Ordered one of these a couple days ago.
In the special instructions on the order page, a request was made for a slight mod to the chiller, in overall coil height.
Additional follow up emails were sent to JaDeD.
No response from them. None. Period.
Next response is I get an email saying my wort chiller has been shipped! Without any mention of my requests.
Another email was sent, this time stating my concerns for the height of the chiller, and that it would be immediately returned to them (at their expense) if the wort chiller was not the size we requested.
Only after this final email did they respond. Saying they would mod the chiller, and get it shipped out this weekend.
I hope their Hydra Wort Chiller performs at a standard that surpasses the companies communication skills.
The Hydra is without a doubt the best chiller I’ve ever used. And the build quality is top notch. Jaded is a one person company, so you might want to cut them a bit of slack…a bit. Clay works his butt off.
I have a Jaded (standard, not customized) and a CuSS (Modified for Anvil Foundry). Both work extremely well, especially when enhanced by the manual lifting of the coil during chilling.
Are you guys using a garden hose attached to a hose bib? The reason I did not go with the Hydra is because it requires 6 gallons per minute. I use a utility sink faucet. Standard house faucets only deliver around 2 gallons per minute. That is why I went with the Faucet Flow (a.k.a Mantis). It works well for chilling 3.5 gallons of wort, but there is little advantage over a 25 or 30 foot copper chiller.
We currently use a utility pump, submerged in my swimming pool for the cooling water. In the winter, the water is 46 degrees. We also use an ice bath to further chill the water before it goes into the wort chiller, so the actual temp is well below 40 degrees.
It takes over an hour to get down to 75 degrees.
We do not stir the wort as it cools, so not to disturb the hop bed filter, and the huge amount of cold break…egg drop soup, that we always have.
I brew in a pole barn with a high pressure water hydrant connected to a 6 foot garden house. This really helps with water flow through the chiller. The ground water is in the 50’s now so I can pitch yeast for lagers quickly now. The barn is not heated so I have to bundle up in the winter but I am glad to be out of the wind!
This thing is wicked fast! Went from boiling to 78 degrees in 24 minutes, and eventually got down to 62 F. This is an all time record for us.
No, we do not stir the wort as it cools. We do not go by time, or temperature in deciding when to run off into the fermenter.
Instead, we go by the progress of the cold-break formation. When the cold break has reached it’s peak, and abates any further development, we then drain the wort.
The hop bed filtration works nicely, removing 99% of the hot-break / cold-break / trub.
What passes through is caught in our ultra fine mesh nylon filter prior to going into the ferment vessel.
