My first counter flow wort chiller

[Jake]

John: are you at all intimidated by this? Another Mcguyver in the group ... I smell competition  

[brew]

Nice work fakr - I really like the CFC - lowers the temp of my wort below the temp of the garage on a 22 C day...

Dean had an interesting thought a while back as well - use the guts from a de-humidifier to cool the 3/8 copper - I bet a person could cut the length of the copper down to a few feet if it was run inside some sub-zero cooling apparatus...

One day when I'm richer (like after a few years of 100K brewing...)  

[sdixon]

That looks like a great set up! How is the water flow through the hose? I always thought the diameter listed was the inside diameter, so 3/8 inside diameter would mean darn close to 5/8 outside diameter, or am I completely off base on that? I look forward to seeing it at the meeting, thanks for posting.

[fakr]

The inside diameter of the rubber hose is 5/8"  and the inside diameter of the copper is 3/8" but it's a thin soft copper that can't be more than 1/16" so there must be almost 1/8" clearance between the two.  I hooked it up to the garden hose and it poured out the other end quite well...like the end of a garden hose.

Oh and John....no need to be threatened....my build was all from your build!  

[Richard]

fakr, very impressive package. Bring it along on Saturday, would love to see it.

Really? Really? Is nobody else childish enough to pick up on that?  

We always got room for more McGuyvers... JQ just gets to be the first

Very nice fakr; I want one  

[Dean]

I saw it but I've been warned in the past ...plus this is a thread that needs to stay out of the private folder   Speaking of which, I thought we were going to have a folder specifically for "equipment"?

Fakr - you could use your garden hose in the winter ....just disconnect and drain it when you're done. The colder it is outside the more efficient that chiller will be.

Richard - For future reference, I gots me some tools man ...you need to come peek inside my garage sometime

[JohnQ]

JQ just gets to be the first

I always thought the diameter listed was the inside diameter

That is correct for hard copper, once you go soft copper, it changes to od, who knows why...some geek in a standards office somewhere?

Oh and John....no need to be threatened....my build was all from your build!

Always thrilled to bits to see something recreated and continued on, no threat there!  Wait until everyone starts coming up with improvements and mods to the spunding valves, that will be fun to see.
(PS, I've already got my first amendment to the spunding valve, just not sharing it until I see if it works...an inline krausen trap!)

JQ

[Dean]

"That is correct for hard copper, once you go soft copper, it changes to od, who knows why...some geek in a standards office somewhere?"

Depends on whether it is TUBE or PIPE, not necessarily whether it's hard or soft (but that's usually the case with what you find in Kents). Most copper tube/pipe is designated type K,L,M (there are more) which refers to the wall thickness and all 3 can be had in soft or hard. The colour of the lettering on the pipe/tube will indicate which type it is

here ...easier than me typing it all out ...  http://www.plumbinghelp.ca/articles_typ ... r_pipe.php

[Richard]

tada. Equipment forum.

[fakr]

ok, this might sound crazy, but it's worth a try...watch out John...Fakrgyver is here!

Purpose:  use my chiller in the garage in the winter without having to run a garden hose from my outside tap into my garage.  It would also resolve the need for 2 buckets (one for cold water the other to drain the hot water).

Create a closed water system to flow through my chiller.

Parts:

1 x impeller pump (already posted the pics)
1 x keg sealed and filled with ice water
2 x 10' lengths of garden hose.
1 x 3' lengh of garden hose.
1 x 50' spool of 3/4" copper tubing (used during a previous fakrgyver build of a pool heater for a $79 wallmart 12' pool)


Hook the pump up to the chiller's intake.  Hook up 10' garden hose from chiller exhaust, run it outside and attach it to the input of the 50' copper spool (shoved in the snow).  Attach the output of the 50' copper spool to the IN valve of the keg.  Attach 10' garden hose to the OUT valve of the keg and attach it to the inlet of the pump....

Make sense?  this would in fact create a closed loop for the water to transfer through.  the hot water leaves the chiller and goes through 50 feet of copper buried in the snow, then dumps into the ice water in the keg, then is fed back into the pump...

Check out the 50' spool of copper I used in the pool heater:

[fakr]

have I gone too far.  probably....lol!  but this stuff is laying around my garage so I might as we try it.

[fakr]

damn I'm good with mspaint!

[Richard]

Only thing that comes to mind is whether the heat capacity (latent and specific) is enough, including any inefficiencies. I can run the numbers some time when I'm not siting on a damp carpet with a smartphone

[fakr]

yeah, there are quite a few shortcomings to the setup, like the hose size going into and out of the keg, etc.  gotta have good flow and proper cooling.  I used to use a big galvanized garbage can that I coated with fiberglass resin and sealed up with an intake and exhaust for a pool heater...mayb I could use the same thing for a water tank instead of a keg.  
If it worked, it would save on water....I can see it now...make  a batch of beer and have a skating rink in my back yard from the chiller exhaust water.

[Kyle]

packing in snow isn't good, as the snow in immediate contact will melt, and the rest of the snow will act as a thermal insulator (I think) however, the coil in a bucket with a mix of snow and very cold water could work