Hey guys.
I know the chiller debate has been beat to death, so I'll try and keep this simple. I've done research on all the options and given my planned 20 gallon system, I'd really like to go CFC if possible. The main reason I don't want a plate chiller is that I use pellet hops almost exclusively and don't want to deal w/ filtering or any possibility of clogging during re-circ.
Someone please correct my math if it's wrong (it is a lot), but I found a spec sheet showing standard 1/2" OD copper tubing w/ a .436 ID. So that would come out to: .436*pi*600 ~ 822 square inches of surface area for the CFC. Would you go thicker/longer than 50 ft?
Not sure how accurate the source is, but I found a site claiming the Therminator has 6.5 ft^2 of surface area which is 936 square inches. That is a slight difference, but they seem at least relatively comparable. Does this translate to similar real world results? I've never used anything but an IC.
I also have pretty warm source water (during the summer at least) which gets up to 75-80F if I had to guess. I plan on using a pre-chiller...will this be adequate?
Thanks a bunch guys!
I know the chiller debate has been beat to death, so I'll try and keep this simple. I've done research on all the options and given my planned 20 gallon system, I'd really like to go CFC if possible. The main reason I don't want a plate chiller is that I use pellet hops almost exclusively and don't want to deal w/ filtering or any possibility of clogging during re-circ.
Someone please correct my math if it's wrong (it is a lot), but I found a spec sheet showing standard 1/2" OD copper tubing w/ a .436 ID. So that would come out to: .436*pi*600 ~ 822 square inches of surface area for the CFC. Would you go thicker/longer than 50 ft?
Not sure how accurate the source is, but I found a site claiming the Therminator has 6.5 ft^2 of surface area which is 936 square inches. That is a slight difference, but they seem at least relatively comparable. Does this translate to similar real world results? I've never used anything but an IC.
I also have pretty warm source water (during the summer at least) which gets up to 75-80F if I had to guess. I plan on using a pre-chiller...will this be adequate?
Thanks a bunch guys!