Reddit reviews NY Brew Supply W3825-CV Homebrew Immersion Wort Chiller-25 Tubing, 25', Copper

Freebie: You know how homebrewers (beer/moonshine) in America use copper tubing for heat transfer? They need to cool the beer down quickly.

That shit sells for $60 on amazon Guess how much it costs in China? $15. How much retail? Last time I was in the States... almost $100. What's the difference with a Global 500 company in Ningbo and a small extruder in Montana? MOQ. MOQ is like $10,000. Shipping to LA is $1900. Tariffs and VAT? NONE (HTSUS, anyone?). Amazon fulfillment is like $100/month (if you put ALL of your stock in their warehouse) and $2/product for shipping. Throw it on eBay and you got a stew going. Call 600 niche retail stores in America and get an order of 40 of these at $30 and you're going places.

If you're an English teacher, look out for shit like this. I sell something tangentially related to this product, and there is money to be made with that community. /r/entrepreneur

Not sure what your setup is, but I found having an immersion wort chiller in my starting brew days was incredibly efficient and time-saving (I did full 5 gal boils). These start ~$50 on Amazon, but you can buy coiled copper piping (the most expensive part) at any hardware store, bend yourself and use some inexpensive plastic tubing (make sure it’s heat resistant to handle the initial wort temp), some clamps and a faucet adapter. Cools wort remarkably fast and if you keep it clean and sterile (like all brew equipment), it will last as long as you brew beer.

Immersion wort chiller

There’s a few other quality of life equipment upgrades I’m sure you’ll find out along the way as you brew, but I felt this was well worth the money for the time and hassle it saved me.

A good option if you have Amazon prime: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003UCCLG6

Very cool, looks good! There's definitely a satisfaction that comes with building something with your own hands.

If anyone needs a good cheap chiller, I recommend this one. 25' for $51.50. It becomes an even better deal if happen to need anything else from the same seller. I tacked on an auto siphon, some air locks, and some yeast and the shipping only went up slightly.

Anybody think buying this wort chiller for $50 is a good deal? 20' of the same tubing at Home Depot is $27 before tax, and I have a $50 Amazon gift card.

I'm not sure what you consider pricey as hell, but I have this one, available for $45. If you are doing extract with partial boils, I might just do an ice bath in the sink. That's what I used to do. If you are doing all-grain and/or full boils, I'd save up the $45.

For temp control, use a cooler. This is the cooler I use. It is perfect to hold any fermenter I've seen. Fill with 65f water. Put your fermenter in the cooler. Add frozen 16-oz soda bottles to keep water temps at around 65f. Monitor your fermenter temps (using the stick-on fermometer ... just be sure the fermometer isn't under water!). I've found adding 1 frozen bottle in the morning and 1 in the evening keeps temps exactly where I need them..

If your fermenter has a spigot in the bottom - place the fermenter inside a contractor trash bag (the super thick durable kind) before placing in the water. You don't want to risk infection by having the spigot exposed to the water.

For BIAB and All-Grain ... #1 - BIAB is all-grain. It is just easier. The ingredients are the same. The end result is the same (Beer!). The complexity, cost, and time are different. So, I'll just list out a 2-vessel BIAB-in-a-cooler hybrid system.

• 10-Gallon Aluminum pot with lid - $55
  
• Bayou Classic SP10 burner - $50
  
• Link to pot ... scroll down to the frequently bought together section - it has pot, lid, and the burner ... $103
  
• Cooler for your mash tun ... $30 ... This cooler is the perfect size for 5.5 gallon batches. Any bigger and you'd have too much "dead space" in the cooler which would make heat retention an issue.
  
• To convert the cooler for use as a mash tun - watch this video ...
  
• EXCEPT - don't build the manifold inside like he shows - use a BIAB liner from brewinabag.com - they cost $30. Trust me on this - the $30 is well worth it.
  
• Wort Chiller ... $50 ... this is 100% necessary if you want to save time. If not - you can look in to "no-chill homebrew method". I recommend just getting the chiller.
  
• 24" wire whisk for stirring the crap out of the mash and wort - $12
  
• A double-mesh fine strainer - $17 ... for pouring the cooled wort thru into your fermenter. Serves two purposes - 1 - filters out hops and break material. 2 - aerates your wort as you fill the fermenter.
  
• 1/2" stainless steel siphon ... $8 - used for transferring the cooled wort from the kettle to the fermenter. Get the 1/2" not the 3/8" ... trust me, it saves time. This siphon will also be used for transfering wort to your bottling bucket.
  
• video on using a siphon
  
  Total - $255 shipped to your door.
  
  This setup will be a setup that you can use for all types of Ales. You can even do low-temp ales that ferment at 50-55f by adding more ice/colder water to the cooler. Don't think it would be efficient enough for lagering.
  
  Process:
  
  
• heat 2-gallons of water on your home stove to 180f.
  
• dump this water in your mash tun to pre-heat it. Keep lid closed
  
• heat mash water on your home stove to save propane. (about 5-gallons - use mash calculators to determine water needs ... like the brew365 mash calculator)
  
• Drain the 2-gallons of water from your mash tun. Drain some thru the hose to clean it and just dump the rest out.
  
• Put your BIAB liner in the mash tun (make sure it is clean)
  
• Dump your mash water in
  
• Add your grains stirring like a mad man with the whisk.
  
• Stir for 2-4 minutes. Check temps... you probably want around 151f
  
• close lid and cover lid with a thick blanket (helps conserve heat as the lid is the least insulated part of this cooler)
  
• Begin heating about 4 gallons of sparge water on your stove. You need this to be about 200f.
  
• Wait 30 mins the open and stir again. Check temps. They should be within a degree or two of your starting temp. If the temp has fallen TOO low -like 146 or 147, add 1/2gallon of boiling water.
  
• Close lid and wait 30 more mins.
  
• Open lid - stir 2-4 minutes.
  
• Drain into kettle. I measure volume by draining into a gallon pitcher. Expect 3.5-4 gallons of "first runnings"
  
• if the drain is going SLOW - lift up on the BIAB liner a bit... it can get sucked into the cooler outlet. There are a few solutions for this. Use whatever is handy to act as a screen between the liner and the cooler outlet. An alternative is using the 1/2" siphon to drain the cooler!
  
• Light burner and turn up
  
• Add your 200f sparge water to the mash tun. This will raise grain temps to 170f. This is called mashing out. Stir like a mad man for about 4 minutes.
  
• Let the sparge rest another 5 minutes
  
• Drain into kettle
  
• Stir kettle and take a gravity sample (COOL gravity sample to about 70f in order to get a more accurate reading!)
  
• Bring kettle to a boil (watch out for boil over)
  
• Once a boil is achieved, start timer
  
• I boil 75 minutes because my setup and boil-off rate dictate that time.
  
• Add hops at scheduled times.
  
• At 10mins left in boil, drop in your wort chiller. Careful with the plastic hoses - they melt if too close to flame.
  
• CHECK wort chiller connections for leaks BEFORE putting in kettle!!!
  
• After boil, turn on chiller and begin cooling.
  
• I stir my pot while cooling (with the lid off). Some put the lid on and stir the pot by moving the chiller around. This is KEY to quick cooling.
  
• Transfer cooled wort into fermenter using siphon and strainer
  
• Take a gravity sample - hopefully you hit target goal.
  
• Aerate a bit more IF YOU WANT, by shaking the holy crap out of the fermenter.
  
• Pitch yeast.
  
• Put fermenter in your cooler in a dark and quiet place (bug free!!).
  
• Cleanup and done. (I actually clean as I go).
  
  EDIT - you will need an extra 5-gallon pot to heat sparge water.. forgot that. They can be found anywhere for about $20. As always - check craigslist to save even more $$$$. This is the cheapest and most efficient setup I've been able to put together. If you really want to get fancy - then you can add a stainless steel fermenter from Chapman Brewing Equipment for an extra $99. The fermenter is well worth it!
  
  EDIT 2: As always SANITIZE everything at all stages. Also - with all-grain, you'll eventually want to get into water chemistry. Read up on that. AND a good kitchen scale is needed for measuring out hop additions (and later water chemistry adjustments). Kitchen scales can be had cheap. You'll want one that is accurate and can be calibrated.

Some people don't chill at all, and just leave it overnight to get to room temp. You don't want to put a lid on before it drops to 160ish due to DMS still coming out, but you want to have a lid on by 140 to reduce wild yeast.

Personally I like my IC. And you can get it fairly cheap like here. It's only a 25' one, but that's what I use and can drop 10 gallons of wort to 80 degrees in half an hour (faster in winter, slower in summer).

Here is the desktop version of your link

Do you have a wort chiller? http://www.amazon.com/Homebrew-Immersion-Wort-Chiller-Copper/dp/B003UCCLG6

You could also make or buy a flight glass set.

Just found my notes:

• 6lb wildflower honey
  
• 6lb clover honey
  
• 3lb coffee blossom honey (hey, looked interesting.)
  
• 1lb frozen blackberries
  
• 1lb frozen raspberries
  
• White Labs Sweet Mead Yeast WLP720
  
• Three or four blackberries from my just-about-finished blackberry bush, plus a pair of blackberry leaves for flavor and because by this time I was fairly inebriated after a long day of brewing an IPA
  
  

1. Put jars of honey in hot water to get gooey while you get everything else ready
   
2. Heat 5 gallons of water to around 180
   
3. Stir honey into water to dissolve (OG: 22.5)
   
4. Cool water down to ~74F (I used a copper wort chiller)
   
5. Siphon to 6.5G carboy
   
6. Add yeast and airlock; I stored around 70F, and it started bubbling happily after a few days
   
7. Rack about two weeks later to get off the seeds
   
8. Drink most of it "just to test it" while it matures
   
9. Bottle once stable; I gave it two months (FG: -2)

I don't think it's a very good deal. You can buy one already made for less.

That's beautiful! And it could double as a huge wort chiller :D