Novel idea for a wort chiller....

[jonewer]

Just found this on teh internets and was wondering what you guys think?

http://www.instructables.com/id/S54BUHVFYTCMB2B/

Sound like a pretty sound idea, though I cant see why he needs a cooler box to do this.... any container should do...

 

[Parva]

A total and utter waste of money for those of us in the UK in my opinion. He's basically reverse engineered a standard IC to run hot wort through an ice-cooled coolbox. I can easily cool 5 gallons of boiling wort in 20 minutes with my standard IC using what is now pretty damned cold water from the tap. Further to this I don't have to mess about sanitising the internal bore of the pipe as the water flowing through it doesn't come into contact with the wort nor do I have to freeze vast amounts of ice which I suspect would end up costing as much to produce (if not moreso) than my metered water supply.

I can see that it may be of use in hot countries where a good supply of cold water is a problem but personally I would be converting that Coleman cooler he uses into a mash tun and just using the IC used in the build in a standard fashion. :)

 

[Aleman]

As Parva says its not really as good as it sounds . . . the hot wort will rapidly melt the ice so unless its being replaced all the time cooling just gets worse. . . . also you get hot and cold layers forming preventing heat transfer, so you need to stir the ice bath . . . SO a lot of the problems of using an IC but just harder to use. . . . Cleaning . . . well its the same as cleaning a CFC so you may as well make one of those and use and IC in the Cool box full of ice to act as a pre chiller for the cooling water