BeerBorg

This is the one I use, I think I paid around $45-$50 but see the price has gone up now. It works ok but I have quite cold well water. https://www.midwestsupplies.com/silver- ... rt-chiller

Thanks for all the replies. I ended up pulling the trigger on the $55 50 foot stainless one off amazon this morning. I'm thinking it'll get the job done even though it's probably not the most luxurious thing in the world. Sure beats an ice bath!

Scoper50 wrote:Thanks for all the replies. I ended up pulling the trigger on the $55 50 foot stainless one off amazon this morning. Sure beats an ice bath!

A 50 ft one should do you good and the price is good. I use to do both a ice bath and with the chiller I have now, but can't do the ice bath now with my electric brewing that I am doing now. It takes me a little longer, but can drink a well deserved beer and start clean-up while cooling and usually less then a 1/2 hour to get down to Ale pitching temp. May upgrade in the future.

Congratulations on getting your immersion chiller. They are definitely more efficient than an ice batch. However, I'd not abandon the ice bath idea complete. Here's what I mean:

I use a copper immersion chiller myself, but I've found there are things you can do to boost cooling efficiency. I use a whisk to swirl the wort in the middle of the coil, swirling it counter to the flow of water in the chiller. Not only does this increase the area of wort contacting the chiller, but it aerates the wort, which is essential for yeast health. I also use an ice bath, but only if needed, and after the temperature gets into the mid-70s. Usually, in the summer, my cold water feed doesn't get much below the mid-70s, even in the basement, so to get that extra ten degrees, I remove the immersion chiller and use an ice bath. I've found I can cool a 5-gallon batch to pitching temp in 15 or 20 minutes this way, depending on the ambient temperature.

Brewed today and with 53 degree ground water and my Hydra, got to below 70 in less than 12 minutes. I'm very happy!

OK, I'll ask: What makes the Hydra so much better and faster than your 'standard' immersion chiller?

Mine is a 50 foot copper model bought years ago from my LHBS but if I can chill even faster I'm not opposed to upgrading.

Kealia wrote:OK, I'll ask: What makes the Hydra so much better and faster than your 'standard' immersion chiller?

Mine is a 50 foot copper model bought years ago from my LHBS but if I can chill even faster I'm not opposed to upgrading.

From the pictures, it appears that there are multiple coils that split from the inflow. I imagine this would increase the surface area of cold vs. hot. Since the only thing I learned in 6th Grade Earth Science is that what we call the act of cooling or heating is just Mother Nature trying to re-establish equilibrium, this would speed that equilibrium process.

As a side note, my LHBS guy tried to interest me in a second immersion chillier, which he said I could immerse in an ice bath as an in-between step from the water source to the immersed chiller. Makes sense, since I'd be running cooler water through the one in the wort. But I didn't go for it. Even though it's something of a trial during the warmer months, I'm fine with a 15 or 20 minute chill-down.

After having been following this thread, I timed my cool down yesterday. Using a 25 ft 3/8 SS chiller, 6 gal. wort and a cover over the pot and basement air temp around 68 deg. It took 1 hour and 15 mins. to go from a boil to 52 deg. pitching temp. That is around 10 degs cooler then I usually go, but brewing a Lager. I think if I ever did decide to up grade I would go with a plate chiller.

Hey Berry. When I brewed inside earlier this month, my 50' double coil dropped the temp to 61 in about 30 minutes.

Our tap water temperature this weekend was 53 (about as cold as it gets here for only a month or so) and with the Hydra, (only 2/3's of it submerged in my kettle due to the false bottom I use) I got my wort down to 64 in about 12 minutes. In the summer when the water is 81 or 82, I get it down to about 100 in 15 minutes then switch to a pump with ice and get it to 65 in about another 8 minutes. My other 'standard' chiller took more than twice that long.

Following up on this thread....I bought the Hydra and used it this past weekend and WOW.
I wanted to get down to 180 for my hopstand and it took about 10 seconds. After the hopstand the time it took to drop from 180 down to , 100, 80, etc. was crazy fast. I forgot to set a timer to monitor bu tit was SO MUCH faster than my standard wort chiller did.

Next time I use it I will monitor times, but I can say that I was VERY impressed with how quickly it chilled.

Wow, that's great! That sounds like it's cooling a lot quicker than the one I'm using, a homemade 3/8" 25ft or less chiller. But I can't complain about it as it works fine for what I do and is a lot quicker than using a sink full of ice as that's what I used to use.