SS wort chiller

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carl_g

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I saw that midwest is selling a SS wort chiller. I would be using this for mainly extract brewing. I only need to bring 2.5/3 gallons of wort down to pitching temp. I know copper is more efficient but will this suit my purposes? Are they any good? Does anyone have any experience with them?
Thanks
 
It will certainly work fine for your needs, but if the price is comperable to copper I would buy it instead.
 
I own one, bought it for full boil brewing. It usually cools down to <80 deg in 20 minutes. I went with the stainless because I thought it would hold up better that copper over the long run, that and the copper one was just as much.
Since buying it though, I have switched to all grain and now use the CFC method.
 
I have the 50' stainless model. It works great for me. I can get a 5 gallon AG batch down to 80 in 15-20 minutes.

In another thread someone suggested that stainless steel being a stronger metal than copper the walls(of stainless steel IC) are a bit thinner making it more on par to copper's efficiency.
 
I think it'll be fine.

I called midwest and talked to them before I bought a chiller and they said the stainless steel ones are more ridged than the coppers, but the coppers stay looking really nice.

As far as efficiency wise, yes copper is better but I have no clue if that actually matters if you take into account boundary-layer theory. Really depends on the fluid. We have a stainless reactor with heaters on the outside and it's not the metal wall that slows heating down. As the reaction goes on we can actually see our heater output rise because of the boundary-layer and the fluid dynamics changing.
 
I'm not sure what price they're getting for wort chillers now but I built my own version for about $15.
I went to my local Menards and bought about 20' of copper tubing for about $12 and I had bought some fittings to attach it to my water line.
I actually didn't end up hooking up a water line but attached the coil to my autosyphon. Then I fill my sink with ice water, set the boil pot into the ice bath, and use the copper coil and autosyphon to run cold water through the coil in the wort. It isn't the ideal set up but it is cheap and it does work.
 

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