Does anybody have the Jan/Feb 2006 issue of BYO magazine with the pictures to accompany the following article? Can you please post them or PM me? Thanks in advance. http://byo.com/stories/projects-and...yourself/365-build-a-counterflow-wort-chiller
I recently built a countertops chiller similarto the one described. The article definitely underestimates the price of the copper tubing. My costs were essentially the same as the cost plus shipping of the countertops chillers regularly sold on eBay. While diy is cool, and nice to brag about, my advice would be to buy the prefab unit.
This isnt the BYO article but it is a how to article with pictures. Disclaimer I have not made one yet. yet.... http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/How_to_make_a_Counter_Flow_Chiller
The price of copper has probably doubled since that article was published. But if you got the parts on had already it's a relatively straight forward project. Meat ball's link has some good pictures. I assembled mine with brass compression and pipe fittings because that's what I had at the time. The nice part with fittings is that it's easy to disassemble and reassemble. But if you take care of it you only should have to do that once so sweat fittings will work fine. One thing I would recommend though is to leave at least 8" to 10" of the copper tubing sticking out. The CFC in the photos does not have much tubing to work with. Also remember the longer the tubing the tougher it will be to stuff it or pull it through the hose. But once you're done, you're done. I've been using mine for well over 15 years now. Good luck,
If you can, i would recommend going the 50ft although it gets pretty pricey with the copper piping. I can get my cooling water down to a trickle and piping hot as it exited the chiller which is then collected and used for cleaning. I have a valve on my cooling water input side and a blichmann thrumometer on the wort exit side. Like naugled, i used compression fittings. I ended up with a kink in my copper tubing so ended up going the plate chiller route, but still the 50ft cfc i believe is the most efficient chiller...my plate chiller is faster though
Yes, good point, add a simple valve to regulate the input cooling water. I did 50 ft as well, probably over kill, it takes up a lot of space. Aside, if this thing ever breaks (again), I'll be going the plate chiller route as well.
