Immersion chiller oddity.

[dysphoria]

First of all, let me give the standard "been lurking around" introduction
I have indeed been lurking, and figured now is as good a time as any to say hello to the forum that I've gotten a lot of insight from(so thank you!).

Now the question:
I recently had an incident with an immersion chiller getting squashed/kinked pretty badly in storage, so I went and picked up another one from my LHBS(identical model).
I got it home and took it for a test drive.. but the flow seemed significantly lower than my old one. I took the hose off and had a look at the outflow side, and BAM.. there is a plastic banding strap hanging out(and it's wedged in there pretty stinkin good).
Now I am wondering - is this some attempt at creating turbulence in the water inside the chiller, or a mistake? MoreBeer's "Super Efficient" wort chiller looks identical, and makes claims of "proprietary water turbulation on the interior of the copper tubing" - could this be what I am seeing?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mpcluever]

Sounds like that's it.

 

[dysphoria]

Well, if that is the case.. that's a bummer.. I decided to give it a test without hooking up the hose and the water is just barely flowing out(at wide open hose pressure).
I was hoping someone else might have seen something similar and ease suspicions of it being a mistake.

I wonder if I can burn it out , or at least get it hot enough where It's pliable enough to slide free. Otherwise, I'll be looking for another new chiller

 

[The542]

Kindly introduce it to a torch

 

[dysphoria]

This is what I saw earlier:

After some fiddling about(removing fittings, heating), this is what came out of it(yep, that's plastic strapping like they use on boxes).

I am not sure "proprietary water turbulation" are the words I would use for this. That frayed end on the left did come out in a nice little wad, which I am sure was creating turbulence

In any case.. chiller works better now, even if it's no longer super efficient

 

[ArcLight]

Dang! That looks like a tape worm!

Is the turbulence really needed? Doesn't the water kind of mix up along the way flowing through 25 feet?

 

[E_Marquez]

"proprietary water turbulation"

lol, as a wise man once said...
“If you can nail together two things that have never been nailed together before, some dumb schmuck will buy it from you”

 

[AnOldUR]

Our Super Efficient model is equipped with proprietary water turbulation on the interior of the copper tubing which reduces cooling water consumption by 40%.

Now that's just plain silly.

 

[Dolomieu]

Dang! That looks like a tape worm!

Is the turbulence really needed? Doesn't the water kind of mix up along the way flowing through 25 feet?

Laminar Flow

 

[Trail]

What always messes up my cooling is low waterflow, not a lack of "turbulation." My water pressure is abysmally low - like, 2 gallons per minute low - and it affects my cooling a LOT, enough that I HAVE to hop in the whirlpool for aroma.

 

[dysphoria]

What always messes up my cooling is low waterflow, not a lack of "turbulation." My water pressure is abysmally low - like, 2 gallons per minute low - and it affects my cooling a LOT, enough that I HAVE to hop in the whirlpool for aroma.

This is exactly what had me looking into why my water flow was so much different than the last chiller I had. The flow coming out of the outflow on the chiller was a sad little dribble(as opposed to pressure washer like it is now with the banding removed). My chill times seemed to considerably longer under such low flow. Granted, I don't normally run it at full tap pressure, but at least I can choose to now if I so desire.

I tested the chiller with the banding removed, and my chill times have been decreased by about 12 minutes or so(from the same groundwater temp).
Not a huge difference, but significant enough - any way I can shorten the amount of time from making it to drinking it is good by me.

 

[Trail]

12 minutes is pretty damn big. I hope you didn't have to pay too much more for that ridiculous strip of plastic.

 

[dysphoria]

Turns out that they just buy the chillers from fermtap(which I think is the same place MoreBeer gets theirs). And yes.. it was nearly $10 more for the "efficient" model.