New piece of shiny - Hydra immersion chiller

[Simonh82]

I just received a new piece of shiny brewing gear. My Hydra immersion chiller from Jaded Brewing arrived yesterday from the US. It really is a great piece of engineering and I can’t wait to start using it.


I brew in the evenings when the kids have gone to bed so I’m often chilling wort at 1.30-2AM and by that time, it is a real drag. I’ve had enough of flaky pumps and leaky homemade counterflow chillers or waiting an age for my single coil immersion chiller to bring the temperature of 30L of wort down to pitching temperature. The Hydra promises to cool 5 US Gallons in 3.5 minutes so it should be a massive improvement on my current set up.


It is definitely more money than I would have liked to have spaffed on what is essentially a fancy copper coil and I did consider trying to make one myself but now that I’ve seen it I don’t regret it at all. It is really well constructed and I know that I would have wasted so much time and effort to end up with something that wasn’t even half as good and would probably spring a leak very quickly.


Anyway, I felt the need to share my bling purchase with someone. You can all commence calling me an idiot for wasting money on something I could get for a quarter of the price in B&Q.

 

[Clint]

Cripes! Looks like an Ali Baba basket with two snakes coming out the top!

 

[MyQul]

SHINY! SHINY!

19L in 3 1/2 mins! Flippin eck!

 

[Clint]

...that is dependent on water straight off the Klondike in mid January.

 

[dan125]

Looks great - I didn't know they'd ship to the UK
Chilling is the one part of my brewday that I think could be most improved/shortened as the single coil chiller is painfully slow, especially in summer.
Do you mind me asking how much it set you back?

 

[Simonh82]

...that is dependent on water straight off the Klondike in mid January.

I believe the 3.5 minute chilling time is to 10°f (5.5°C) above your ground water temperature. My water is about 18-19°C in the summer and 9-12°C during the cooler months. It should be fine in the winter and might take a few more minutes in the summer but that's the same with my normal chiller.

 

[Simonh82]

Looks great - I didn't know they'd ship to the UK
Chilling is the one part of my brewday that I think could be most improved/shortened as the single coil chiller is painfully slow, especially in summer.
Do you mind me asking how much it set you back?

All in it was about £230. Shipping is a killer at $103 and then you get dinged for VAT and Parcel Force handling charges when it lands on these shores.

I'd priced various options for a DIY version at £100 - £120 so it's twice the price of that but there is no way I could have made anything as good as this.

I keep trying to kid myself that I'm saving money homebrewing. I'm not sure I can keep up the pretence any more.

 

[Sbond10]

Very nice in deed the closest you'll get in this country is one of the get er brewed ones but even those another as cool as yours

 

[JonBrew]

All in it was about £230. Shipping is a killer at $103 and then you get dinged for VAT and Parcel Force handling charges when it lands on these shores.

I'd priced various options for a DIY version at £100 - £120 so it's twice the price of that but there is no way I could have made anything as good as this.

I keep trying to kid myself that I'm saving money homebrewing. I'm not sure I can keep up the pretence any more.

Hells bells.

But if it chills as quick as the manufacturer claim you could save a chunk on water usage - lets be honest, can you really put a price on saving the environment? :)

 

[dan125]

I thought they might sting you with the shipping & tax - but you know its gonna work brilliantly, and with none of the hassle of trying to make one
I'm surprised none of the UK online suppliers have them yet

 

[braziliain]

I'm very jealous. I keep looking at these but can't convince myself. I'm holding out for a trip to the US so I can grab one.

Let us know how you get on with it!

 

[foxbat]

Hells bells.

But if it chills as quick as the manufacturer claim you could save a chunk on water usage - lets be honest, can you really put a price on saving the environment? :)

It doesn't save any water at all unfortunately... the law of conservation of energy and all that. It does allow him to run the tap much faster though and therefore finish cooling much quicker.

 

[dan125]

It doesn't save any water at all unfortunately... the law of conservation of energy and all that. It does allow him to run the tap much faster though and therefore finish cooling much quicker.

Wouldn't the flow rate be the same as with his old single coil chiller? I thought the point is that it is more efficient at transfering the heat from the wort and therefore needs less water???

 

[Alex.mc]

As Foxbat says, conservation of energy law applies, there's no way round that otherwise perpetual motion machines would actually be a thing, and not an internet video thing! lol!
However, the efficiency improvement gain is time! And that's a good thing. The chilling bit is the bit that really irks me. I recently bought a Robobrew and am now able to chill and recirculated over the coils, which has sped things up a bit, and means I don't have to stir!
Expensive yes, but a lovely bit of kit!

 

[Simonh82]

Wouldn't the flow rate be the same as with his old single coil chiller? I thought the point is that it is more efficient at transfering the heat from the wort and therefore needs less water???

It doesn't restrict the flow rate in the same way as a single coil chiller does. You have 3 smaller tubes running in parallel coming out of a 15mm pipe so roughly three times as much water can pass through per second.

It is also more efficient than a single very large coil because in that case the heat would transfer to the water in the coil and heat it up to the same temperature as the wort long before it reached the end of the coil.

 

[braziliain]

in that case the heat would transfer to the water in the coil and heat it up to the same temperature as the wort long before it reached the end of the coil.

That makes perfect sense! So multiple shorter coils are more efficient, getting rid of the heated water faster and replacing it with cool. Volume of cool water is increased by splitting at the source rather than increasing the coil length. It's almost like these guys know what they are doing

 

[foxbat]

It is also more efficient than a single very large coil because in that case the heat would transfer to the water in the coil and heat it up to the same temperature as the wort long before it reached the end of the coil.

Which you can compensate for by running the tap faster, until, guess what it will be at more or less the same rate as your split arrangement.

The true advantage of the multiple coils is that they will all be submerged in a standard brew length where a single huge coil would stand up out of the wort.

All these other guesses about efficiency and flow rates are, I'm afraid breaking the laws of physics.

 

[braziliain]

You are right, increased surface area and wort contact time is a big factor.

At the same flow rate, the water leaving the shorter coils is cooler than the water leaving the longer coils. If that water is less than the temperature of the wort it is offering efficiency.

Maximun efficiency is obtained when the water on the coils rises to meet the wort temperature at the point it exits contact with the wort. This point changes as the temperature differential lessens.

Flow rate is of course limited by mains pressure and pipe bore. You cannot simply increase it infinitely.

I'm looking forward to hearing about the OP's experience in using the new chiller.

 

[pottsworth]

It could quite easily be more efficient.

Conservation of energy only becomes a factor once water is exiting your existing chiller at the temperature of the wort. Increasing the total surface area when wort can interact with coolant (via copper) will increase the chance of you heating the liquid in the cooler all the way up to the full temperature of you wort, meaning you have removed the maximum amount of heat for that amount of water.

 

[Simonh82]

Put my new Hydra chiller to the test yesterday. It's a game changer. I chilled from boiling to 20°C in 6 minutes. That's in a very full 30L kettle.

I brew late at night and along with a 30 min mash and boil my brew day was just over 4 hours and I was in bed not long after midnight.