I never understood the cfc idea. It's like a mix between the two without the benefits of either.
For me, it'd be between an immersion chiller or plate chiller. Plate has the capability of being more efficient. My 12" 30 plate chiller has many square feet of contact area (around 7 sqft if I remember right?) so it can cool very quickly and thus uses little water. But, it's more expensive and more work to maintain than an IC.
IC is cheaper, takes a little longer due to less contact area, and thus uses more water. However, they are very easy to use. Just drop it in the boil with a little time left, then turn the water on at flame out. Boom, done.
I never understood the cfc idea. It's like a mix between the two without the benefits of either.
I brew a lot of hoppy beers. I hated my plate chiller. Got rid of it after 1 batch. Got my convoluted cfc from Morebeer and couldn't be happier.
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I have a duds diesel 30 plate long chiller. It looks nice... I have not been satisfied and it really hasn't improved chilling time over my old IC. I heard all of the "Will chill 10 gallons in 5 seconds" and bought in... it does not do this.
When I chill my wort I use the water from my swimming pool. In the summer it can be in the 80's. So obviously I can't get the temp below the water temp, but its free cooling. So if the water is about 82 I will stop cooling when the wort temp is about 85 which takes about 10 min or so(10 gallon batch). Then I will use tap water which in the summer is around 60-65 which I can go straight to the fermenter at about 65-68. In the winter when the cooling water temp is in the 40's or 30's i'm at one pass throttling the cooling water to maintain the right temps.(Nice for lagers).
So as good as a chiller is, it can only be as good as the cooling water is.
I have never used a counterflow chiller but have used IC and PC. I like the PC better than the IC. I would not hesitate using a CFC but with my set up a PC works best for me.
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