Still a newbie at homebrewing (12 brews under my belt, extract, partial and a few AG one gallon brews) and first time poster here. Only brewed once last year due to having a son, but ready to get back into it. Just ordered the Speckled Heiffer and it should arrive today. Was going to brew Saturday, but with the weather we are going to have, that’s going to be out, so I’ll shoot for a time next week.
But since I got time, I thought I might go ahead and order a wort chiller. I hate cooling in a sink full of water but that’s what I’ve had to do up until now. Is the Silver Serpent or the Copperhead better? Or does it really matter? I see they are both the same price, so that’s not a factor. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Been lurking and reading all the posts I can for the last few days. Hope I can contribute something later on down the road. This seems like a great forum.
From what I’ve read, both are pretty similar in performance. Arguably, copper is a little better conductor of heat/cooling, but it’s still a chiller in the kettle and the difference in conductivity is negated by that fact. I looked at those sorts of chillers and others for a long time. Finally just bought myself a chiller, but it wasn’t either of those. I bought a counterflow chiller and a kettle with a bulkhead fitting. The idea is to gravity flow the drain from the kettle through the chiller. We’ll see how it works.
Either one will work fine, you won’t notice any minor differences in performance. The Stainless one might be a bit more durable, but they will both last a long time. You’ll like having a chiller-it will save you time, and you can recycle the warm water into buckets for cleaning up afterward.
I got the basic stainless steel chiller (without the drop angle and barbed fittings for the same price) free as a promotional buy last year. I have used it 3 times, particularly in hop forward IPA’s from this summer in conjunction with a pump and whirlpool arm for a whirlpool.
I just used the stainless chiller for a brew without a whirlpool a few weeks back and I can tell you that it took roughly 15 mins to get from boiling down to 80 degrees which wasn’t too bad in my opinion. It is also very easy to clean. However, I usually use my counterflow chiller and prefer it of the two options because it is faster.
I’ve not used a CFC, have the makings to do but…. With that said, I use a copper IC. Whirlpool either by hand or mechanically certainly improves yer results. I am a BIG fan of copper. Think of why its used for water, chilling/heating situations. Sneezles61
I have the stainless, and zero complaints. I chose stainless over copper because it was on sale at the time, and copper wasn’t. If they’re the same price toss a coin.
I would go with copper. One thing I think people are missing is that sanitizing your IC in the boil actually leaches a small amount of zinc which is an essential yeast nutrient.
I use a copper CFC. A word of caution… If you don’t like cleaning don’t go with a CFC. They take substantially more time to clean.
