Ok I verified that this wort chiller works great. When I received the chiller I thought the diameter of the tubing would be to small to chill wort fast enough. Boy was I wrong. Cooled 6 gallons of wort from 212 to 80 degrees in under ten minutes. I did stir wort around the coils, it makes a huge difference in cool time. The coils are 3/8 inner diameter compared to my home made chiller of 25 ft of 1/2inner diameter. Plus the durability of stainless steel is a plus which is not as soft metal As copper. I used 18 gallons of garden faucet water at full velocity to cool the beer @67 degrees. Used air compressor to blow out residual water from coils.

So the only only issue is the hose clamps at the ends. If I crank up the hose like normal, it will blow off and spill into your wort. Cant be helped, just a small opening and too much pressure for that fitting. It can be fixed for a few more bucks with a compression fitting but its not a big problem. Just gotta crank the hose bib slowly till you see enough output. That aside, this work as as it should and the price is a very good one. If you can somehow afford to buy two and run a coil thru an ice chest before going to the coil into the wort... it would drop like a rock fast!!! It made a huge difference for me but it helps if the water going in is cold. In the deep south in August, the water isnt that cold so this acts more as a pre cooler than if I use this in Jan-Feb.

Although the wort chiller, per se, is excellent (and exactly as expected), the specifications on the vinyl hose are most unfortunate. Trying to push the heated vinyl onto standard fittings is akin to pushing an over-cooked strand of spaghetti into a very tight tube. However, by up-grading the wall thickness of the vinyl tube, keeping the internal diameter constant, it is then possible to force the [well-heated] tubing over various [standard] fittings. It's not easy, but it works -- unlike trying the same thing with the thin-wall version as provided. Heating the vinyl in boiling water from your micro-wave oven is convenient. The out-flow tubing, needing no fittings, is quite satisfactory, as is. Also, the simple stainless tubing ends, on this model, are less bulky to work with than the version with built-in garden-hose fittings.

I love this chiller. I bought it because I've recently gone from 5 to 10 gallon batches, and I'm amazed how much faster it chills wort than the 25' version I've used in the past. I think my chill time has dropped down to less than 8 minutes with this on 5 gallon batches. I was so impressed with what an extra 25' of tubing can do that I may even upgrade again to the 1/2" version, just to see if the extra surface area can cut more time off the process. One note: you may want to go get some extra hose clamps for this. Under high pressure, I had a hose pop off and spray all over my kitchen. Mine only came with two hose clamps, but make sure you add one to the intake hose fitting as well, as the pressure off the water can push the hose off pretty quickly. If you're only going to use the two that come with the chiller, then make sure you put one on the intake hose fitting, and the other on the chiller intake, and leave the outgoing without a clamp...just make sure it's on quite a way...that warm water exiting the hose can soften it up and make it slide right off under pressure. Other than that minor problem, this is an excellent product.

This chiller is well-made and great value for the price, compared to similar models available at higher prices. I have always used a counterflow chiller, but needed an immersion chiller to be able to the control the wort temperature for hop additions and steeps at specific temperatures. It works perfectly for that as intended. Everyone's equipment is different, but I was surprised to find that chilling with this is faster and significantly more efficient than my counterflow chiller. I wish I'd bought this years ago!

The fitting and hose that ships with this are of good quality, and the amount of hose is appropriate for most possible set-ups I can imagine, unless you have a long way to go to connect things.

I wash this carefully between uses, and sanitize by submersing in the kettle for the last part of the boil. Please be careful- even though I blow the water out after each use, there is always some residual water in it, and the first shot of water through it will be insanely hot, and can create a jet effect enough to blow the outgoing hose out of whatever sink or bucket you run it into. I learned this the hard way when it rocketed out of my sink and blasted me from head to toe with a shot of boiling water. Secure the hose well, or let the first flow of water through it carefully! This is not a fault of the chiller- just my failure in managing some basic physics, so please learn from my mistake.