Wort Chillers

So I'm getting an immersion chiller. My question is which is better for the money.

Option 1. 20 ft IC with a 15 ft pre chiller for $95
Or
Option 2. 30 ft IC for $80

Does more cooling surface make up for a lower temp running thru the coils?

Personally, I like the two 30'ers. I attach one to the other with a length of tubing long enough to go from a large bucket of ice water to pre chill the tap water and get it as cold as possible.. the second receives the cold water from the first. I then get the flow adjusted and move the second one in the boil kettle or stir it with a spoon to keep hot word in contact with the coil as much as I can.

I'm not sure what the configuration of the two you mentioned are.. be great to see a pic of each proposed setup.

HbgBill said:

Personally, I like the two 30'ers. I attach one to the other with a length of tubing long enough to go from a large bucket of ice water to pre chill the tap water and get it as cold as possible.. the second receives the cold water from the first. I then get the flow adjusted and move the second one in the boil kettle or stir it with a spoon to keep hot word in contact with the coil as much as I can.

I'm not sure what the configuration of the two you mentioned are.. be great to see a pic of each proposed setup.

Click to expand...

I would set it up as 20 ft in the kettle attached to the 15 ft in ice water. Or just a 30 ft in the kettle with no pre chiller. I can't afford the two 30 footers.

OK.. I thought the 30'ers were one of your choices. Guess I misunderstood.

Your option shows $95.. my choice, per your numbers, is only $80... ?????

I think pre-chillers are a waste of copper. Make one big chiller, and run your ice water directly through it with a pump.

I have no idea why people think it's a good idea to make a heat exchanger to cool down their tap water with ice water, when they can just, um, like use the ice water.

maybe because of the added expense of a pump? I've never thought of that.. but.. I guess you could submerge a pump in a bucket of ice water. Say you had a 5G bucket of ice water and pumped it thru the IC.. It's gone.. poof. If you simply use the water from the tap and drop it's temp.. you could get by with that 5 gallons of iced water for the entire cooling period. Just my thought... flawed or not.

Say you had a 5G bucket of ice water and pumped it thru the IC.. It's gone.. poof.

Click to expand...

You recirculate the water back into the bucket. That's what I do.

If you think the pre-chiller 'saves you ice', that's just because it's not working as well. The more and the faster you melt the ice, the faster your wort cools. But you do need a pump, I admit.

HbgBill said:

OK.. I thought the 30'ers were one of your choices. Guess I misunderstood.

Your option shows $95.. my choice, per your numbers, is only $80... ?????

Click to expand...

Yea, I edited it now. I missed a period there. What do you think. 20 ft with pre chiller for 95 or 30 ft for 80?? What's the best bang for your buck?

BetterSense said:

You recirculate the water back into the bucket. That's what I do.

If you think the pre-chiller 'saves you ice', that's just because it's not working as well. The more and the faster you melt the ice, the faster your wort cools. But you do need a pump, I admit.

Click to expand...

That's not a bad idea. Any cheap pump recommendations?

I have a decorative fountain pump I also use to recirculate water in my darkroom. I'm not sure where a good place to buy one is, but pumps turn out to be handy for lots of things, like emptying out swimming pools, flooded basements, etc

In the summer my tap runs 80 to 85 degrees, I've just invested in the copper to make my pre-cooler, I'll have 20 foot of copper pre-cooler feeding a 25 foot stainless steel immersion cooler. The effort to set up a pump to recirculate the cooling water once the temp hits about 90 degrees is more trouble than it is worth. I can freeze a couple of gallons of ice and throw that in to a 5 gallon bucket and set up my plumbing and let it run until the wort reaches the target temp, no setting up to run on tap water, then switching my input run from a pump and the output from running down the driveway and not killing the grass to the cooling bucket.
If I lived somewhere that had tap in the 60, or couldn't use the run off to water the grass along my driveway I might look at the extra effort, I also like not having to deal with a power cord in my brew pit in addition to all the other brew tools.

The effort to set up a pump to recirculate the cooling water once the temp hits about 90 degrees is more trouble than it is worth

Click to expand...

I use the pump the whole time, for what it's worth, so I never even get the hose out. I never liked the idea of single-using tap water just for cooling purposes.