will not be as efficient. To make it better if the cooling water is swirling then it will take the heat better as the contact will be longer. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating I suppose..

my mate has a pipe chiller, this is done with 15mm inside 22mm. It works well for his set up it is about 10 meters in length, he has not got the swirling wire but will chill down 500 litres in about an hour...he recirculates through the chiller to the copper until copper reaches 50 degrees then transferrs to fermenter through the chiller.

however at this time if year his chill rate is a lot quicker...train if thought that he has a cold liquor tank of 1000 litres or so conntected to a flash chiller permanently on...this would be ace...or keep the cold liquor tank in a chilled room with his beer

LeithR · Jan 26, 2014

Bob,
Do you have any pics of the connections for the 10mm pipes please? Sounds an excellent project.

evanvine · Jan 26, 2014

I can understand controlling the flow of wort through the chiller, but would have thought the faster the chilling water flow the better. :wha:

Vossy1 · Jan 26, 2014

Would the efficiency not be increased using smaller bore copper pipes as you could have more wort in contact with the cold pipe?

The smaller the diameter pipe the greater the surface area ratio to wort, so yes you are correct :thumb:

bobsbeer · Jan 26, 2014

evanvine said:
bobsbeer said:

I can get hose clips on all the outer tubes, but the center one is too tight to fit one on.

Click to expand...

Could you not just extend the centre tube?

I could have done, but I bought 2 3m lengths and cut it into 6 x 1m lengths, so would have had to make the unit smaller. The problem was the closeness of the outer tubes meaning the screw bit wouldn't go between the pipes when the hose was on. But it seemed to work fine without a hose clamp.

LeithR said:
Bob,
Do you have any pics of the connections for the 10mm pipes please? Sounds an excellent project.

Not sure what you mean but here is a pic of the ends. The 10mm pipes go through a drilled end cap. I then connected 8mm silicone tube for the loops with anti kink springs on to stop the hose crimping. The in out connections are 15mm and used a reducing connector to go from 15mm to 10mm and soldered them on.

The gatling chiller

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