The standard wort chiller is a 25’ coil of 3/8 copper or stainless steel tubing.
Certain companies manufacture immersion chillers in various shapes and tubing diameters claiming that they reduce the time (and thus water) needed to cool the wort from boiling to pitching temperature.
1.) Won’t 25’ of tubing have the same cooling efficiency NO MATTER WHAT SHAPE it is formed into?
2.) Would one have to actually increase the length of the tubing used thereby increasing the surface area exposed to the wort to actually decrease the length of time it takes to cool a batch of wort?
i can say this for certain. the jaded hydra chiller is amazing vs my standard chiller i first bought. with the hydra, I can drop from boiling to ale pitching temps (60-64F) in about 6 minutes.
my standard chiller took 20 minutes to do that - saving water and time.
the amount of copper and diameter on the hydra is more. im transferring more cold water into chiller and more copper surfaces are in contact with wort = reduced chill times.
that’s about as scientific as I can get- just real life experience. I’m sure someone else can give you the science in better details.
Depends on what you mean by high efficiency, using less water or using less time. If you want speed, pumping as much water thru the IC as possible is the way to go, but not an efficient use of water.
Here’s my opinion. All the crazy bends used in some IC’s can be gimmicky. If you’re whirlpooling or constant stirring, for any given surface area and volume of water, the shape of your IC makes no difference.
Assuming turbulent flow on the cooling liquid, the big parameter is the surface area. The next is the delta T between the cooling liquid and the wort. If you flow slow, the cooling liquid will gain temp, and towards the end of the chiller will be close to the wort temp, so not much heat will be carried away on that section. If you flow fast you maximize the delta T along the whole length, and will chill faster, even though the water coming out seems cool. Keeping the wort moving by stirring or with a pump will also maximize the delta T near the chiller, as a layer of cool wort will develope near the chiller, and decrease the delta T.
So, get the most area, flow fast, stir or pump the wort to keep it moving. Counter flow chillers maximize the delta T. Plate chillers have very large area, and the liquids counter flow maximizing the delta T.