Immersion chillers vs. Counterflow

I'm sure there are countless threads her discussing the pros and cons of these two types but i can't find them, so i want to throw it out there for debate. On another thread I have been discussing the new chiller i've made and would like a few more opinions and maybe one of y'all engineers take on it.

Basically ihave built a counterflow chiller inside of a five gallon bucket. The copper tube comes out of the lid on one side, held in place by a bulkhead fitting. The coil comes out of the bucket on the outward side on the side and bottom of the bucket. On the top side I attach the hose, and on the bottom of the bucket is an outlet w/valve.

Does this sound like an efficient design? It works well, and was wondering if therere any improvements y'all would suggest,

Is this a "counterflow" chiller or did you just drop an immersion chiller in a bucket with water?

Both actually. I drain the beer through a coil of copper that is mounted in a bucket filled with water.

What you are doing is not a new idea and it isn't really used because it is less efficient then a conventional CFC. The hot wort heats the water that is close the the coils, even though you are running water through the bucket it doesn't necessarily move the water closest to the coils so you get hot spots.

The way this was made in the past was with a large tube with a coil inside. The wort would pass through the coil and the water would go through the large diameter tube. They quit making them because CFC's worked better because more heat gets carried away with the direct contact of fast flowing water.

I found your posts in the other thread and I've run into the same type of attitude as you in this forum so don't take it personally.

Cool , thanks for the input, I know it isn't some new an novel idea but was impressed to build such an effective chiller for under 20 bucks. I'll probably get bored with it soon enough and find some new one to make later down the road.

You can build a perfect CFC for $50. 10gallons of 212* wort chilled to 68* in less than 10 min..Thats as fast as my pump will move it!. JJ

Monster Mash said:

What you are doing is not a new idea and it isn't really used because it is less efficient then a conventional CFC. The hot wort heats the water that is close the the coils, even though you are running water through the bucket it doesn't necessarily move the water closest to the coils so you get hot spots.

The way this was made in the past was with a large tube with a coil inside. The wort would pass through the coil and the water would go through the large diameter tube. They quit making them because CFC's worked better because more heat gets carried away with the direct contact of fast flowing water.

I found your posts in the other thread and I've run into the same type of attitude as you in this forum so don't take it personally.

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I was the "attitude" in the other thread. I knew the design was close to an "old style" shell and tube type CFC. It wasn't really though, because he had the chill fluid input/exit backwards, so there was no "counter" flow. It was a shell and tube "concur flow" chiller. I would have brought up turbulence and such, but my pointing out the lack of "counter flow" in his design wasn't even noticed until the second time I stated it.

The continued insistence that this design could somehow satisfy the OP's needs- water conservation - was what was unnecessary.