Anyone use use one of Northern Brewer's "Super Chillers"?
According to NB; "The super chiller features water turbulation technology installed inside the copper tubing. This turbulent flow puts more cold water in thermal contact with the copper walls, making these the most fastest immersion chillers on the market today."
In the end, the question is, is it worth the extra 10 bucks compared to their regular chiller?
Ize
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I doubt there's more than a 2-3 minute advantage. Getting hot wort to contact the coil constantly is more of a factor than getting cold water to the edges of the coil is a given. It's a small enough column that I really doubt the "center" is really colder than the outer column. Bottom line, my 3/8" OD x 40' standard coil is extremely fast (under 10 minutes).
Wht is cooling speed important? I have a conventional chiller, imersion, copper and it takes 10-15 mins to cool to 80 depending on how high I have the water
flow set. Is the flavor that much different. Do the big boys Bud, Miller, and the like, chill to 80 in seconds?
No doubt the flavor change, if any, would be so slight that not even Michael Jackson could tell the difference.
The real upside in my opinion is the 3 minutes saved. I brewed 15 times in 2006 and that would be 45 minutes saved. At 59 years old every minute counts!
__________________ Jerry Pritchett
KopyKat Brewery
It would be pretty tough to test. You'd have to be absolutely certain that both kettles are being whirlpooled at the same rate because it's such a crucial factor. Faster cooling can be done by:
I was told by an experienced brewer that DMS is more likely to form the longer the temperature remains above 140°F or 60°C. Has anyone else heard similar. I'll do some reading to see if that is true or not. I know that empirically while not directly testing I get less chill haze when I cool the wort from boiling to pitching temperatures in 10 minutes or less. While not a good experiment it does seem to allow me to have near crystal clear beers.
I don't know about the super IC's, but I can tell you that in my field (industrial refrigeration) when a customer wants to have the most efficient chiller (big machine that makes 40˚F chillwater for use in cooling a whole building) they purchase the "enhanced tube" option for the shell and tubes heat exchangers.
The copper tubes (several hundred to thousands) in the condenser and evaporator shells (up to 30' long) have rifling in them, not unlike a gun barrel. The rifling not only increases the surface area of the tube, but creates turbulence in the water which increases the heat transfer. So the science behind what NB is claiming about their superchillers is sound.
I was thinking about getting the superchiller last night for one reason only- it says it uses 40% less water. I think in one year your water savings would pay for the chiller, depending on how often you brew. I hate wasting ANYTHING, and seeing all that nice water go down the drain is hard for me.
Lorena
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NB's "Super Chiller"
chill to 80 in seconds?
Linear Mode
