Best Glycol Chiller for the money?

[J A]

It's time to dump my hillbilly glycol chiller (ice chest/window unit/fountain pumps). It's served me very, very well but I want to streamline and reduce my footprint and generally class up the joint as I'm putting my program back together.
Is anyone running one of the small chillers for temp control?

I like SS Brewtech stuff but their 1/5 HP is a thousand bucks and doesn't include pumps and temp control. Does have large capacity reservoir.
The Penguin has a good rep but almost a grand for a 1/3 HP and, like the Brewtech, no pumps or controls. Also, very small reservoir.
The Brewbuilt Max 2 is $700 ($650 refurbished), has pumps with temp controllers, 4.5 gallon reservoir and seems to have pretty good cooling power. Sort of seems like a no-brainer.

It's a pretty big investment so I want to make the most of it. I need to sell off some of my bigger fermenters so that'll help. I've built up a lot of brewing capacity over the years but the really large batches are too much work these days and I just don't need it. If I "right-size" my equipment on the fermentation size, I can still make a ton of beer and make the routine simpler and more efficient and consistent.

Any experience or opinions?

 

[Minbari]

I have the brew biult, no complaints. So quiet you will wonder if it is on, lol.

It does take a while to get down to temp from ambient, so turn it on when you start brewing.

 

[J A]

I have the brew biult, no complaints. So quiet you will wonder if it is on, lol.

It does take a while to get down to temp from ambient, so turn it on when you start brewing.

Yeah, I wonder about real cooling power. My ambient is very seldom in the range that they say this unit was tested. I don't really intend to brew in the heat of the summer anyway, but even in less intense temps, my ambient can get to 80 or better.
I'm not sure I have much choice...I don't want to spend a grand on a unit and another several hundred on the pump/controller set up. The Bewbuilt is the one that makes sense.

 

[Minbari]

Yeah, I wonder about real cooling power. My ambient is very seldom in the range that they say this unit was tested. I don't really intend to brew in the heat of the summer anyway, but even in less intense temps, my ambient can get to 80 or better.
I'm not sure I have much choice...I don't want to spend a grand on a unit and another several hundred on the pump/controller set up. The Bewbuilt is the one that makes sense.

My ambient in the winter is about 60F and i can cold crash 1 fermenter to about 34F, while regulating another one.

In the summer my ambient is more like 75F. Cold crash goes up to about 42F, but it will regulate 2 fermentors at whatever temp you need.

I have found that if you really insulate the fermentor in the summer, it will pull down to about 36F, so it is possible.

I believe this uses r600a, so its cooling potential isnt as good as r134a or 12a.

My old dehumidifier rigged up system would pull down to 30F from 70F in about 30 minutes. Would turn the chill coil in the beer to a block of ice if you weren't careful, lol

 

[J A]

My ambient in the winter is about 60F and i can cold crash 1 fermenter to about 34F, while regulating another one.

In the summer my ambient is more like 75F. Cold crash goes up to about 42F, but it will regulate 2 fermentors at whatever temp you need.

I have found that if you really insulate the fermentor in the summer, it will pull down to about 36F, so it is possible.

My main glycol-chilled fermenter is a BrewTech Uni and is pretty well insulated. My summer temps are in the high 90s so no lager crashing...
For all the drawbacks of my DIY rig, that thing would pull down to below freezing. I had the glycol temp set to about 20 and it would drop the beer hard and fast.

 

[Minbari]

My main glycol-chilled fermenter is a BrewTech Uni and is pretty well insulated. My summer temps are in the high 90s so no lager crashing...
For all the drawbacks of my DIY rig, that thing would pull down to below freezing. I had the glycol temp set to about 20 and it would drop the beer hard and fast.

Mine was an old dehumidifier, from the 80s, 12a refrigerant. I got it down to 11F once, just for giggles to see what it would do. Put my hand in it and it almost instantly went numb. Lol

 

[J A]

I just found out that the Brewbuilt units recommend a temp setting no lower than 28F. That's relatively warm when trying to displace enough thermal units to get 15 gallons of beer from 55F to 35F. Well, I really do need to limit my brewing activities to the cooler months, anyway. It's just nice to pull off a big batch of lager late in the season so there's taps running until it "cools down" in late September (maybe, if we're lucky).

 

[Minbari]

Ya, it won't go much cooler with the 600a it uses

 

[Dave Y]

I’m not looking at any of the units you named, but run the Grainfather GC2 and use 1x GF30 & an anvil stainless conical with the grainfather kit. I’m in Texas, and brew in an insulated external garage. I can control temps through about April-ish, so long as it doesn’t hit and stay over 90F outside day after day. Once temps routinely hit and stay above 90, I can only hit about 40F and need to relocate the chiller & fermenters to more controlled temps. I can maintain temps with the chiller to ferment, even a lager, but, I can’t cold crash with ambient temps over the 90’s out in the garage.

I do like the grainfather app & remote temp control and I got the chiller about $530 on Black Friday, the kit well under 200, again on Black Friday.
During the summer, I can’t cool wort with a chiller lower than about 82F - outside temps are routinely 95-105 here in the summer. So, it’s either use Kveik yeast or wait... OR, t/f to either of the conicals at 88-90F and use the glycol chiller to get the wort down to pitch temperature. The latter is much faster. I’ve never actually clocked it, I just start the cleanup while the wort chills, so probably half an hour to get to pitch temp on average - it’s faster during the 3 weeks of autumn, 2 weeks of winter and 3 weeks of spring we have here than it is during the prolonged summer.

Come to think of it, I’ve never timed cold crashing either. I can control 1 while cold crashing another kettle, did it last week. I am happy with the performance but there’s probably some more performance out there if I wanted it.

So for me, I get good performance for my needs; cool the summer brewed wort from about 90F to pitch temps. maintain fermentation temps during fermentation, and cold crash.

 

[J A]

Good info^^^
One of the main advantages of the Brew Built is that it has a bigger reservoir than most all others. That may come in handy in terms of cooling power. My DIY had a decent sized ice chest with quite a lot of glycol. It didn't have to kick on very often, even with the temp set very low.

 

[Dave Y]

I figured the grainfather chiller would be kind of a “gateway” chiller, if it did well I could always upgrade, but I do like it so far. I don’t think it has a large tank, and it does kick on frequently here, but again... Texas.

 

[Yontsey]

I recently picked up the Blichmann 1/2hp glycol chiller. Thing is a beast. Doesn't come with pumps but I got a $20 pump off amazon and have had no issues. Using an Inkbird wifi controller with it. I have a Brewtools 2" 110v heater to control the heat. Currently cold crashing a Munich Helles and it's been a champ for temperature control once I got the tolerances dialed in.