Counterflow Chiller Building

[pabzki]

Hi all, Im in the process of making up a counterflow chiller. I have 10m x 10mm microbore copper coil. The hose I have is air hose, a bit heavy duty, 4mm thick with 19mm inside diameter.

Seeing as I aquired both the copper coil and the hosepipe free, its obvious that I plan to use them, however a mate has said that the wort will be too cold coming out the other end beacause of the large internal bore of the hose and I will have trouble ajusting the flow of cold water enough to get the wort to piching temperature.

At this point I should mention that my mates of a bit of a gobsh1te know it all, however would appreciate other peoples thoughts on this?

 

[tubthumper]

I would build it regardless and test it with boiling water you will then be able to work out a decent flow rate to give you the temp you want at the other end
also all the water in the pipe will not contact the copper so yes your mate is talking out his ****
a test will tell you the truth no way to guesse as you can speed up the wort going through and slow down the cold water comming in to rais or lower the final temp

 

[pabzki]

Cheers tubthumper. Makes perfect sense that. That's exactly why I joined the forum
:

 

[Vossy1]

Sorry but I have to disagree, your friend could/will be right. When I used to use a cfc in winter the water from the tap was often at 4-6 deg c and the cfc would chill the wort to these/or near these temps given the chance.

As tub says a simple way to regulate the wort temp is to restrict the flow of water from the tap. In winter I'd start with a low flow rate and increase it if the wort was too hot :thumb:

 

[johnh]

[quote=" 4mm thick with 19mm inside diameter.

Hi Pabzki,
!9mm inner diam???

I like the 'FREE' :clap: aspect so at that price you must work with what you've been offered
I am damn sure you will be easily able to regulate both the wort flow and the cold chilling water going the other way to get your desired temps.
My concern is that your 10mm pipe is so thick (at 4mm) it may reduce the heat loss to the cold water passing t'other way in the outer hose pipe.
Personally I used 8mm gas tube which is thin walled then I soldered a slow spiral of copper wire around it, this appparently creates a turbulence and perhaps extra surface area to assist in heat/loss transfer.
So with these reservations in mind I would deffo recommend this "spiral wire" idea for your coil, then again thick walled 10mm might lose the same heat as thin walled 8mm? Taking into account the greater surface area...
Surely it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other Mmmm... Oh just go for it mate, it'll be fine I am sure.
If you can't Google how to do the spiral-wire thing let me know and I will try to get eloquent enough to describe how to do it.
Best...
J

 

[Dronfieldbrewer]

Mate of mine built a counter flow chiller using 15 mm and 22mm, spiraled copper soldered on inside to promote swirl. bit of clever use of reducers and good quality soldering.

mounted it on the inside of brewery wall with pipe clips in a double h pattern. It cools 2.5 barrels of wort in about 1/2 hour to 24 degrees. It took him ages to build it but its a thing of beauty in use