Best chiller

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If it truly works with only 18 gallons of water/3 minutes, then it's pretty amazing. I have a 50 footer and it took forever and wasted of 50 gallons of water so I just decided on a 50 plate chiller. Now I'm chillin' with about 25 gallons and 5 minutes (claimed 2-3 minutes). Just be aware of their claimed time and the actual time when you're at home.
 
I would just check the dimensions to be sure you can easily get it in your kettle if you have temp probes, dip tubes etc that could keep you from easily dropping it in. The last thing you want is to be fighting with wrangling it into place in your boiling wort.

I mention this because I recently upgraded a turkey fry kettle with a brewmometer, and being asomewhat tall/narrow kettle, there are some clearance issues with my existing chiller.

Other than that, seems legit. I see they are breaking up the cooling zones into thirds. With typical chillers, all the cool incoming water starts circulating at the bottom and exits at the top, so the top half of the kettle is being cooled significantly slower as the cooling water is already quite warm by that point.
 
Keep in mind that the chilling power of an immersion chiller is necessarily limited by your tap water pressure and temperature. If your tap water is, say, 90 degrees in the summer, any chiller will be less effective.

But if you have cold ground water, a larger chiller makes sense.
 
Immersion chillers are not very effective unless you move the wort across the coils. It then essentially becomes a counterflow chiller. You can bob it up and down, but you're just trying hard to be a counterflow chiller then.

Counterflow chillers are FAR superior to immersion chillers because they require both the movement of the wort and the coolant.

Plate chillers are a very good type of counterflow chiller. Chillzilla type counterflow chillers that use a tube-inside-a-tube arrangement work great too, and you can build one yourself. Counterflow chillers require a pump, although they can be used with gravity if the cooling fluid is cold enough and the wort flow is choked low enough.

There's a Jamil-style immersion chiller that has a re-circulation option that sorta combines the simplicity of the immersion chiller with a pumped wort option. Not sure how this works, but I've heard great things.

I'm a plate chiller user. It is PERFECT for the way I brew. Very compact too. I have a Blichmann Therminator.
 
That Jaded thing the OP posted looks like a counterflow. It seems there's copper tubing for both coolant and wort. Description says no pump needed, but I dunno. I wouldn't buy without seeing some reviews first. Caveat emptor!
 
I use the duda diesel 20 plate long chiller and get similar numbers. Use <20 gallons of 55deg water to chill >5 gallons of wort to <70 deg F in 3-5 minutes. In the winter the cooling time is limited by the pump flow rate. In the summer with higher water temps, I reduce the wort flow rate to achieve the desired temp into the fermenter and use a little more water.

I used the plate chiller with gravity feed on the first batch, but a pump is very convenient for cleaning. You can get a plate chiller and a small US Solar pump for similar cost ($150 total).
 
That Jaded thing the OP posted looks like a counterflow. It seems there's copper tubing for both coolant and wort. Description says no pump needed, but I dunno. I wouldn't buy without seeing some reviews first. Caveat emptor!

It claims to be an Immersion Chiller and the pictures show this as well. It looks as though they split the coil into 3 separate sections so you can get colder water pumping through the coil, since each section is shorter than a standard IC and doesn't heat the chilling water longer.

That is an impressive chilling time, even if you add 50% or more to it. And it's as easy to use as a standard IC, another bonus.

I like the fact that it can't be clogged with hops, which can be a problem if you make highly hopped beers. I have yet to find a method that I really like to keep the hops from going into the CFC I use. Still messing with a hops basket, but it isn't perfected yet.

Anyway, it seems like someone could DIY one with similar function for a bit less money, if they were so inclined. They would have to find the 3-way adapter, or do the same thing with T's, but the important part is to split the coils into 3rds and provide enough water flow.
 
Looks great...and not having to worry about the hops is intriguing. I haven't pulled the trigger ona cfc/plate yet but I may get this. Any first hand experience?
 
Read the details...they are saying this will achieve the 3 minutes with tap water at 58.....its December in Missouri and tap water is still in the low 60's...

Also their claim you need a pump to use a plate chiller is BS....I gravity feed my plate chiller and works awesome....it actually works better gravity feed in my opinion than with using a pump....

Also you can get a good plate chiller for under $100

I'm calling BS until I see video of it in action :)
 
Schumed said:
Read the details...they are saying this will achieve the 3 minutes with tap water at 58.....its December in Missouri and tap water is still in the low 60's...

Also their claim you need a pump to use a plate chiller is BS....I gravity feed my plate chiller and works awesome....it actually works better gravity feed in my opinion than with using a pump....

Also you can get a good plate chiller for under $100

So what you're saying is they suck because your tap water is warmer than what they tested with?
I don't understand your line of reasoning to bash them like this. It's a fellow hobbyist trying to make a buck and you can't be supportive? Every Tom, Dick and Harry is trying to get rich selling exactly the same IC design. At least this one is somewhat innovative.

Don't take it so personal that everyone doesn't make the same enlightened decision to go PC as you have. All have their pros and cons.

The reference to needing expensive pumps with PC's has more to do with cleaning than anything else. Not everyone has adequate water pressure for that. Maybe you do. That does not invalidate their pitch.
 
So what you're saying is they suck because your tap water is warmer than what they tested with?
I don't understand your line of reasoning to bash them like this. It's a fellow hobbyist trying to make a buck and you can't be supportive? Every Tom, Dick and Harry is trying to get rich selling exactly the same IC design. At least this one is somewhat innovative.

Don't take it so personal that everyone doesn't make the same enlightened decision to go PC as you have. All have their pros and cons.

The reference to needing expensive pumps with PC's has more to do with cleaning than anything else. Not everyone has adequate water pressure for that. Maybe you do. That does not invalidate their pitch.

Take another read of his post. I don't see where he stated they sucked. He is also simply relating his own experience of using a Plate Chiller without a pump. Do you have a personal reason for getting so upset with his simple debunking of their claims?

He also simply states that you can buy a Plate Chiller for less than $100. Is he wrong?

He stated simple facts and opinions. There is nothing in his post that puts down the device. Why you so upset?
 
Take another read of his post. I don't see where he stated they sucked. He is also simply relating his own experience of using a Plate Chiller without a pump. Do you have a personal reason for getting so upset with his simple debunking of their claims?

He also simply states that you can buy a Plate Chiller for less than $100. Is he wrong?

He stated simple facts and opinions. There is nothing in his post that puts down the device. Why you so upset?

He said their claims were BS. I disagree. Case closed.
 
Funny, I adapted this same principle for my homemade immersion chiller. I used 1/4" copper in two parallel 25' coils split with a T at the inflow and outflow. The difference is that I kept the two coils separate - one smaller, tightly wound coil inside a larger, more open one.

It looks goofy as hell, but works a treat. Chills just as a well as my buddy's 50' 3/8" rig. I think the fact that the coils are more widely distributed in the wort makes a big difference, since you have to wait for convection currents to move the wort around as it's cooling. That's one reason I would be skeptical of the claims they're making for the hydra, since it's all packed together.

Anyway, I'd say the idea is sound in principle. But those numbers seem too good to be true.
 
I split my 1/2" IC chiller into two 22' coils, kind of like this but with 2 sections not 3. I have a CFC and prefer the IC. I have been focused on ease of use and cleanup. I chilled to high 60's in about eight minutes the other day (Chicago water is in the mid to high fifties right now). But that requires recirc'ing with a pump or stirring. And I've been trying to stir since pump and tubing cleanup is pain. And I figure, what kind of wimp am I if I can't stir wort for 7-8 minutes? But if you are stirring, you should take care to leave a larger center section to stir within. Not like so:

imag0571-56588.jpg


So I guess I'm saying they did the right thing in terms of not shifting the coils. If you're stirring it anyway shifting the coils to have more "wort contact" is meaningless.

[Edit] bottom line I like to make stuff and I would not pay the money they are asking, it is easy to make two coils that splits the incoming water yourself with simple copper T's. But as stated leave a large center stirring area. My 2 pennies.
 
He said their claims were BS. I disagree. Case closed.

Well, I say BS too! :D

Nah, not really. but I think he had a valid point- in most areas of the country, 58 degree tap water is NOT the norm for at least 60% of the year. For me, sure, about 90% of the year my tap water is under 60 degrees, but I think most people typically have warmer tap water most of the yeast.

That's why I said in my post above that it was a function of the water temperature- it's critical. And the bigger the temperature differential, the quicker the chiller.

I'd like to see their claims of using, say, 72 degree tap water and chilling. I think it would be more realistic for a typical brewer.

And you certainly don't need a pump for CFC and/or plate chillers, so I don't like that claim in their ad.
 
Here in the Northwest that water temperature isn't so out of line.
If the temperature reaches 60 outdoors here we got shorts and t shirts on. 80 is a very hot summer day so naturally the ground water, or in the case of the city I live in the river water is fairly chilly.
I think tonight I'm going to see what the temperature is right now.
 
The one thing I think everyone seems to be overlooking slightly is that this thing must weigh a ton. (and i'm not a tiny dude, but at the end of a brew day, the last thing i want to be playing with is lifting all that junk)

i certainly don't want to be wrangling that thing when its full of water, trying to maneuver it around with the hoses etc... i guess i didnt really enjoy using my IC, granted it was a small 25ft coiler that took 45+ minutes to chill to pitching temps. Needless to say after brewing a batch after work and flooding the backyard around 11:45 only to have to have my sisters 2 dumb dogs go playing in the mud and need a bath before they came in the house, i switched to a Plate chiller.

I splurged on a therminator, have it gravity fed, and i have never had a problem with cleaning it or it clogging. I open my ball valve to wide open and i sometimes have to slow my water down because it'll come out too cold. (we had a cold night 2 weeks ago where water was coming out at 47* and my boiling wort was leaving the therminator at a wopping 56*)

Between using disconnects (which i already use for my hoses and water filtration) my plate chiller setup takes less than 5 minutes to set up, and just as little time to cool to pitching temps, no heavy lifting, no constant stirring, just results.

/$0.02
 
I just measured my tap water on a freshly calibrated thermometer. Outside temp is 32, my tap water is 48. I don't consider my area (near Pittsburgh) to be particularly cold, maybe slightly cooler than average.

I siphon wort through a homemade counter flow chiller with 3/8 copper pipe through a 5/8 hose and it cools my wort to 50-55 in the winter and about 60-65 in the summer in as long as it takes to siphon it through; no more than ten minutes.

And off topic, 45_70sharps, just noticed your name. That's one heck of a round, I dropped a deer with that a couple of days ago. I love that gun.
 
Each type of chiller has its pros and cons. Its like rock-paper-scissors...

I've personally owned and operated all three types. What I CAN say from personal experience is that:

1. The 50' 1/2" IC kicked ass...10 gals to pitching in <10 mins and there was never a concern about clogging.

2. The 40 plate chiller I had kicked even more ass (as fast as I could pump the wort using a powerful Little Giant 3-md-hc pump). But I had to be very careful about clogging. I spent a lot of time backflushing and worrying about sanitation, especially because I kept finding hop particles when flushed.

3. The chillus convolutus was just as fast as the plate and clogging was less of an issue. I thought it was the perfect solution...however the inner coil has a helical shape to it with lots of crevices. I had no problem with residual debris, but there was no way to clean it other than the usual chemical means. Better than a plate, but still enough to bother me.

I have recently gone back to a SS IC with custom whirlpool arm (thanks, Bobby!). I haven't used it this way yet, but I wanted to get back to basics. Sanitation is no longer an issue, and neither is filtration. Oxidation of copper/verdigris in the wort is a non-issue with SS, and it is way more durable.

I can do a quick whirlpool and let things settle....most of the trub and cold break will stay out of the fermenter....AND I can free-float my hops for max utilization.

There is no perfect way to chill, only the way that makes you happy. For batch sizes less than 10 gallons, what does a minute or two really mean?
 
Very interesting. Went back to an IC from a plate chiller. Makes me think.

Each type of chiller has its pros and cons. Its like rock-paper-scissors...

I've personally owned and operated all three types. What I CAN say from personal experience is that:

1. The 50' 1/2" IC kicked ass...10 gals to pitching in <10 mins and there was never a concern about clogging.

2. The 40 plate chiller I had kicked even more ass (as fast as I could pump the wort using a powerful Little Giant 3-md-hc pump). But I had to be very careful about clogging. I spent a lot of time backflushing and worrying about sanitation, especially because I kept finding hop particles when flushed.

3. The chillus convolutus was just as fast as the plate and clogging was less of an issue. I thought it was the perfect solution...however the inner coil has a helical shape to it with lots of crevices. I had no problem with residual debris, but there was no way to clean it other than the usual chemical means. Better than a plate, but still enough to bother me.

I have recently gone back to a SS IC with custom whirlpool arm (thanks, Bobby!). I haven't used it this way yet, but I wanted to get back to basics. Sanitation is no longer an issue, and neither is filtration. Oxidation of copper/verdigris in the wort is a non-issue with SS, and it is way more durable.

I can do a quick whirlpool and let things settle....most of the trub and cold break will stay out of the fermenter....AND I can free-float my hops for max utilization.

There is no perfect way to chill, only the way that makes you happy. For batch sizes less than 10 gallons, what does a minute or two really mean?
 
I don't know, but after Christmas I might see if my brother wants to buy my I.C. and look into this one.

Plate chillers are cool and all, but I would be too worried about the cleanliness of the inside.

Even if this one doesn't live up to the claims, it should be pretty good.
 
I just measured my tap water on a freshly calibrated thermometer. Outside temp is 32, my tap water is 48. I don't consider my area (near Pittsburgh) to be particularly cold, maybe slightly cooler than average.

I would consider that cold! But hey I live in so cal so my area is probably warmer than average. Even so I still think 32 is a good deal lower than most areas experience, when you consider the south and south west which only get those chilly temps at high altitudes (or extremely low like death valley).

My tap water never gets below 60 which can make chilling a long and wasteful process, which is why i am investing in a plate chiller, and plan on using a pump to recirculate my water, in tandem with a pre chiller. Hopefully that will save me some time and water!
 
I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that achieving faster chill times has much more to do with surface area and wort movement than how cold your chill water is, assuming its at least as cold as your desired pitch temp.

I say this because I've tried IC chilling starting from ice water temps an starting from low 70's. It didn't seem to make any appreciable difference in the time it took to get to low 70's.
I know this isn't scientific, but that's my gut feeling.
There may be very small efficiency advantages when you use water colder than desired pitch temps, but I have a feeling it's non linear and has diminishing returns.
 
The strengths of the plate and counterflow chillers are that they bring a small amount of wort near the coolant. It's a 1:1 exchange....very efficient. They can also be bolted into place as an integral part of the system. But they can be fussy, and I don't care what anyone says, they take more time to clean! After I got my plate chiller, I was mesmerized by how much crap came out when I back flushed it. It was like a game to see if I could get it super clean, and I couldn't leave it alone.

The IC can basically do the same thing as the other two, but you have to either move the chiller or the wort to pull the heat away. Cleanup is a quick scrub, just like your kettles.

I dug these videos up from a test I did with a 50' 1/2" IC. That thing dropped the ENTIRE wort volume almost a degree a second! Pretty dang close to any plate chiller.

[ame]http://youtu.be/OVGJab8SesA[/ame]

[ame]http://youtu.be/sp2M0hCjMBk[/ame]
 
Good stuff Scuba.

BTW, you wouldn't happen to frequent aquatic reef hobyist forums by the same handle would you?
 
Great feedback. I'm still going back and forth on what to get.

Question for you plate chiller users: Are your chilling times faster using a pump or gravity feed with your PC?...what kind of times are you getting at home compared to manufacturer claims?

Also, I've recently seen several posts describing the multiple steps needed to clean and sanitize a plate chiller. Since this many steps for sanitization wouldn't be a concern with an IC, is it worth the extra time since "claimed" chill times are basically equal?
 
I looked around too and figured the best option was a Chillzilla, but like a cheap ass I wanted to buy one second hand. Too bad no one ever sells them.

After waiting too long I went with this;
http://www.dudadiesel.com/img/items/HX2340BWGH_ID1477-L.jpg

The DudaDiesel B3-23A 40 plate beer wort chiller. I have well water in NH that is cold! And my house pressure is 35ish psi, that cools 10 gallons of boiling wort as fast as my March pump can turn it over. I feel like the March pump is no challenge for it at all.

After I'm done With my brew day I cycle water through the plate chiller wort side to flush anything out, then I cycle my sanitizing water through, maybe 6 to 10 gallons worth. After that I just let it sit. At the start of brew day I boil around 5 gallons just to clean and sanitize everything, that water sent through the chiller has always came out clear for me and left me happy enough to feel it was clear and ready.
 
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