Immersion Chiller / Heating Coil

[Brendan]

Wanted to build an immersion coil to be able to quickly cool my all grain mashes, so that I didn't have to rely on passive cooling in ice baths. Got an 18m coil of 1/2" copper tube.

I made it to fit perfectly in my open top keg/mash tun, and found that this 12L glass container was the right size for what I needed, so proceeded to start coiling.

As well as building an immersion coil, I had this crazy idea that a way to be able to cook up my corn for a bourbon wash, was if I was able to recirculate boiling water through the coil while it is submersed in the mash. Then I should be able to raise its temperature and not have to worry about gas burners or internal heating element which can have detrimental results on bourbon mashes.

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Also found I had a couple of small bits of 1/2" coil laying around that were offcuts and I hadn't used for anything else, so I thought i'd buy myself a few extra turns and go all out for a 75 foot (22.86m) coil. Although the 18m would have been enough for an immersion chiller, I really wanted as much coil as possible to use as a heating coil in the mash tun.

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Joined them all together, and attached input and output arms...

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Gave it a good clean up and sanding

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[Brendan]

The extra arm that you see is a structural support to firstly hold it all together, but secondly to be able to pick it up, as the input arm starts at the top of the coil, so has not strength to be able to lift with. The support arm is looped under the bottom of the coil aswell for structural strength to be able to lift it from the bottom by pulling up with that arm...it's open at the top so that there is no build up of pressure under changes of heat in the coil, but no wort/mash ever gets into it.

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Fits perfectly in the keg mash tun as planned :handgestures-thumbupleft:

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[Brendan]

Gives you an idea of the structural support at the bottom. The left hand side is the output which comes out and back in for both balance and a bit of strength and then heads up to the top to the output spout...The right is the structural arm to help in picking the coil up and taking it in and out of the mash tun while full.

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I found these wicked push connect fittings in Bunnings. I've been using the push connect fittings for the Pe-X high temp pipe, but they also have stuff for copper, so I got these copper to Pe-X couplers which are push connect for both...

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Pe-X high temp tubing attached which can handle boiling water through it for use as a heating coil.

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Found that rather than having to make anything more complex, the standard garden hose locks into the push connect perfectly, so that made that easy. Hose hooked up to run mains water through as an immersion cooling coil.

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[Milky]

Excellent work! Well done mate! Looks sweet! :mrgreen::mrgreen:

[Milky]

Are the push connections you have in the garden section or plumbing section at bunnings? They look really easy.

[Brendan]

To achieve the heating coil idea that Ihad in mind, I need a pump that can handle 100 deg C boiling water. In the future I will look to get a better quality pump, but for now all I had was a couple of the little brown pumps. I know they've got a terrible track record and don't know how long it will last, and some people have been through several in a few months...but it's still going for the last 6 months of use :think:

Wired the pump up with another pc fan speed controller in a project box, which allows me to control the flow rate of the little pump :D

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Works a treat. I'll show the setup and running in the all grain bourbon thread :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Brendan]

Are the push connections you have in the garden section or plumbing section at bunnings? They look really easy.

Plumbing mate, they're for plumbers to easily connect house copper piping as well as the high temp Pe-X tubing in different plumbing applications.

[Yummyrum]

Nice job Brendan

Are the coils soldered to the support pipes all the way up or just at top and bottom ?

[Brendan]

Nice job Brendan

Are the coils soldered to the support pipes all the way up or just at top and bottom ?

They are soldered at probably about 10 points up the coil for extra support, and to help space the coils out slightly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[1 2many]

Nice job Brendan

Are the coils soldered to the support pipes all the way up or just at top and bottom ?

They are soldered at probably about 10 points up the coil for extra support, and to help space the coils out slightly :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Good job brendan I built one almost identical to yours about 10 years ago and it worked really well from a boiling wort down to about 40 deg in 1/2 an hour, from 40 deg down it is a lot slower so i used ice water in a recirculating system which helped alot.

And the spacing of the coils was a big help overall , if there just left together it wasn't as efficient. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Yummyrum]

How do these things work from a hygene point of view ?

[1 2many]

How do these things work from a hygene point of view ?

That is a good question, I used mine to chill the beer wort after a boil so it was immersed in the still boiling wort for several minutes to kill of any nasties before it was turned on and i never had a beer go bad from its use.

[Brendan]

How do these things work from a hygene point of view ?

That is a good question, I used mine to chill the beer wort after a boil so it was immersed in the still boiling wort for several minutes to kill of any nasties before it was turned on and i never had a beer go bad from its use.

That is a fair point, and all I can claim is that I use no-rinse sanitiser on EVERYTHING. I give it a good soaking before use, give it a good clean after use nd have not had any problems so far...

Aside from the fact that I sanitise as much as possible, I think there are great differences between an all grain whiskey mash to a beer wort. I know that the sour mash method lowering the pH level does inhibit certain bacterias forming, but I don't see that helping too much in this instance.

The main thing that I think is that a beer wort ferments for what, two weeks? Slow ferments and plenty of time for undesirable bacterias to build up and take over...whiskey mashes are vigorously fermented out in 72 hours usually and I have it already distilled prior to the 96 hour mark. But again, I do sanitise everything religiously, unlike many others in distilling...

[BackInBlack]

Nice work, love it :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[bbqzookeeper]

Literally a year later, I did this up just today. Will be used to conquer my AG mashes in cooling.

Didn't have anything to wound it around, so just used my spring to do it by hand.



Ended up getting there, but the first few loops were a bit wide. Found my rhythm towards the middle.



Then I ended up spacing it all out and soldering on some hardened pipe on each side to make handles and assist in the strengthening. My soldering skills ain't pretty, but they worked out. Will clean it up tomorrow and attach fittings.

[bt1]

Very tidy and wd bloke

It will be a killa at that length I use a much smaller 4 loop 1/2"'coil for 20 lt beer batches and it's more than adequate.

Love the pump.

bt1