Cure for the Immersion Chiller Slinky

   I've been making some minor system/process tweaks. One thing I've always disliked was my IC and how it sags letting the copper tubes touch and rest upon one another, effectively building a wall that the wort does not flow between. The whirlpool most likely didn't work as well as it should.

Today using my Harbor Freight drill press (which turned out several great pinewood derby cars) I fastened a jig to help streamline some drilling. I drilled 3/8" holes every .75". I then cut 20 pieces of a wood dowel. Yes that's an RCBS plate under there... and the lines on the wood were for the new mash paddle I was cutting and fecked up my cuts making the handle too skinny.

The Jig:

A sample test run while making size changes provided this:

I then inserted the first 2 dowels and started weaving some 8 gauge copper wire. As I moved down the jig I added more dowels. Using the resulting zig zag copper wire, I weaved it through my IC. I made 3 copper zigs and zagged them in.

Heres a side shot of the weaved copper:

Completed and trimmed:

The whirlpool return is being plumbed in place by my having a coupler welded in place next week. The return will have a line positioned so as to return the wort through the chiller.

I got the idea from a guy who had soldered a wire to the outside of the IC to hold it open. I didn't want to solder it in place just in case I didn't like it.

The next chiilling change is made by using a small immersion pump from Harbor Freight  

190 GPH Mini Submersible Pump   Item # 41287 Manufacturer: Pacific Hydrostar

http://www.harborfreight.com/190-gph-mini-submersible-pump-41287.html

Submerged in salted ice water, the pump will be used to recirculate ice water through the IC to further chill the beer post boil.

Pictures coming soon....