Cooling medium in fermentation chiller question

[Tidwellc]

I just recently built a new son of fermentation chiller, maiden voyage was supposed to be tonight, and I neglected to buy some gallon jugs of water and freeze them ahead of time...

I had a similar build years ago and I recall the gallon jugs working ok for a while, but eventually splitting and getting water everywhere. In an effort to save brewday for today, I thought about just buying a bunch of those gel ice packs, since they freeze a lot quicker than gallons of water, and seem to stay frozen longer as well.

What have you used in your chiller apart from frozen jugs of water? Have you tried gel packs? Anything else? How effective was it?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Gel packs are almost entirely water. The gel is so it won't leak everywhere if it breaks.
Works the same as frozen water, but in a convenient smaller package.

 

[Tidwellc]

That makes sense. They did seem to freeze quicker, but they were mostly mush by morning.