A novel countercurrent wort chiller design.

[Charlie]

I finished my new wort chiller Friday 1/9 just in time to brew on 1/11 (my first all grain in 20 years!). The thing performed pretty well. Here's a pic:



I did a lot of thinking to come up with the design, and I'm just a little bit proud of it. You can see the construction details at;

http://www.sawdustangels.com/chiller.html

Check out the performance data at the bottom of the page.

There are a couple of things I will change when I modify it or make a new one. For one thing, I will eliminate the dead space at the end of the tube (it will be shorter).



There are no plans or parts lists except the ones in my head. I appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Charlie

[budrockdiesel]

That is an awesome CHILLER! I am impressed with your fabricating skills. I am not positive but I think those numbers come close to commercial plate chillers. I cant wait to see your sculpture if you get around to it!

[Sent From My iPhone]

Very nice. You should talk to Push, he may want to post that on wortomatic

[bub]

Totally awesome, how long did it take?
BUB

[BadRock]

Nice!

[BeerPal]

I am impressed with your fabricating skills. I am not positive but I think those numbers come close to commercial plate chillers.

Not to knock Charlie's mad skilz ('cause he sure as hell got 'em, who's kiddin' who?) but a Therminator will chill 5 gallons of boiling wort to within a degree or two of cooling water temp as fast as the kettle can be emptied. For me, using gravity, that was about 5 minutes.

[Charlie]

I am impressed with your fabricating skills. I am not positive but I think those numbers come close to commercial plate chillers.

Not to knock Charlie's mad skilz ('cause he sure as hell got 'em, who's kiddin' who?) but a Therminator will chill 5 gallons of boiling wort to within a degree or two of cooling water temp as fast as the kettle can be emptied. For me, using gravity, that was about 5 minutes.

The engineer in me purely loves Blichmann, and the Therminator is a lovely piece of equipment. It's much more compact and easier to clean than my design. There's some stuff ahead of it on the list, but if I get a chance I'm going to add a Therminator.

The problem was that I wanted to make all grain beer _*NOW*_, and the budget wouldn't fit around everything. I had to have a wort chiller, and I didn't have $200 to put on it. So I put this chiller together. It cost about $55.00 and 16 hours labor (not counting the 1/2 NPT tap and the 4 1/8" hole saw). It will never be a Therminator, but I'm proud of it. It would probably flow faster except I didn't give flow rate a high priority because I had no clue I'd get such good numbers. So if/when I build another one I will pay attention not to restrict the flow.

I have another idea.... Anybody know where I can get some 4" ID Pyrex tubing?

Charlie

[Mills]

Pretty damn boss Charlie, when is the first time you are using it? I would love to hear how it performs.