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I'm thinking ill go raid Rona, everywhere I look it seems counter flow chillers use 5/8 inch hose and 3/8 inch copper... It does not look easy to find the 5/8 inch hose it seems everyone has 1/2 ... Anyone built one useing te 1/2? Would I just use 1/4 inch copper?

I have one in my basement. I have never used it (got it in a trade).

You can try it out and see if you like it.

Sandy

Are you selling it or just lend it to see if I wanna put time into building one? Why haven't you used it?

I bought the 50' 1/2 one from, gee, I forget where now, but it ended up being just about as expensive as building one... I'll try to find out where that was

HappyHopper wrote:I'm thinking ill go raid Rona, everywhere I look it seems counter flow chillers use 5/8 inch hose and 3/8 inch copper... It does not look easy to find the 5/8 inch hose it seems everyone has 1/2 ... Anyone built one useing te 1/2? Would I just use 1/4 inch copper?

FYI - got my 5/8" hose one sale from CT ... and I know Princess Auto also has it. I wouldn't go down to 1/4"tubing.

From what I recall, I built the whole thing (25 feet) for under $70 and it works great. Got the copper and a few fittings at Rona, scrap 1/2" copper pipe, a couple of tees and 50' of hose - I use the leftover on the output side of the water to run it out to the garden or toward the driveway.

The one I built uses 5/8" high temp rubber hose that I got from Princess Auto and 3/8" soft copper roll from Rona. At the time they certainly had the best price on the copper. You can find it in my build thread from my sig. The CFC is 25' but had to buy a 50' hose and use half. I was going to sell the other half but ended up using pieces of it here and there.

Rona has great deals right now so that's why I was tring to stick with them... If I can't find a good deal on 5/8 hose could I use 1/2 and get larger bare copper to wrap my 3/8 copper hose?

Edit: never mind found a 75foot at CT 16.99

HappyHopper wrote:Are you selling it or just lend it to see if I wanna put time into building one? Why haven't you used it?

I am fine with my IC. Now I ferment in 40l stainless containers I don't bother to chill.

Sandy

I'd be leary of getting your 3/8" copper pushed through a 1/2" hose especially if you solder wire around the pipe. I used the 3/8"pipe-5/8"hose combination and it was very tight after 20 feet or so.

FYI - I have a bit of copper wire left over that you are welcome to if you decide to go that route.

The wrapping of wire around I think is unnecessary. If you look around there's (that other site) a few people that have built identical chillers and wrapped one with wire and found no practical difference in performance. At the rate at which your chilling water is flowing through a CFC (unless its throttled way way down) the flow will be turbulent no matter what. Real convoluted chillers tend to help as the wort flow is also guaranteed to be turbulent and thats typically flowing at slower rates so its not as guaranteed (but usually is) turbulent and also provide more direct surface area. So actual convoluted copper is better, but DIY stuff isn't IMHO.

I looked in to it a lot before I built mine, I didn't bother with the wire wrap (and this is coming from someone who has overdone his entire brewery build otherwise...haha).

I used 3/4" Automotive Heater hose (Princess Auto) and 1/2" copper (rona was also cheapest).

Great guys this is all the info I needed thanks for the help. Sandy tossed me his rig to test out, I may just keep that if it works good, but I'm sure ill build another down the road as needed..

Cheers