Building a counterflow wort chiller
- Thread starter Wez
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Buy a long bit of hose, and some 10mm Copper tube. Straighten out the copper tube, and the Hose (Fill the hose with hot water to soften it and lay it out in a straight line), push the copper tube through the hose. (Use some washing up liquid in the hose to act as a lubricant) ( I would not recommend 3/4 inch hose go for something smaller).
The ends are fairly easy. You need two short lengths of 15mm copper tube, a 15mm copper T, and a 15-10mm adapter (For each end, Solder the 15-10mm adapter into one of the 'ends' of the T, then take a 10mm drill and drill out the restriction - the 10mm tube will side through this. into the other end and the branch solder in the short lengths of copper.
Back to your 10mmin hoes pipe - slide the fitting you just made onto the 10mm copper 15mm tube first so that it comes out of the 10mm. push the 15mm tube onto the hosepipe and secure. Wrap a wet rag around the 15mm tube and hosepipe (to stop the hosepipe melting) and solde the 10mm fitting to the pipe . . . repeat for the other end.
Sorted.
It's easier to explain with a picture but I can't blooming well find one :evil:
The ends are fairly easy. You need two short lengths of 15mm copper tube, a 15mm copper T, and a 15-10mm adapter (For each end, Solder the 15-10mm adapter into one of the 'ends' of the T, then take a 10mm drill and drill out the restriction - the 10mm tube will side through this. into the other end and the branch solder in the short lengths of copper.
Back to your 10mmin hoes pipe - slide the fitting you just made onto the 10mm copper 15mm tube first so that it comes out of the 10mm. push the 15mm tube onto the hosepipe and secure. Wrap a wet rag around the 15mm tube and hosepipe (to stop the hosepipe melting) and solde the 10mm fitting to the pipe . . . repeat for the other end.
Sorted.
It's easier to explain with a picture but I can't blooming well find one :evil:
BillyB
Active Member
Try this one: http://www.berriman.co.uk/hobbies/brewing/equipment/cfc.shtml
I've got all the bits - just need to put it all together! :lol:
I've got all the bits - just need to put it all together! :lol:
Jonnyv
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I'm tempted to replace my IC with a CFC. I'm happy with how my IC works but I'm thinking of adding a hopback between the boiler and a CFC to get more aroma in my beers. I also think it might help my clarity problems as I find my IC is taking quite a long time to get the wort down to pitching temperature.
Vossy1
Landlord.
Can only get better with winter coming
Have you tried stirring during the cooling...works well
Vossy1
Landlord.
Dan used it with great success. He stirred like buggery and when near pitching temp just let it all settle for 10 mins before running the wort off. He also used ice cubes to speed things up.
Smod
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Ever heard of the THERMINATOR. Apparently super quick chilling.
http://www.blichmannengineering.com/The ... inator.htm
Well it seems a bit similar to a domestic boiler heat exchanger. Put Heat Exchanger into ebay and you get similar devices to this at a quarter of the cost. If the connectors are sorted out on there I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work the same.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/15-Plate-Brazed-H ... 286.c0.m14
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vaillant-Turbomax ... 286.c0.m14
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/IDEAL-PLATE-HEAT- ... 286.c0.m14
http://www.blichmannengineering.com/The ... inator.htm
Well it seems a bit similar to a domestic boiler heat exchanger. Put Heat Exchanger into ebay and you get similar devices to this at a quarter of the cost. If the connectors are sorted out on there I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work the same.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/15-Plate-Brazed-H ... 286.c0.m14
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vaillant-Turbomax ... 286.c0.m14
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/IDEAL-PLATE-HEAT- ... 286.c0.m14
I've got a 16 plate one you are welcome to.
I've gone from a IC to 8m CFC to 20m CFC, to a 20M CFC with split feed to a Plate chiller . . .. and have ended up back with an IC . . . . Could be that my pump is too powerful, but cooling has proved to be very poor with the CFC and PC
I've gone from a IC to 8m CFC to 20m CFC, to a 20M CFC with split feed to a Plate chiller . . .. and have ended up back with an IC . . . . Could be that my pump is too powerful, but cooling has proved to be very poor with the CFC and PC
Vossy1
Landlord.
I wasn't impressed with the sanitising aspect of a pc.
I find that my IC cools my wort down to 20C-ish here in mid-summer. Now your not telling me that the crappy 3 day UK summer is capable of affecting your chilling capacity more than here are you? :shock: It takes an hour for me to cool my wort in summer-and thats with 20C+ water from a concrete 25,000L storage tank in my garden! I use a fan to help it get down to temp and then i put the FV in my air con fermenting room. You are connecting the inlet to the pipe that goes to the bottom first aren't you? 
Our summer temps are averaging 27C. Including night time temps. Feeling quite smug now our summer is arriving actually. :lol:
I borrowed a counter flow chiller from a friend and found it a pain in the **** to clean. They would work very well if we had nice cold mains water here. But we don't. I live in a rural district and have to collect my own drinking water. We don't have mains supply here.
There's many things i would like to improve on with my little brewery set-up. But i wouldn't change my IC. I reckon it's my fave piece of kit. Next to my refractometer. :geek:
Our summer temps are averaging 27C. Including night time temps. Feeling quite smug now our summer is arriving actually. :lol: I borrowed a counter flow chiller from a friend and found it a pain in the **** to clean. They would work very well if we had nice cold mains water here. But we don't. I live in a rural district and have to collect my own drinking water. We don't have mains supply here.
There's many things i would like to improve on with my little brewery set-up. But i wouldn't change my IC. I reckon it's my fave piece of kit. Next to my refractometer. :geek:
Morning....
I'm deciding which chiller to make... Counterflow or immersion
Does anyone know which one is more effcient.
My main concern is the amount of water they use, as we're on a meter, which one would use less water and how
many litres would it usually take to cool?
Also, is there anything else you could whilst cooling the wort - I was thinking immersing some
frozen water filled bottles?
Cheers
:
I'm deciding which chiller to make... Counterflow or immersion
Does anyone know which one is more effcient.
My main concern is the amount of water they use, as we're on a meter, which one would use less water and how
many litres would it usually take to cool?
Also, is there anything else you could whilst cooling the wort - I was thinking immersing some
frozen water filled bottles?
Cheers
:
immersion will be easier and a little cheaper to make and maintain. with CFC's you have to flush them with sanitiser, and even then you're never 100% certain you haven't got verdegri (sp?) growing in there, while immersion chillers completely dry, and are easier to clean, but may use a littler more water to cool the wort.
as for effeciency, that's a long debate that's been done numerous times! hehe
there is a design for a double immersion chiller on here that seems to do the job in under 20 mins (which is flippin fast!) because convection occurs in the boiler, aiding cooling.
i'm on a meter and actually haven't noticed my water bill going up. i used to be concernced how much water i was using but it worked out to be about 0.7p per litre. so using 100 litres in total for a 5 gallon batch is only about 70p for me.
for me if i'm doing a double brewday, i collect the hot water and use that as liquor for the next brew... as it's hot it takes less time to heat up, saving energy. if not then i send the output to my water butt. this technique gets me around any hose pipe bans too in the summer (cos your using your hose pipe for beverages which isn't banned :thumb: )
my single coil immersion chiller takes about 45 mins to cool 5 gallons. i'm actually about to make a double coil to get this down further with convection. CFC's take aslong as it takes for the wort to flow through the chiller and into the fermenter, as it's cooling as your collecting... so i'm guessing it's quicker but i've never seen nor used one with my own hands and eyes.
as for using ice, some people have got results by using two IC's... the first one is in a bath of ice water, then the second goes in the wort, so you've got super cool water going into the wort IC. if you plan on using frozen bottles, you'll have to sanitise them... and hope that the hot water doesn't melt them to cracking point :shock:
as for effeciency, that's a long debate that's been done numerous times! hehe
there is a design for a double immersion chiller on here that seems to do the job in under 20 mins (which is flippin fast!) because convection occurs in the boiler, aiding cooling.
i'm on a meter and actually haven't noticed my water bill going up. i used to be concernced how much water i was using but it worked out to be about 0.7p per litre. so using 100 litres in total for a 5 gallon batch is only about 70p for me.
for me if i'm doing a double brewday, i collect the hot water and use that as liquor for the next brew... as it's hot it takes less time to heat up, saving energy. if not then i send the output to my water butt. this technique gets me around any hose pipe bans too in the summer
(cos your using your hose pipe for beverages which isn't banned :thumb: )my single coil immersion chiller takes about 45 mins to cool 5 gallons. i'm actually about to make a double coil to get this down further with convection. CFC's take aslong as it takes for the wort to flow through the chiller and into the fermenter, as it's cooling as your collecting... so i'm guessing it's quicker but i've never seen nor used one with my own hands and eyes.
as for using ice, some people have got results by using two IC's... the first one is in a bath of ice water, then the second goes in the wort, so you've got super cool water going into the wort IC. if you plan on using frozen bottles, you'll have to sanitise them... and hope that the hot water doesn't melt them to cracking point :shock:
BrewStew said:
For the limited effect that frozen PET bottles will have on a hot wort versus the risk of possibly infecting the brew I really wouldn't bother myself. My IC manages to cool from boiling to pitching in 20 minutes, a couple of frozen PET bottles might shave a couple of minutes off at best. Why take the risk?
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