Add Recirculation Arm or stick to standard Immersion Chiller

So Subject says it all..... Add Recirculation Arm or stick to standard Immersion Chiller.

Wanting to upgrade my 25' SS immersion chiller (that I recirculate water through an Ice bath via a small pond pump) to a 50' immersion chillers and have been toying with getting one with a re-circ arm. Have gone AG and my 25' chiller doesn't fit size wise with my new 10gal kettle. This would obviously entail a marsh pump, ball valve for boil kettle and all the fitting/tubing/valves. The idea of not having to stand swirling my immersion chiller by hand and also not having to auto siphon my wort to fermenter all sounds very intriguing. However does cleaning and sanitizing a pump that has wort flowing through it out way the benefits. Currently I drop my chiller in 5 minutes prior to flame out and beyond cleaning and sanitizing an auto siphon that's about that.


Any thoughts? A new 50' standard immersion chiller is 150ish.
Chiller with re-circ arm, pump, valve and bulkhead, dip tube, fittings/tubing approx $550. Worth it??? Basically is this over complicating things??

 

That's a great question. I added a pump and recirc fitting about 10 batches ago. I love not having to swirl and stir the immersion chiller. In the heat of summer, I can cool from boiling to 90 in 15 minutes with hose water, and then I use a prechiller with ice water to get down to pitching temp in about 10 more minutes.

But it definitely does add back all of my saved time in time spent cleaning the pump. It isn't hard or tedious, but it does take me about 15 minutes, which is about overall what the pump and recirc fitting saves me. The difference is that I can do other things while the wort is chilling, so I make up that time doing other tasks, and I definitely use much less water.

Overall, I'm happy with my purchase. I will use the pump for other things, though, as I am moving forward with a single tier Brutus 10 type build. I do think you can get that $550 cost down a bit.