Anybody using the Jaded Brewing HYDRA Wort Chiller?

[732Brewer]

Anybody using the Jaded Brewing HYDRA wart chiller? If so, what are your results compared to the typical 50'? The price is almost double, as good 50' chillers are in the $80ish range.

http://jadedbrewing.com/products/the-hydra

 

[eastoak]

i used to use a 1/2 inch, 50 foot immersion chiller but i had to stir the wort (or recirculate) the whole time. that is one of the reasons i went to a plate chiller, chilling in one pass without having to stir the wort (or pump). my worries about cleaning the plate chiller turned out to be unfounded. for $155 you could get a nice, compact plate chiller and do as good as this immersion chiller or better with any given water temperature.

 

[732Brewer]

i used to use a 1/2 inch, 50 foot immersion chiller but i had to stir the wort (or recirculate) the whole time. that is one of the reasons i went to a plate chiller, chilling in one pass without having to stir the wort (or pump). my worries about cleaning the plate chiller turned out to be unfounded. for $155 you could get a nice, compact plate chiller and do as good as this immersion chiller or better with any given water temperature.

I was thinking that also but if it cools down very fast, and I don't have to worry about the cleanup, I thought it might be worth it. If you think its still not worth it, what is a recommended plate chiller? Or the flip side, what should I stay away from?

 

[eastoak]

I was thinking that also but if it cools down very fast, and I don't have to worry about the cleanup, I thought it might be worth it. If you think its still not worth it, what is a recommended plate chiller? Or the flip side, what should I stay away from?

it only chills as fast as they say if you have 58 degree water and you will have to stir the wort or otherwise keep it moving around the chiller, keep that in mind.
i'm not saying it's not worth it what i'm saying is that the claims they are making can be made for other forms of chilling too. what kind of set up do you have, do you have a pump?

http://www.dudadiesel.com/search.php?query=+beer++wort++chiller&i=beerchillers

 

[732Brewer]

^ I currently have only used a iced kitchen sink, which is why I need to find a better solution, for a good price. The Hydra uses 3, 25' lines which are 3/8s each run.

I do not have a pump, is there a pump, chill plate, at a good price? I know you have to pay to play but I am not sure if its worth wasting my time with submerged or just jump into the counterflow

What is the best for efficiency .... smaller pipe the better? Also, what shows a noticeable difference, with the assumption that all the types are 50'

 

[eastoak]

so the bare bones budget would have you using an immersion chiller while stirring the wort with a paddle. if you are going to recirculate with a pump then you may as well get a plate chiller; one pass and you're done. duda diesel sells plate chillers at all price points and a pump is $140-160 depending on where you find it. this is something many brewers go through before settling on a system that works for them. i spent a bunch of money on various methods before settling on the plate chiller with a pump. the pump only comes into play for starting the siphon then i let it gravity feed through the chiller, the wort is 65-68 degrees in the fermentor.

 

[rico567]

Given the thermodynamics involved in the heat transfer, that Jaded Brewing contraption looks like it's heavily into "law of diminishing returns" territory. I cool 5 gallons of wort from boiling to <70F in 15-20 minutes using 55F well water (about 25 gallons) using a 25' copper immersion chiller that Santa got me from Midwest. I can live with that, not in that much of a hurry.

 

[732Brewer]

so the bare bones budget would have you using an immersion chiller while stirring the wort with a paddle. if you are going to recirculate with a pump then you may as well get a plate chiller; one pass and you're done. duda diesel sells plate chillers at all price points and a pump is $140-160 depending on where you find it. this is something many brewers go through before settling on a system that works for them. i spent a bunch of money on various methods before settling on the plate chiller with a pump. the pump only comes into play for starting the siphon then i let it gravity feed through the chiller, the wort is 65-68 degrees in the fermentor.

Ok, so your making me think that I should just skip the immersion chiller and go into what I should do right the first time correct. Would you please show me some setups that are good for the $$ (maybe something on the economy side and then something a few bucks more, but better). Thanks for the help

 

[zeptrey]

Anybody using the Jaded Brewing HYDRA wart chiller? If so, what are your results compared to the typical 50'? The price is almost double, as good 50' chillers are in the $80ish range. http://jadedbrewing.com/products/the-hydra

I'm using their king cobra chiller. It is awesome. Need to make sure it will fit in your kettle but I've got five gallon batches chilled down to 68 in under 4 minutes easy. Probably faster now that my groundwater is much cooler. Just make sure to agitate the chiller in the wort.

 

[brewguyver]

I have a deep seeded hatred for plate chillers, but that is as much user error as anything else. You can make a 3/8 chiller out of refrigeration tubing from Home Depot pretty easily < $50. For a little more, get a 3/8 to 1/2 inch compression fitting, a sink faucet adapter and a garden hose barb and you can run it straight from most kitchen sinks. Use the piping hot water to soak hard to scrub pots, or route it into the washing machine (if in the basement).

 

[eastoak]

Ok, so your making me think that I should just skip the immersion chiller and go into what I should do right the first time correct. Would you please show me some setups that are good for the $$ (maybe something on the economy side and then something a few bucks more, but better). Thanks for the help

as far as i know nobody is selling a chilling set up, you have to piece it together. duda diesel has the best prices for plate chiller as far as i know, pumps can be found on amazon.com, northern brewer, austin homebrew supply, midwest brewing and the list goes on. do you have a brew stand?

 

[eastoak]

I'm using their king cobra chiller. It is awesome. Need to make sure it will fit in your kettle but I've got five gallon batches chilled down to 68 in under 4 minutes easy. Probably faster now that my groundwater is much cooler. Just make sure to agitate the chiller in the wort.

that's what led me to plate chillers. the really cold water is key but is offset by having to agitate the wort, if you don't do that your efficiency drops very fast. i can chill 5 gallons in 6 minutes or so and don't have to do anything other than start the siphon.

 

[732Brewer]

So back to the initial question - at 50' what is the most efficient setup? 50' 3/8 or 1/2? OR 3 25' of 3/8's? Also, what type of time difference is there in cooling? Meaning, do they all give a similar outcome because of the 50' length or does the pipe diameter actually matter a lot?

 

[eastoak]

So back to the initial question - at 50' what is the most efficient setup? 50' 3/8 or 1/2? OR 3 25' of 3/8's? Also, what type of time difference is there in cooling? Meaning, do they all give a similar outcome because of the 50' length or does the pipe diameter actually matter a lot?

surface area matters. a lot. longer is better, longer and thicker is even better. the other half of the equation is moving the hot liquid past the cold chiller as fast as possible.

 

[732Brewer]

Oh no kidding - ok so I am definitely only going to look for the 1/2 then. This might be not the brightest next question but why don't people just hook up the chiller to the immersible wart chiller hose and pull from a 5 gallon bucket (just recirculating the same water and cooling it with the chilling plate) - Or using the chilling plate to make the actual faucet water that much colder? Just seems like a bacteria pool to be circulating the beer thru the chilling plate. Or is my logic off?

 

[eastoak]

Oh no kidding - ok so I am definitely only going to look for the 1/2 then. This might be not the brightest next question but why don't people just hook up the chiller to the immersible wart chiller hose and pull from a 5 gallon bucket (just recirculating the same water and cooling it with the chilling plate) - Or using the chilling plate to make the actual faucet water that much colder? Just seems like a bacteria pool to be circulating the beer thru the chilling plate. Or is my logic off?

somewhere in all of the confusion of plate chillers, immersion chillers and water are diminishing returns of all sorts; money, time, heat and cold. some people do recirculate from buckets of ice water and so on but all of that seems like a hassle in my garage. the ultimate would be a glycol plate chiller, simple and deadly which is why all of the pro brewers use them.

 

[brewguyver]

Oh no kidding - ok so I am definitely only going to look for the 1/2 then. This might be not the brightest next question but why don't people just hook up the chiller to the immersible wart chiller hose and pull from a 5 gallon bucket (just recirculating the same water and cooling it with the chilling plate) - Or using the chilling plate to make the actual faucet water that much colder? Just seems like a bacteria pool to be circulating the beer thru the chilling plate. Or is my logic off?

Initially the temp drop from boiling wort to faucet temps is enough that it will cause the wort to drop rapidly. In the summer I'll use the initial hot water to clean my mash tun, then let it fill with water, add a bunch of ice, and pump water through the chiller to get my wort down. This works really well and saves water, but ice gets expensive and requires a pump (100-150 depending on what you buy).

 

[zeptrey]

that's what led me to plate chillers. the really cold water is key but is offset by having to agitate the wort, if you don't do that your efficiency drops very fast. i can chill 5 gallons in 6 minutes or so and don't have to do anything other than start the siphon.

Yeah, but I just didn't want to buy a pump and a chiller thats a pita to clean. To each to their own, but an IC whether its a Jaded one or not is the way to go, IMO. Cleaning the plate chiller more than makes up for having to agitate the chiller in the wort for 3-4 minutes, again IMO.

 

[eastoak]

Yeah, but I just didn't want to buy a pump and a chiller thats a pita to clean. To each to their own, but an IC whether its a Jaded one or not is the way to go, IMO. Cleaning the plate chiller more than makes up for having to agitate the chiller in the wort for 3-4 minutes, again IMO.

i hear what you're saying but i don't agree that an immersion chiller is the way to go for everyone. in my case my plate chiller is as easy to clean as pumping boiling water through it, nothing more than that. i only clean it every 3-4 brews. when i brew, i pump hot wort through it for a few minutes. now, my brewing system is pretty mature so i don't have tons of hops or grain debris going into the plate chiller, all of those problems have been worked out and that makes a big difference in terms of cleaning. when you are brand new or still working out a system it's problem after unexpected problem that crops up no matter what chilling method you go with. sounds like the OP is still working out a system for himself and a case can be made for an immersion chiller, plate chiller and counterflow chiller; he won't know which is best or most problematic until he starts using it regardless of what we say about each method. i started out with a 50 foot, 1/2 inch immersion chiller and was very skeptical of the plate chiller until that first 5 minute, hands off chill and now it's what i use.

 

[zeptrey]

i hear what you're saying but i don't agree that an immersion chiller is the way to go for everyone. in my case my plate chiller is as easy to clean as pumping boiling water through it, nothing more than that. i only clean it every 3-4 brews. when i brew, i pump hot wort through it for a few minutes. now, my brewing system is pretty mature so i don't have tons of hops or grain debris going into the plate chiller, all of those problems have been worked out and that makes a big difference in terms of cleaning. when you are brand new or still working out a system it's problem after unexpected problem that crops up no matter what chilling method you go with. sounds like the OP is still working out a system for himself and a case can be made for an immersion chiller, plate chiller and counterflow chiller; he won't know which is best or most problematic until he starts using it regardless of what we say about each method. i started out with a 50 foot, 1/2 inch immersion chiller and was very skeptical of the plate chiller until that first 5 minute, hands off chill and now it's what i use.

That's the part where we differ. You say its hands off chilling...it's not. You make it sound like moving an IC through a 5 gallon batch of wort is almost as hard as hiking Kilimanjaro. It's stupid easy. Oh and cleaning for me is taking the water that runs out of my IC and dunking my IC in that water like 3 times...done. Easy stuff. So you have to boil more water...run that through your plate chiller even if it is every four brews...that is way more of a pain than what I have to deal with with my IC. The age old chilling debate...we should all just go no chill.

 

[rvklein]

Plate chiller cleaning is a piece of cake really. I recirc PBW & flush after the brew, I run strike water through before the brew and fill with starsan while I'm mashing in.

 

[eastoak]

That's the part where we differ. You say its hands off chilling...it's not. You make it sound like moving an IC through a 5 gallon batch of wort is almost as hard as hiking Kilimanjaro. It's stupid easy. Oh and cleaning for me is taking the water that runs out of my IC and dunking my IC in that water like 3 times...done. Easy stuff. So you have to boil more water...run that through your plate chiller even if it is every four brews...that is way more of a pain than what I have to deal with with my IC. The age old chilling debate...we should all just go no chill.

ok, maybe it's not hands off for everyone but it is for me. once i start the siphon i turn off the pump and do something else until the kettle is drained, there is literally nothing i could do anyway since the plate chiller and water are doing all of the work. immersion chillers do the job too, i have not said they don't, just don't work as well or as easy for ME.

 

[Poobah58]

I'm digging that CFC on that website!
http://jadedbrewing.com/collections/front-page-items/products/the-jaded-cfc

 

[VladOfTrub]

The worry of a leaking water line dumping water into a boiler from a poor connection on an IC is nonexistent with a plate chiller. What a brewer uses to cool with depends on how much money is available, the circumstances and what makes them happy. Over the years I have went from IC to CFC to a plate. IMO, with my circumstance and brewing process, the plate works the best. What's nice about an IC is the cold break is left in the boiler. That's about the only good thing about them, that I can think of. Oh yeah, another good thing is they're relatively inexpensive. There have been posts about brewers that bought a plate and complained that the plate blocked up and were going back to an IC. Like someone mentioned. With a more "mature" system (I'm trying to figure out the level of maturity of my system. It was designed and conceived in 1987.) a blockage shouldn't occur. My plate is about 8 years old, it has never blocked. I never had to bake it in an oven. It's maintained as Blichmann recommends, except for turning it with the connection pointed down to drain. I have it bolted to the frame along with the pump and use a backflush piping/valving scheme to flush both of them after brewing. Once a year I run hot PBW through it and flush it out. I don't sanitize it. I circulate boiling wort through it, before turning on the water side.

 

[zeptrey]

The worry of a leaking water line dumping water into a boiler from a poor connection on an IC is nonexistent with a plate chiller. What a brewer uses to cool with depends on how much money is available, the circumstances and what makes them happy. Over the years I have went from IC to CFC to a plate. IMO, with my circumstance and brewing process, the plate works the best. What's nice about an IC is the cold break is left in the boiler. That's about the only good thing about them, that I can think of. Oh yeah, another good thing is they're relatively inexpensive. There have been posts about brewers that bought a plate and complained that the plate blocked up and were going back to an IC. Like someone mentioned. With a more "mature" system (I'm trying to figure out the level of maturity of my system. It was designed and conceived in 1987.) a blockage shouldn't occur. My plate is about 8 years old, it has never blocked. I never had to bake it in an oven. It's maintained as Blichmann recommends, except for turning it with the connection pointed down to drain. I have it bolted to the frame along with the pump and use a backflush piping/valving scheme to flush both of them after brewing. Once a year I run hot PBW through it and flush it out. I don't sanitize it. I circulate boiling wort through it, before turning on the water side.

ICs are easy to use easy to clean. Water in the wort is a concern for sure but if you have sense about it it's easy to watch out for. My IC fits my kettle just right so the connections are outside the pot but still if you're not careful obviously bad things can happen. Plate Chillers have the same type of issues if not more IMO. They can be easy to use but you need a pump or some kind of siphon and cleaning. It's all personal preference. Back to OP's original discussion (and sorry to hijack the thread) is that I think Jaded Brewings ICs are a little pricey. However I love mine. It works fantastic. They make quality stuff. Their shipping was kind of sketchy. A big azz chiller in a box with some paper...that was it. Luckily it made it through just fine.

 

[greyghost]

Just go here and you will be happy.
http://www.nybrewsupply.com/beer-home-brewing-equipment/wort-chillers.html
The 50' 1/2" works best a 50' 3/8 will work fine. I got rid of my plate chiller to damm much bother.

 

[732Brewer]

Thanks for all the feedback everybody - It opens up views to both sides of the argument. I only wished someone would have responded about the Hydra wort chiller lol. I really would like to know if 3 25' copper runs would make any difference from one 50' copper run

 

[eastoak]

Thanks for all the feedback everybody - It opens up views to both sides of the argument. I only wished someone would have responded about the Hydra wort chiller lol. I really would like to know if 3 25' copper runs would make any difference from one 50' copper run

if they are the same size then the 3 runs would be better. in most cases bigger is better with a chiller. if they are different size pipe then you have to do the math to figure out the surface area, they may actually be the same.

 

[732Brewer]

Thanks for that answer. I went with a 50' stainless steel 1/2' in the outcome. Figured I couldn't really go wrong with that

 

[atoughram]

Not to jack the thread... I've been running an IC for years, I'd turn on the tap water and dunk it up and down, chilling and aerating all in one task. Some of you may cringe but that has worked well for me - and never an infection. I've since changed to an O2 stone for aeration and recirculate the contents of the BK - which isn't working well to tell you the truth.

So lately I've been thinking about a plate chiller from Duda.

My BK has a false bottom and the drain pickup is dead center (You can see it in the picture.) I also tend to use whole hops in the boil without a spider.

How will I need to change my boil process in order to use a plate chiller?

I guess I'd have to switch to pellets, change the drain pickup to the side, and add a whirlpool fitting to my BK??