Looking for a cheap wort chiller

Check out you tube. Lots of videos on how to make your own. Then you can decide if you have the chops for making one. I just gave away my old 3/8 by 25 ft after 200 or so brews. A good one lasts forever.

 

The "cheapest" way is getting a copper coil from your local hardware store & converting (aka bending) it. It may not end up super pretty / evenly spaced, but Home Depot has a 20' 3/8" coil listed on their site for $15.98 (compared to a 25' 3/8" that comes with some hose on Northern Brewer for $69.99).

 

Just picked this one up at AIH when they had it on sale for 35 bucks I think, quality was ok for the price but have yet to use it. Just make sure you tighten the connections before use since there's really not enough copper to reach outside of a brew pot, I ran a test on my and they leaked and I had to tighten.

 

Craigslist.
Someone is always having a fire sale of their 'no longer have time - moving - getting married' equipment.

 

They are very easy to make, check out homedepot or lowes. Get 50 ft of 3/8 or 1/2 copper line (1/2 is better) and bend it around something that will fit in your pot, leave enough at both ends to reach over the top of your pot. Add some plastic tubing and a barbed hose connection and you are done. Total time including store is approximately 1 hour and almost certainly cheaper than buying one.

 

I built mine - I found a 50-foot coil of 1/2" tubing at Home Depot on sale for $20, picked up a length of vinyl tubing that fit over, with a couple hose clamps for each side, along with a hose connection, WITH SHUT OFF. That was the best idea I had for it, to be able to turn the flow on and off at the chiller without having to run to the hose bib.
Altogether is was something like $35, and then an hour or so of time bending it.

 

<== doubts DIY saves enough money to make it really worthwhile.

 

I built my 5 years ago and it was much cheaper than buying one. At that time I bought a 50' roll of 1/2" copper tube for $50. I cut it in half, wound it into two coils and joined them with tube fittings to have two cooling circuits. It usually takes around 10 minutes to cool the work to 75F connecting it to a garden hose with no additional cooling. To keep it simple and cheaper use one circuit instead of two. Find something round such as a keg or a paint can to wrap the tubing around, it needs to be small enough so the completed coil will fit into your kettle. The hard part is the 90 degree bends for the inlet and outlet. You will need a tube bender to keep it from collapsing.

 

Just want to put the heads up out there that there are two types of copper tubing you can buy, I suggest ponying up the extra dough for the tubing that is for drinking water use. Not sure about heavy metals in the other type of copper tubing.

 

Some homebrew shops have yard sales every now and again. Ebay or craigslist would also be a great place to watch.

 

These guys make a quality product and price them low enough that DIY wasn't worth it to me:

http://www.nybrewsupply.com/beer-home-brewing-equipment/wort-chillers.html

 

Make your own.