Bill Bufkin's Turbo Chiller
Counter Flow Chiller - CFC or Hybrid CF/IC
Ok this is the 3rd and hopefully the last wort chiller I have to build.
My system has evolved from an Immersion Chiller with a motorized stirrer, to a homemade CFC, to
this latest design. I built this one to overcome the almost year around high temp of my tap
water. Over the past year my tap water has ran >80º for 8-9 months and >85º
for at
least 3-4 of those months. At the time of this writing, October 3rd
2002, the water is running at 84º during the heat of the day and only
dropping to 82º in the late evening.
Since even the most efficient CFC's will only get within ~1º of the tap
water I needed something better. Even with the use of a pre-chiller
(that used a lot more ice), I was not able to get to a decent pitching temp
without a lot of work constantly stirring and adding more ice.
This new chiller only uses the ice to cool the wort at the last
stages. So now I fill the 5 gallon bucket once and I'm done. I may
stir it occasionally but too often will actually cool the wort too cold for
pitching.
How It Works
The main design is of a CFC. It consist of a total of 50' 3/8"
copper tubing. The
CF portion of the chiller is 5/8" tubing and is about 27' long.
That means about 23' of the remaining 3/8' copper tubing comes out the
bottom. This allows the Chiller to be immersed the 5 gallon bucket of
ice water. The top CF portion takes away most of the heat and the
remaining 23" in the ice bath chills the wort on down to 70°-75º
pitching temperature.
For cheap ice I use a dozen or so 12 and 16 oz pet bottles with the
tops cut off. They are filled with water and frozen then dropped into the
bucket and water added.
Construction
Actually construction was a lot easier than I thought. First I ground off the threads on the 2 brass compression fittings and
drilled them out to 3/8" so the tubing would go all the way through. I inserted one each in the two copper tee's and soldered then in
place with a water based flux and a propane torch.
Next I carefully unrolled out 27' of the 5/8" tubing in the front
yard. Then I unrolled about 30' of the 3/8" tubing leaving the rest
rolled up. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to get all the kinks out
I was just careful when unrolling them not to put a major kink in them.
Next I started sliding the 5/8' tubing down over the 3/8" tubing. Surprisingly
enough it never got stuck until it hit the end. All I had to do was give
it a hard shove to get the 3/8" tubing past the inner lip of the
5/8" tubing. I kept pushing till I got about 8" of 3/8"
tubing sticking out the end.
Next I placed a corney filled with water on top of the tubing and started
rolling the onto it. I formed the coils by pushing the corney away from
me like you would rolling up a long rug. This was the hardest part but
with a little pressure it rolled up nice a tight till I got to the end of the
5/8" tubing.
I unrolled the remaining 3/8 tubing and slide the copper tee up till it hit
the 5/8" tubing. The did the same at the other end and soldered
both tee's in place. I then pulled one of the coils of the 3/8"
tubing from the bottom back through the middle of the whole chiller.
Carefully bent it into place and used it as a support to solder all the coils
to. This will help to keep the form of soft copper coils. I had a
couple of feet of old 1/4" tubing I used to support the coils on two more
sides. Now the whole chiller is very stiff.
Next I soldered fittings on for the water intake and output to give it the angle I
wanted.
Hooked up all the hoses and after a good cleaning it was ready to go!!!!
After adding the output thermometer.
Follow this link to see my first immersion
chiller and how to build one (also has my old motorized stirrer on the
page)....
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