The split is there because warmer wort moves to the top of the kettle during chilling. Having coils up high ensures that the coils hit this wort when you’re doing those larger batches. But vigorously moving the IC around in the wort during chilling will massively speed it up the process and negate the need for split coils in the first place.
If you’re willing to spend that kind of money on a copper IC, you really should consider the Jaded Brewing Hydra.
I found another that seems like a good deal, free shipping, maybe some here have used it:
I currently have a homemade 3/8 50 foot but in the warm months it takes awhile…that is why I am looking at 1/2 inch 50 footers…I do have an extra I put in an ice tub to pre-cool the water.
I do BIAG, so no pumps or anything like that, just the IC to get it down to target temp
Using a coil in ice water then running it to the coil in the wort is fairly inefficient. I recommend a pond pump in the ice water and running that to the coil in the wort:
After my tap has done it’s best to get the wort temp 100-110*F, I unscrew the inlet from the tap and switch over to the pond pump. I place the return hose in the top of the bucket of ice water. It gets it down to pitching temp within a few minutes.
That is the way I am going to approach brewing in the warmer months. I used to have two 20-foot counterflow chillers that I used in series before I took my hiatus. I would run tap water through top chiller and ice water through the second chiller. The wort would come out so cold that I would have to let it warm up. I got amazing cold break.
Hmm. I don’t know why I never thought of that before. Since I don’t have a faucet that I can connect right to my chiller, I put a bucket in my sink with a pond pump and run the tap into the bucket. I could just have a second bucket of ice water ready to go and move the pump over. Thanks for the idea!
I do the same as you, but when I want to go cooler than tap water I just turn down the tap flow and add ice to the bucket. There is no need to change anything over at all.
I recently started brewing in my kitchen instead of outside and also ran into the problem of my faucet not being able to accept an adapter for a hose. I did a similar thing with a pump, filling my sink with cold water and pumping through the chiller from there as the faucet runs. I have a whole bunch of cold packs I keep in the freezer so I put them in the sink while I cool so I don’t have to use up all my ice or buy it. It works great.
I may change out my faucet so I don’t need to use a pump but if I do I will still coil the hose coming from the faucet in a sink full of ice water before going to the chiller.
This time of year, a bucket left out overnight won’t usually freeze solid, so it can be partially frozen, ice broken up and the whole thing used with an immersion pre-chiller to provide even colder water for chilling.
That’s a good idea, and an energy saver. Also, I just realized that I could run water through my old chiller in the ice water bath on the way to the chiller in the wort.