I can chill the same amount in the same time with my Hydra, and much less maintenance time.
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I’m with Denny - I’ve used plate chillers, CFCs and ICs and at least for my money at our level of volume and our worries about sanitation, an IC makes the most sense in terms of “gets the job done and is easy while still getting my beer chilled quickly”
I noticed SS immersion chillers are suddenly(?) much cheaper than copper chillers. kinda interesting.
I use a cheap 25’ immersion chiller I bought when I first started brewing. I stir the wort while chilling to speed it up. I like the simplicity especially for cleaning.
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mine is 50’ but i believe only 1/4" and homemade. it WORKS, but tbh at this stage in my brewing career i want to cut down that chill time to like 15 minutes and am willing to invest in it. i’m so cheap but ill definitely look for something that works better soon. i think the diametre of the tube matters, cause i believe most out there for sale is 3/8 to 1/2", dont see too many 1/4"
The Hydra cut my chilling time to 6 minutes
Similar performance by the CuSS Tricoil. You need to run a fair amount of water per minute to get the best performance, but I am on a well with mid 50F temp year round.
Depends a lot on your volume. I know people with fancy, big systems who really like their plate chillers. Those make sense on larger systems. If you can cycle boiling wort through it at the end of the boil and sufficiently filter before cycling, you shouldn’t have problems sanitizing the interior.
For those of us with smaller systems, those immersion or CFC systems make a lot more sense. My grainfather (G30) has a nice CFC and for me and the volume of beer, the CFC is great especially when ground water is cold. If you live somewhere with warmer ground water tempteratures, a more elaborate chilling system may make more sense.
OTOH, I brewed most of my fifteen years of brewing with warm ground water aside from the coldest parts of winter and I chilled by putting the kettle in the sink with ice, ice packs and ground water. Not ideal in any way, only makes sense on smaller batches and you need to think about your hop additions for how long it takes to cool. Happiest with the CFC though.