Counter Flow Chiller

[koomber]

I thought I'd include this since Cellar Rat was using his coil as a chiller. This is a counter flow chiller. Basically a coil of pipe in pipe. The outer pipe is 15mm reinforced plastic, whilst the inner is 8mm copper. The ends have a funky little bit that means that the water in the outer and inner pipes never mix.

Usually people build these things huge. This still manages to cool from hot, hot wort to 20°C easily. And that is it sitting on an A4 folder!

Takes about 20 minutes to cool 5 gallons, and best of all you get to go do something else rather than shoogle a immersion chiller about inside a boiler!

[lockwood1956]

hmmmmm

I like it, and of course the first water run through comes out hot....so would be useful for washing stuff!


did you purchase it or make it Graham?

shoogly regards
Bob

[koomber]

I made it myself

Since I've now got an immersion chiller spare, I could dismantle it and lash together another one and post instructions. It's not too complicated, but does involve soldering plumbing.

The trickiest part is getting the flow right so that what is coming out the end is cold, but once that is set it is pretty much good to be left alone.

[billybuntus]

Nice bit of engineering there, I love it.

DIY how to is required.

[lockwood1956]

Since I've now got an immersion chiller spare, I could dismantle it and lash together another one and post instructions. It's not too complicated, but does involve soldering plumbing.

now that would make a great video tutorial for VWC!

(hint hint)

[Cellar_Rat]

Excellent engineering. I am surprised buy it wee size.
Do you have to restrict the liquor flow rate?

[koomber]

Excellent engineering. I am surprised buy it wee size.
Do you have to restrict the liquor flow rate?

I did, but that was because I forgot to put my hop stopper on my boiler

By the time I realised this, I'd already filled the boiler with wort. I've recently started using paint strainer bags to hold the hops as I was finding that the amount of hops I was using was clogging up my hop strainer completely.

If I had the strainer, then the restriction by it being there would have almost certainly kept the flow down low enough to mean I could just open the valve.

The lack of strainer will undoubtably mean I have a lot of trub gotten into the primary fermenter, but I generally use a secondry so it's not a major issue since the beer won't be sitting on it for long.

I'll order the parts later on to build another one. I'll have a look at getting compression fittings so I can show folk how to make one without soldering.

*EDIT* I'm pretty sure I can find someone up here who will take it off my hands when I'm done too!

[koomber]

Here we go chaps. A Video showing how to build a Kaptain Koomber brand Counterflow Chiller.

PS: Youtube nixed my music choice. I'll find something appropriate to repalce it with soon enough. Please feel free to leave any comments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvmKB50jVCs

EDIT! NOW WITH SOUNDS!

[lockwood1956]

Good job Graham!

top banana

[NorthernWiner]

Quite a professional looking vid there, Mr. Hollywood.

Seriously, the instructions were so well done, even I could follow along. Nice work.

[Cellar_Rat]

Nice one. I like the subtext too.

It will be interesting to see how many views it gets!

[koomber]

Thanks chaps! Took my about 30 minutes to put together the chiller and about 7 hours to get the video sorted! I'm thinking about posting it onto other forums too.

I've just done a quick test with the chiller and a pan of boiling water.

Just using syphon with 8mm tubing (the 'standard' tubing) on both inlet and outlet and no form of flow control I managed to drain a pan of boiling water and get the temperature down to just below 20°C.

Just to give you guys an idea of how small this cooler is here are a couple of pictures.

After wrapping it round the bread bin, I then e wrapped it round a roll of wallpaper to get the loops even smaller

[koomber]

And one final video. This time showing it work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmZpm1IiQT0

[lockwood1956]

Fab video dude


great work

[Rich]

Looks great can't wait to try one out!

It's not fair on the rest of the population though. At no point have you mentioned that the cold water comes out the ground up here at what seems like -5c (uninterestingly, If I remember I'll measure it tomorrow) and that we're so far north that water boils at just 68c. (that bit is made up too, It's height that makes water boil at lower temp)


Apart from that.. You coming out this way at the weekend to drink wine? or beer