Hey BierMuncher, I just swapped back to my IC from a Therminator. I get much better cold break left in the kettle now. I had to spend that kinda cash I guess to be taught. My last two beers are crystal clear because of it. I suppose I could always hook the Therminator back up as a prechiller for my IC water, lol. I will never go back to it for running wort through. I still haven't gotten it 100% free of hop pellets from it's first use and I used a fairly fine sieve post kettle to try and clear it up before going to the fermenter. I'm not going to knock someone for using one, but I think this is an advantage home brewers have over breweries. We had a ton of cold break and trub in the bottom of our conicals at the brewpub after transfer from the kettle. We used two CF plate chillers (one city water pre chiller and one glycol chilled). I mean what else are you going to chill a 465 gallon kettle full of wort with, lol. At home now, I have a ton of CB/trub in the kettle and clearer pre-ferment wort in the fermenter. Thanks for the pump and ice water idea for the IC whoever it was on this forum, it has really made me a happier camper for sure.
This is one of those personal opinion types of things though I think.