wort chiller vs ice bath

[Grantman1]

What noticeable differences did you all experience in your beer after starting to use a wort chiller?

I've been using an ice bath only since I started brewing last year and I'm ready to pull the trigger on some more equipment.

 

[kh54s10]

Once I went to full boils I switched to my home built IC. I would not have the patience to wait for an ice bath to cool 5 gallons of wort.

I made one 20' IC and it was a little better. Then I made another 20' one that goes in a bucket of ice water. It cools much faster. These are very simple. One garden hose fitting, 4 hose clamps, one 10 foot length of vinyl tubing and two 20' lengths of 3/8" copper tubing.

As far as taste goes I don't think it has made any noticeable difference.

 

[Transamguy77]

To be honest I really didn't notice any time difference it takes the same time for me to go from boiling to pitching temps, but I like not having to move a pot with 3 to 4 gallons of boiling wort and not worry about making the ice the night before. It was definitely a worth while investment and it has made for one less thing to worry about on brew day.

 

[maffewl]

I went from an ice bath, to immersion chiller, to counter-flow chiller. With the CFC, I can now cool 5.5 gallons of wort to pitching temps in around 10 min. It only cost around $45 to make, so it was an easy choice. As far as taste goes, I made the jumps pretty early, so any off flavors wouldn't have came from the chiller. It's just much nicer to not have to wait forever to pitch. At the end of the brew day, I'm ready to kick back and relax.

 

[ClarnoBrewer]

I've used an ice-bath and used the stick-it-in-a-snowdrift method. For a full 5g batch, it's taken me hours to get down to temp with these methods. SO much opportunity for infection. I had one batch succumb, but was lucky on the others.

I switched to an immersion chiller several years ago, cut my chill time down to half an hour or so. Just switched to a counterflow a few months ago on 25g batches. It just takes the time to pump from the boil kettle to the fermenter to chill. I love it! Cleaning is a little more involved, but it's worth it.