Chilling on the Cheap

[grod]

no chill, its easier.

well said

love

g

[Ozwald]

Damn Aussies. You guys just no chill because your ground water is at 110 year round.

The drier you can get the inside the better. If you have an air compressor, blow it. Then use the compressor to shoot some air through the coil. If you don't, don't worry about it too much, but I'd advise storing it somewhere inside. Especially during the winter.

[Bugeater]

I hang my chiller upside down in the garage so it will drain and dry. When my tap water is warm (today it is 79°F out of the spigot), I run tap water through the chiller until I get the wort under 100°F and then I switch over to pumping ice water through the chiller, recirculating the water back into the cooler. Takes about 15# ice.



The pump is a cheap 12 vdc drinking water pump from an RV. Won't handle hot wort, but works great for this.

This two stage cooling system will greatly cut the amount of water you use.

[Ozwald]

Do you have any sort of exchanger in the cooler or just the tubing? If it's just the tubing, roughly how many feet?

[Bugeater]

Do you have any sort of exchanger in the cooler or just the tubing? If it's just the tubing, roughly how many feet?

No heat exchanger. Just pump ice water out of the cooler into the wort chiller. The discharged water goes right back into the cooler where the ice cools it back down again. I can go from 100° down to about 60° in about 15 minutes without melting quite all the ice.

[TheHamNerd]

Do you have any sort of exchanger in the cooler or just the tubing? If it's just the tubing, roughly how many feet?

No heat exchanger. Just pump ice water out of the cooler into the wort chiller. The discharged water goes right back into the cooler where the ice cools it back down again. I can go from 100° down to about 60° in about 15 minutes without melting quite all the ice.

I am building a 50' copper immersion chiller and I was going to connect it to my garden hose until I started to pay attention to the temperature of the water coming out of it. So I picked up a small $20 fountain/pond pump at Home Depot and I am going to be doing this same thing. I will fill up my 5 Gallon bucket with ice water, drop in pump and recirculate the hot side back into the ice water. I think this type of setup will work for me, but it was not so cheap....copper is not cheap these days, but I did save a little $$$ by building it myself rather than buying a 50' pre-made copper immersion chiller.

[Ozwald]

I am building a 50' copper immersion chiller and I was going to connect it to my garden hose until I started to pay attention to the temperature of the water coming out of it. So I picked up a small $20 fountain/pond pump at Home Depot and I am going to be doing this same thing. I will fill up my 5 Gallon bucket with ice water, drop in pump and recirculate the hot side back into the ice water. I think this type of setup will work for me, but it was not so cheap....copper is not cheap these days, but I did save a little $$$ by building it myself rather than buying a 50' pre-made copper immersion chiller.

Until you kink the copper once or twice ... don't ask about my first chiller build

You may want to think about insulating that bucket or using a beverage cooler (especially if you have one laying around). Not that the bucket won't work, but it'll be much more efficient, especially those last few degrees getting down to pitching temp.

[mordantly]

i made mine out of two-25 foot coils 3/8 copper. i only rinse the outside off of debris. the inside is still full of water.. if in ten years it corrodes ill make one from stainless tubing.. water lines in residences is copper and last a LONG time!