Next piece of equipment

Here's my homemade immersion chiller. I made it about 20 years ago. Ain't she a beauty? The drying rack was extra! Like I said earlier, it's a 20' long piece of copper. The fitting is a garden hose size. It attaches to my laundry tub faucet. As I'm using it, I agitate the riser that is the top coil side. Works very well to aerate my wort as it cools. I get 5 gallons below 80 degrees in about 15 minutes, I think.
 

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I took mine and pushed it down in an old brew bucket, cut slots in the lid for the 2 water connections, filled it with water then have it setting in the deep freeze, I made an adapter hooked to my air compressor to blow out any water out before freezing, then I just use it as a pre-water chiller into my plate chiller, I measure 36 going into the chiller most days
 
That was the first purpose of the piece of copper whose picture I posted. Sort of. I cut a hole in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket, and the lower end of the coil exited through it. I filled the bucket with ice, and then added water. I siphoned my wort through the copper coil. More or less, it worked like an counterflow chiller. It worked very well, especially when I stirred the ice water. I stopped using it that way when I got tired of getting ice on brew day.
 
There is a compression type fitting that tightens onto copper pipe that is very simple to use you can pick up at most hardware stores then screw on a gardenhose fitting which matches your utility sink faucet. Just make up a couple of hoses that reach from your boil kettle to the sink. The whole thing stores easily when taken apart.
 
I'm assuming that was for my question? Thanks if it is

so, i bought a scale last night, so i guess that was my actual next piece :D i finally found one that measures in .1 g increments. It's from Anvil and seems to be pretty well made. Plus, it was only 20 bucks, so not bad at all

i'm really leaning towards that chiller for my next next piece of equipment...
 
Yes it was the way I got around the hose clamp thing. I saw a friend with a leak too. A scale is a good step. Finding one that weighs several pounds and down to .1g is handy. Mine only does gram increments but the ounces break down to fractions. Close enough for 10gal batches. An Escali I believe.
 
If you are looking at immersion chillers, look at an outfit called Jaded Brewing. I have the Hydra chiller. I can chill wort from boiling down to 70 degrees in less than 5 minutes.
 
If money wasn't an issue, I'd definitely get one from jaded. I really like their non standard designs.
But, I've got an Amazon gift card, so that's limiting my options a bit. I don't think I found jaded on amazon
 
my double coil immersion chiller should be waiting for me when I get home today! can't wait to try it this weekend
 
Let me know what you think of the double coil. I'm tempted to get the Hydra by Jaded Brewing. I think it's a triple coil. If it really takes only 5 minutes, I'm sold!
 
will do! it wasn't from jaded, i got it from some brewshop in the midwest. not sure where they got it from.

I'll try to take some pics when we use it, but I'll definitely take some temp and time measurements
 
Turns out my next piece of equipment will be the Hydra by Jaded Brewing. I just ordered it, so it'll be a bit before I see it.
 
We used the chiller for the first time yesterday and I'm very impressed. We had about 4 gallons go from boiling to about 100 in about 13 mins. Then it dropped to 90 degrees after about 22 mins total. I stirred the wort a little periodically, and I moved the coil around a few times as well. To be fair, we were on well water, so it was probably a little bit colder than it would be otherwise.
The thing worked so well that it kind of threw off my flow a little, I'm used to having some downtime when it comes chilling the wort. I did spread the coils out a bit after it arrived to help the wort flow in and around it a bit better.
Unfortunately, I didn't measure how much water we used to chill it, so I'm not sure of the efficiency from that angle.
All in all, I should have gotten this thing years ago.
 

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I do love my immersion chiller in the winter. Our ground water temperatures are in the 40's this time of year - the chiller really gets the temperature down quickly (boil to 120°F in under 5 minutes, chill to pitch temperatures in a half-hour or so).
 
so, just got another gift card to amazon :D
any other suggestions?
 
Very true. But rubber gloves aren't sexy and shiny like a new mill or kettle. At least not the ones I've seen :D
 
I think I'm finally going to break down and buy a thermowell and better temperature controller for my fermenting fridge.
 
My LHBS sells a cap that fits over a carboy. It has 2 openings on it. I use one opening for an airlock, and one fo a well made out of a pinched off copper tube that I had left over from making my chiller.
 

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