Seems like every time I start a mash midway through I tell myself that i need a wort chiller,(done that over 20 times now )
Today I loaded up with ingredients for a HBB at my favorite home brew store and saw that they were selling a 50' x 1/2" copper chiller for a little over 150$, I would rather spend that money on grains. Then one of my few remaining old brain cells fired off and I remembered that a few months ago I found about a 50' spool of 3/4" copper in my parking lot (prob some crackhead stashing it there thinking that it would be safe )
So a couple hours of work putting it together:
Crude and still needs to be cleaned up, the inner coil was wrapped around a 5 gal bucket and the outer was just free formed around it. Should fit my fermentor with room for a paddle in the middle.
Thats gonna be amazing! I have a 50 x 1/2", 2nd best gift a woman has ever given me. I can barely imagine 3/4"! AND found for free?!
Make sure you can drain it, I left mine for an extended break from the hobbies, and apparently it wasnt really dry. Corroded to the point of failure at the low point. Fixed it right up with a coupler, but also stretched out the angle and added ground wire to hold the slope. Drains fine hung upside down now.
Separate the coils a little (spread them as Zapata suggested) and lay a piece of copper wire across the coils in several places around the coils and solder them on...makes stiffeners to keep the coils separated. Using 12 or 14 gage solid copper wire (scavenged from some spare Romex) works great. Just a dab of flux and heat it with the torch and put a drop of solder on it to hold.
A great mash tun immersion heat exchanger. Some would have wasted the copper making a worm instead. But a chiller is a very useful tool in your tool chest.
ss
still_stirrin wrote:
A great mash tun immersion heat exchanger. Some would have wasted the copper making a worm instead. But a chiller is a very useful tool in your tool chest.
ss
Yea it would of made a great worm but that would of only been good for nostalgia, my first condenser was a 3/4 over 1/2 liebig and now I use a 2" shottie for my pot and a 3" for the flute.
Did a 60 gal HBB last night
Running the coil through my cooling reservoir brought the mash from 140 F to 90 F in a little under 25 minutes
Kicking myself for not building one sooner
)
)
