Counterflow wort chiller, build and test
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- How to build a counterflow wort chiller for cooling homebrew beer from boiling to pitching temperature in 10 minutes.
Alternative ending, using a drilled out compression fitting, • Compression fitting dr...
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could you write down a complete list of items to buy for this?=)
Absolutely awesome piece of craftsmanship. Well done. If you put this much care and effort into your equipment, I can only imagine how good your beer tastes.
Is there any chance you could put up an exact list of what you used for the build (what to ask for in the store).
I would love to give this a go. :)
Yes the longer the pipe, the more surface area and a better transfer. You could probably increase the flow rate for a faster cool down also with a longer pipe. But one thing to consider is that the water flowing in the opposite direction will eventually start putting the heat back into the wort, and eqaulize the wort and the water to the same temp. It would take some serious algebra to calculate the exact length of pipe needed before that started happening. Cheers
Hi Stefano,
I hook up the counterflow to the kettle and pump boiling wort through it and back into the kettle again to sanitise it for about 10 minutes before I turn on the cold water for chilling. Then at the end of the brew day, It is left connected to the kettle during cleaning and all of the cleaning solution used in the kettle is run through the it to flush it and clean it out.
Best counter-chiller build video, ever. I've been meaning to build one for a while, but imperial measurements and a parts list I'd have no hope of full-filling here in the outer suburbs of Melbourne have stalled my efforts time and again. Checking the website now, everything you have listed is available at Bunnings down the road.. Guess what I'm making this weekend :)
Horrid music
We still miss you. RIP
Man we miss you
That is soldering BTW not welding. Good job I am planning to do something very similar.
Very important! Hot and cold water must tiles in the opposite direction!
Great Video Bro, makes me proud to be a kiwi. p.s. where's he duct tape?
Do you have a list of parts. I would like to try and build one of these myself
yes, would love to make one too!
Lmao, you should have seen me editing the damn video, my wife kept on asking me to sit still. It doesnt help drinking beer while editing either, lol.
You can't brew beer without drinking beer, therefore you can't edit beer videos without beer. ;)
Unfortunately not, I went to plumbing supply shop with my copper tube and put together the bits that I needed, so I didnt think of keeping a note of the part sizes. But in one of my other videos "Counterflow chiller, Homebrew Wednesday Episode 3" I layout the bits that I got. Hope that helps and cheers for the sub
Great video. I'm wondering if I can make something along these lines as a still condenser. 2 small niggles (yes I am a Pommy whinger); you kept on saying 'weld' and I expect by now it has been pointed out to you that what you're doing with a small gas torch and a low melting point alloy wire is not welding, it's soldering. The reason that you struggled trying to solder the copper tube to the brass fitting was because it takes quite a lot of heat to get the mass of metal up to a temp where the solder will flow. And already inside the plastic tube, you'd be damaging the plastic if you did have a hot enough flame.
Whinge #2 - I had some trouble in making out what you were saying and my first language is English, so I wonder if some of your world audience might have had the same trouble or more. Speak clearly you Ozzie bastard!
Having said that, lovely video. Thanks
Just kidding, Kiwi :-)
Robert Seviour lol, yeah I knew I was soldering, its hard to think about what your saying when the video camera is rolling. What do they say in the film industry, never work with animals, small children, or home brewers who had had a few to loosen up before hand ;) Cheers Robert, thanks for watching, and thanks for be whinging pom, it made me laugh
Very, very good, thanks for this magnific video!
cheers
Cheers Dave, the clear tubing is cool, I am going to use 1/2" clear Polycarbonate for my brewery plumbing, so I can see the flows everywhere, one big sight glass! might even bling it by putting LED light strips behind it to.
G'day mate.
Is it possible to get your email (privately) with all the info on this build? Fitting sizes, etc.
REUSE THE WATER. do not waste .
Use a water pump, in a gallon
save money with water
This looks like an amazing device. But is there a list of parts somewhere that I've overlooked?
Before you do your build Justin, price it up and checkout morebeer{dot}com they have some counterflows at really reasonable prices, and they look really tidy to. It may work out cheaper. Although when it comes to home brewing its nearly as much fun building stuff to brew with as it is brewing.
I have a pipe flaring tool, and I used that to flare out the end enough so that when I screwed in a 1/2" nipple it compressed against the flare to might a tight seal. A metal spike would do the same thing with a bit of force behind it. Another option is to use a silicone washer to create a tight fit. Cheers
Thanks for Greate video, can you list up the parts do use, please.
Can you write the materials?Please, i dont speak english. thanks
RIP Paul. Brew on.
+KoKi GAmI ?? What happened? He wasn't very old.
+mittelfruh sorry about the late reply mate. I can't tell you what happened as I don't know. He
Eat behind a wife and kids though. Very sad.
Hi! I'm building a cooler system for a milk prosses plant. Could you give the name of the connectors that you're using and what kind of whater pumb are you using? Thanx!
Hi there,
I built mine based on this video, works great! was getting extremely sick of my immersion chiller. BTW your brewery looks awesome. Thanks for the info, Jeremy.
Once water is flowing the turbulence settles down. The theory behind the wire around the pipe, is to increase the travel path for the water passing over the copper. So instead of flowing along the pipe it flows in a spiral around the pipe. this means that water has a longer contact time to transfer heat. The wire also adds a little bit more surface area for heat transfer, even though it is minimal. Ideally Convoluted pipe, of finned pipe would be more efficient, but is wire is easier for DIY
Cheers for the request, I think the cost for shipping from NZ to Europe would be pretty high. There are some counterflow chillers available on ebay[dot]co[dot]uk that are $170USD delivered, that would be a much cheaper option, search for "wort chiller"
Nice build but I've got to be that guy. That's not welding 😉that's soldering aka sweating. Welding is melting the 2 materials together along with a filler material. That can be done with metals or plastics with heat or chemicals. Soldering is basically glueing the pieces using heat. Next time you have to do some soldering try n get ahold of some stay Brite liquid flux. If you use silver bearing solder it will bond about any metal including stainless,copper,brass, aluminum and even cast iron or mild steel in any combination. The stuff is amazing
Hi Aaron, I have mine connected to a march pump, so it has no issue. I tried it with a gravity flow but, like you suggested the overall length of pipe is just to much to handle, there are also to many opportunities for air pockets to form and restrict the flow. I have to prime mine by pumping into it, to ensure all of the air has been expelled. If I rely on gravity to fill the coil, the liquid soon equalises pressure after a couple of coils and then, its going nowhere.
Hi Michele, that will be fine, the glaze will burn off where you weld the wire to the pipe, and only water is running on the outside of the pipe so no glaze containment will effect your beer. Try to weld a bit of glazed wire first, and see how well it bonds though, just to be sure.
there are a couple of pumps I use, march beer pumps, they cost around $200 and some small 12v hot water pumps from ussolarpumps[dot]com that cost around $50, both are food grade and can handle 100ºC. Cheers for the sub also
How do you bend the pipe??? I tried repeatedly, filled the pipe with salt even , and it wouldn't coil without pinching.
Great video!
Do you remember where you got your copper wire from? I can't seem to find any for sale, but can find galvanized steel wire (although i would have to sand off the galvanized layer for each weld)
Cheers for the comment.
The copper that the wort runs through doesnt have any obstructions so its pretty easy to clean by hooking it up to a pump and recirculating cleaner through it. Before I use it I pump the boiling wort through it and back into the kettle, that kills anything that could be left behind. As for sediment I haven't had it block up yet, pipe ID is about 10mm, plus I normally whirl pool, or run through a turb filter first so sediment is minimal coming in. Cheers have another1
2.6 gpm for the 10Watt version and a maximum head of 7.5 ft. check them out at ussolarpumps[dot]com. I have it hooked up to a 12volt power supply that is in my control cabinet.
This CFC has now cooled over 180ltr of wort without any leaks, and an average cooling time from boil to pitching temp of 15min per 20ltr. Well worth the build
Silly question, but if your kettle doesn't have a connection port/outlet for the counterflow chiller, can you still make the counterflow chiller work somehow?
That's a great idea! I just built a water cooled condenser for my refrigeration system. Your heat exchanger is much better. ua-cam.com/video/avtYk-eYKj8/v-deo.html
I'll keep this in mind for future alterations.
M.C. Pletcher That is cool, subbed and looking forward to seeing what else you come up with. I have wanted to build a glycol immersion chiller as well, "lol its all about getting the wort cooled as fast as possible with me" I have even played with Peltier chips as well, in a crazy thought that I could harness the energy from boiling the wort to cool it later.
I guess brewing is an excuse to tinker for alot of us as well, cheers
Hi, cheers for the sub. The pumps are solar water pumps available online from ussolarpumps{dot}com
What's the GPM on it, and how do you power it? Just a wall jack? Most small pumps that I've seen are battery powered. :-/
That is a good video. Really nice. I will try it. What kind of pump did you bought, does it cope with the temperature ?
As long as it is lead-free flux it is safe, like the solder and flux used in most plumbing. A good clean down with boiling water cleans away any flux that is left over also. 95% of the soldering is also on the water side of the pipe.
I can´t understand.. How many Celcius was the water at the start? you said It was boiling but screen shows 43 C
How do you clean your system to avoid contamination in your next beer, or will it not contaminate you? Greetings from Tijuana Mexico
Where'd you find the brass fittings, and which ones did you buy? Was that a hardware store purchase or online?
hi there. Could you make one and ship it to Europe? Obviously, I'd gladly pay for it. Let me know please.
Great video thank you, horrible soundtrack. Sorry.
Why the hell is there a little kidding saying help at 6:39. Scared the crap out of me.
Me and a mate were so impressed we made one each. We found compression fittings, tees etc that did the job nicely, haven't soldered for 20yrs so that got interesting but got the copper in the tube so all good. Problem is the tap water here is 23 degs so now looking at making a recirculating water chilled reservoir to get from 35degs(current wort exit temp) to 22degs. But to chill wort from 100degs to 35 in 10secs shows how efficiently it works all for $85. Thanks for sharing!
gotsomecraic that is awesome, cheers
Loved the idea. Unfortunately i will no be able to find such a large hose in my country.
have you thought to put a valve on the out put? That may help bring the water temp. up and the wort temp down by giving the wort more contact time with the liqur. I like what you are doing ! Very nice. I'll have to make one myself. Do you have a list of parts? That would be a great help. Thanks
if you mean the output of the waste water, no. I can control the flow of the water going in via the main water tap, and there is a ball valve to restrict the wort coming out, so that allows for pretty good heat transfer. I have found that slowing the water down you get better cooling, instead of having the water full bore. Unfortunately I don't have a list of parts, as some the parts were picked up from a local plumbing store and are not globally available. However I have a brand new counterflow video that I am working on at the moment, and with that one all the parts I have chosen can be sourced from international supplies, so that anyone can make it. Cheers
Thank. looking forward for the new and improved counter flow video. Hope to have some videos of my own some time down the rode of the brewing and random stuff that I'm doing in Northern BC Canada. :) Much love
Hi Rick, I went to a plumbing wholesaler, and looked around at all the bits, trying them out for size, sort of an adhock design process. The most important part was finding a reducer that fit the snuggly around the internal copper pipe that I had.
Just curious, does your index ring act as a bottle opener?
+MrHalloweenFreak It does. My USMC son got me some time ago. ShepFL
Gravity should be able to do it, as long as your kettle is high enough so that everything runs down hill into the fermenting vessel. However I prefer to use a pump so that I can reticulate the wort back into the kettle, once the entire kettle volume has reached pitching temp I then run it into the fermentor. Also I run boiling wort through the counterflow for 5min first, without cooling, this ensures that the counterflow is 100% sanitised.
La prossima cosa da fare e', la prossima volta compra uno scambiatore a piastre INOX cosi sarai
sicuro della portata e della potenza di raffreddamento.(portata in litri , sia del prodotto da refrigerare
che del refrigerante) inoltre non si ossida ed e' piu' pulito.
Yeah those imperial wrenches are hard to find, lol. We only use inches as a measure of a man now, everything else is metric ;)
total build cost was around $140USD, which included the blingy brass hose fittings, copper pipe was extremely cheap, picked up a 5m off cut for $20
RIP Paul. Great video.
Cheers, I brought heavy gauge electrical wire and stripped the insulation of it, it is about 1mm thick wire. Galvanized would be okay though, as its primary purpose is to create turbulence not heat transfer. It might start to rust though at the welds, although solder would protect it somewhat. An alternative would be aluminium, but then soldering could be an issue.
Great vid, great system! What is your source for cold water? Is 13 degrees your ambient temperature? Thanks
Bloody amazing mate ! Thank you so much !
Viewed the hole video, didn´t have any idea what he was doing.
Alguien que lo traduzca al español gracias
I am wondering how long for cooling 150 litres
Soldering may be health issue all 👏👏
Won't copper oxidise n corrode due to water n get damaged ???
after the brew, I run the kettle cleaning water through it, and finally star sans. Then I let it drain and the star sans evaporates. Before I use it again, I also run the boiling wort through it, and back into the kettle for 10 min to give it a further sanitise.
One question , does the wort pump from your boiler to your wort chiller and back into the boiler to re circulating it thru to cool it? Great idea , cheers
Very good,very good 👍👍👍
These were all the rage in my day !
Hi, Id be keen to see a materials list for this if you have one. Cheers!
love the creative engineering, but I think it will be a bitch to clean and sanitize
it's a good thing you guys have those metric adjustable wrenches there ;) Nice build total price?
what a way to waste water !!!! the video is also excellent thanks
What are those quick disconnect tube/hose fittings? I can't seem to find them on McMaster-Carr.
Edit: Also, if you were to use a compression fitting on the pipe, how would you go about attaching the tri-clamp? I don't see anything that would work for attaching directly to a 1/2" O.D tubing without a butt weld. www.mcmaster.com/#45195k72/=xid042
How long is the PVC and Copper Pipe?
Cheers Gordon, the flare seems to be holding up fine, I have run it a couple of times without the wort lines connect to see if it was leaking, but looks all good. I have been meaning to get a silicone seal to ensure a tighter fit against the flare also, just havent got to it yet.
I can only get 10mm copper pipe (at a reasonable price) would that work UK and if so what size PVC pipe would you think 16mm id, 18mm id?
Great video. One question: how do you sterilize the chiller prior to its use? Just flowing some sanitized water through the copper pipe would be enough?
yes, I pump back into the kettle to bring the entire volume of the kettle to pitching temp, I have done a video called the "chill off challenge" where on I compare both recirculation and straight into the fermentor, and both methods took the same amount of time. But I prefer recirculating as it is easy to setup, and a no fuss method, were as straight into the fermentor ball valve adjustment is needed to control output temp.
I dont unfortunately, but I will try and post something up on my website, and let you know once it is up. cheers
Considering this for my next built Paul. Immersion just isn't cutting it for 50 liters
+Time4Another1 Can you give a BOM for the parts? Preferably with some Amazon links.
Why do you shroud it with plastic? It isn't a very thermally conductive material. Why just connect the brass valves tot he copper tubing?
Great video mate... those brass Gardena fitting must've cost you a few bucks, eh? Awesome job...
Brilliant video! Built one based on this very succinct advice. Thanks! Cools in one pass from boiling to 18/19C.
What's the flow rate like out of your chiller? I made a chiller like this but with about 14m of pipe. It takes around 1 min to get a liter from it. I'm trying to work out if it's so slow because of the length of pipe.
Is there a limit to the length of copper tubing when NOT using a pump? I have a 20 foot run of copper tube but I don't want to have to purchase a pump, wondering if gravity will be enough. Thanks for the great video.
What is the length of the copper tubing?
Ни как самогонный аппарат не иначе? Идею приняли!
... Это охладитель сусла ! См. тест в конце сюжета ...
Can't weld copper with a propane torch lol
I'm curious to know the basis behind the idea to create a turbulent flow in the water portion of the chiller. Intuitively I'd guess that less turbulence means more contact with the hot inner tube, which in turn means more efficient cooling. But fluid and thermal dynamics are never very intuitive...
Awesome Adam, let me know how you go with it. Cheers
from Mike Kehoe at ussolarpumps(dot)com they are great pumps
I have a Sabco Chill Wizard and an Immersion Chiller, but this counterflow leaves them for dust. Its awesome.
Good video mate , next time try some epoxy between the copper and brass fitting
Really nice! You use 5m for how many wort? How long does it takes to chill to pitching? I want to scale this out for 150liters batches 😅. Also, how do you disinfect it? Since you can't run it the 10 last minutes of the boil
This is bloody awesome, another little project to build! If you would do this again, what would you change? Longer coil? Could you recirc the water used for cooling in a bank and reduce wastage? Also, what part of NZ are you in?
I apologize if this was asked already, but can post a link to where you purchased the pump? And it looks like it's DC and you have it hooked up to some sort of charger?