Very nice explanation. Thank you!

Please more projects!

Excellent construction. I made a coil recently using a new epoxy instead of solder. You have to work fast with epoxy, but I gotta tell you, it beats solder by a long ways.

Also, I would love to see the end product in action. I assume you have to have 2 pumps: One for the water and one for the wort recirc.

If you really want fast cooling, put salt into the ice bath. It DRAMATICALLY cools faster.

Anyway, great job on the website.

Thanks, Kerry and Stefan. Actually, you only need one pump - just for the wort - if your hose water is cold enough. In the winter months I can get away with the hose water, if I am doing an ale. But in the summertime here in Scottsdale, the water gets 90 degrees. I then have to use an immersion pump either in the pool, or in a cooler full of icewater.

Yes, you are right. Salted icewater is even better! You should have no problem getting down to lager temps then. Even still, I would use the hosewater to get it down as far as I can before I switch to ice. Otherwise you'll burn through your too much ice, too quick. Brew strong!

Mylo

I have decided to use two pumps, one for the Wort and one for the cold water. I have designed a totally recirculating system on a modified closed-loop. The main reason is for saving water.

I start with 20 pounds of crushed ice in my Gott cooler and about 2 gallons of water on the ice. This amount of water will help push the water past the pump head. As the water comes back, I have the plastic high-temp tubing go directly into the Gott cooler. I also picked up some brass quick-connect garden fittings for rapid deployment.

The water comes back to the chiller initially at neat boiling temps but begins to cool rapidly. Meanwhile the other pump is hooked to the ball valve on the wort kettle. The hot wort will then go back to the inside of the chilling coil.

As the ice melts inside the Gott cooler, I drain some of the water into a regular plastic bucket. If you drain water off the Gott cooler slowly you can actually conserve more water. That's why those picnic coolers have a drain plug, so the ice doesn't melt as fast.

Here in southern Arizona I usually use 40 lbs of ice because the coldest my ambient water is 73 to 77 (about 20 C).

The excess water in the bucket goes into my rain barrel or sometimes into the garden. I have gone from using over 30 gallons of water to just over 3-4 gallons. I don't use salt because of my efforts to recycle water.

I have not finished the project, but when I do, I will place it on You-Tube.

Kerry, I live in the high deserts of Southern California and I love the idea of saving water the way you are chilling!

I too chill with a recirculating immersion chiller and use two pumps, but I don't switch from ground water to the second pump until I get to around 90F.

Some of the initial chilling waste water, however, does get used (~50%) for cleaning.

I wanted to clarify that at this moment I am NOT NOT NOT using two pumps. I was going to use two but the pump didn't arrive in time for this brew. I should get the other pump tomorrow. I did a batch today and just used one pump and gently stirred the beer around the center of the coil. I still use the recirculation and only went through less than 5 gallons of water. I used the water on my hop garden. Tomorrow the new pump for the wort should be here.

Still, even with one pump I was able to cool the entire batch in about 30 mins.

Kerry, I agree with Push. I collect the first 3-5 gallons into a container and use it with PBW for cleaning. It saves me from having to fire up the burner again during the cleaning cycle.

New cooling system notes:
Hey, I got the pump and actually used a dual pump system. If you came into the movie late, I am using one pump to pump ice water through a 25' coil (1/2 id) and back through to a Gott cooler.

I attached a 1/2" id piece of copper tubing (2ft long) to the chiller I already had. I then bent the tubing around the inside of the chiller in the same direction as the chiller (clockwise).

As I attached the input line from my wort kettle to the new pump, I routed the wort back into the kettle.

I had some issues that I was not expecting. The pump on the kettle actually pulled the hop bags into the valve. Of course I realized I had made a mistake and not taken out the bags, but hind-sight is 20.20

As soon as I cleared that mess up, I was back in business.

Holy smokes, this thing is chilling the beer at record pace. I burned through 20 lbs of ice and added 10 more pounds (4.5 kilos). I was amazed to watch the kettle thermo drop like a rock. I estimated that from 205 F (98C) to 150F (60C), the time was about 5 minutes. The next drop took much longer as I dropped from 150F (65C) to 90F (32C), it took about 10 more minutes. I attribute some of this to thermal laws and some to slight inefficiency on MY part to drain some water OUT of the cooling bucket.

The next drop from 90F (32C) to 68F (20C) was very rapid. About 4 minutes. The times listed here are certainly not scientific, and I will be more precise next time. It is really difficult to conduct an experiment and actually make beer at the same time.

My first impressions are very favorable. I cooled the entire 5.5 gallons (22 liters) in about 20 minutes. The actual cooling time was longer due to my not taking the hop bags out, but still this is impressive.

I also noted that I used about 10 lbs LESS ice than I normally do in this climate. We had a hot day and the water temperature out of the faucet was about 78F (25.5 C) .

The total amount of "waste" water was by far a new low record for me. Much less than 5 gallons (20L). I was simply shocked to see this improvement.

Other notes: I was making Steam beer and noticed a light, creamy foam forming on the top of the wort. It was certainly not bubbly, but I was not expecting this nor have I read much about it. I deduced that maybe I was passing the wort back into the kettle too fast. I really don't expect much effect from this, but I am going to write to Jamil Z and see if he has had this occur. It may well have been the style of beer I was making and the latent protein content.

So, the beer is now fermenting and doing very well at that stage. I should have a taste test in about 15 days. That, for sure, will be the tell tale for us all.

In conclusion, I intend to list all parts I bought and detailed build plans to include a video on You-Tube.

Regards,
Kerry

Kerry, beautiful write-up!

I see the same kind of temp drops with this chiller. You can really watch the needle plummet.

Congrats on your build.

I may have missed something and this may be a silly question, but which of the connections are in/out? Where is the third one come into play?
thanks
Fehron

Fehron, your cooling water goes in and out through the coil. It doesn't matter whether it goes through the coils top-down or bottom-up.

The little whirlpool return is for your HOT WORT. Pump out of your boil kettle and up to the return. This forces the hot wort to spin in between the coils of your chiller facilitating a very rapid chilling.

Push E.

hi nice site thx

hey mylo, either i am just a newb or i am just a newb. but what i was wondering is if you can explain your process of how to hook up all the hoses and what does what kinda thing. i would love to build this like this weekend if i can. any help would be greatly appreciated

Sure, the last picture on the lower right shows all three inputs. The leftmost is for your hose water. The rightmost is for your "exhaust" water. The middle input is the return from your pump. You will have one other hose (not pictured) that goes from your ball valve on your kettle to your pump. You need a food grade March pump to recirculate wort. I put the chiller in the wort for the last 15 min of the boil (and immediatly hook up the hoses). Copper conducts heat very well so you only have a few minutes to do your connections. THen I start recirculating the boiling wort through the coil to sanitize all the hoses and pump. I do not turn on the cooling water until I am ready. On flameout, I cover the kettle, and turn on the hosewater. I collect the first 5 gallons of water in my (now cleaned) mashtun - that I use for cleaning the whole system later. After the temp drops to 90 or so - I switch from hosewater to an ice water bath that I have going in my HLT. I use a cheap immersible sump pump for that operation, and recirc the cooling water back into the HLT.

What are you using for a brew kettle? I'm thinking about making one of these for a Sanke keg kettle...

I have a converted sanke myself. The only "enhancement" I plan on making is to add a circle of copper to the bottom to better mate with the sanke bottom (a la a diverter plate). That way all my break material will not leak out where the coil does not touch the sanke bottom.

I picked up a coil of 50' x 1/2 OD (not ID) and wrapped it around my 2.5gal corny. It's wrapped as nice as I can get it and waiting for me to find fittings to solder on.

I picked the wrong diamater, OD instead of ID, and thus am having problems at Home Depot finding fittings. I have to make a trip to some other places and see if I can find solder 90's and 45's to make the other parts.

I bought one 3 days ago, a small chiller.. and saw this and thought I'd love to have one. Almost as expensive as buying a giant chiller but definately more fun to make.

Awesome job brother...

Jake. I'm afraid your are out of luck for the sweat fittings. You bought the refrigeration tubing. I doubt you will find fittings to sweat on there. You are going to have to use the compression fittings, and you are going to have to form the uprights from the continous coil. This is hard work. The only suggestions I can make are to get the finest play sand and fill the coil with it. This will support the inside of the tubing and prevent kinks. You might also want to make a small version of the pipe benders that they use for conduit out of some plywood to give you some leverage. Good luck!

The 1/2" OD refrigeration copper tubing uses standard 3/8" plumbing fittings. Lowe's and HD carry them as well as any local hardware store.

Refer tubing is measured as OD and plumbing copper is measured as ID. i.e. 3/8 id = 1/2" od.

HTH

Great article! I just made one of these myself and tested it, but have yet to use it. It definitely cools quickly - I got from boiling to 130F in 5 minutes, but my main reason for building it is to, hopefully, leave the cold break and trub in the kettle. I also just added a pick-up tube (ala the lastest BYO issue) to help me achieve this.

The only thing I haven't figure out yet is how best to get the cooled wort into the fermenter? Also, in my test runs, I tried different procedures for disconnecting the pump from the kettle and kept losing wort and making a mess. Does anyone have a procedure they could share with me? I use plastic buckets to ferment in. Has anyone tried pumping into a plastic bucket through the plastic spigot?

Thanks,

Guy

Guy, I have polysulphone (CPC) disconnects on my chiller and hoses. After the chilling is complete, I shut off the valve on the pump and remove the hose from the center (return) tube. I then just pump the cooled wort into my fermenters. Yes, I do loose an ounce or two when I disconnect the hose. A removable whirlpool return would solve the issue - but would be less convienent to store.

Excelent article.
But one big concern of my.
What you use to solder to copper? I think what we use here in Brazil is tin.
But I'm not sure if is bad for my health.
What you used to solder the copper pieces togheter?
Thanks for sharing your project.

Mylo,
WAY COOL (no pun intended)!!!!!! I have a couple questions.
1) What kind of solder? I was under the impression that certain types of solder were not cool with the hot wort.
2)What brands or model pump(s) do you use?
3)What size batches are you making. For a 32 quart 5 gallon batch would I need all 50 feet?
4) I need a homebrew, I can't remember my last question.

Sooo...

How long until morebeer starts selling these :)

http://morebeer.com/view_product/8868/Immersion_Chiller_w_Recirculation_Option

WoodysBrew - I used regular lead-free plumbing solder that I bought at Home Depot. I have a March pump (like the one available at B3). I make mostly 10 gallon batches, but I placed the return tube below the 5 gallon mark. Yes, half of the coils are therefore not used - but I like the flexibility.

Mylo

Mylo,
This is an excellent how-to! Thank you for taking the time to post your construction steps. I want to build one of these super chillers, but I have one question though; do you feel your set up creates a sufficient whirlpool action. I noticed that your wort return tube has a single outlet and Jamil's has two, no real biggie here, except perhaps a difference in the whirlpool created.
Again, thank you for your time and effort,

Egil

Egil - Does the wort spin - yes. Does it dimple the surface - like on my stirplate? - No. I believe that Jamil did away with the "T" on his and didn't notice any difference. I have noticed that if I drain very slowly, I will have a pile of hops left in the middle. But as I have mentioned before, the only "improvement" I would make would be a copper ring that mated better with the bottom of the keg.

Mylo