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johnno

It's YUMMY
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johnno said:
Hoops said:
Wobbo said:
Its a Therninator. Bought it from ibrew in QLD, although should have bought it direct fron the States would have been cheaper....
Works excellent, for a single 23L batch it chills as fast as I can gravity drain fron the boiler - about 6-7min all done. Double that for a double batch. Best investment I ever made.......

Wobbo
[post="52371"][/post]​
Wobbo, how much did it set you back ?
[post="52386"][/post]​
Hoops,
I just emailed ibrew for a quote.
I went to the Therminator site in the States and the recommended retail is $199. Cosidering they are a very small unit postage wouldn't be too much.
I want one!!

cheers
johnno
[post="52387"][/post]​
Since I am i the market for a chiller I am seriously starting to consider these ones.
The comapny that makes them do not sell direct to the public. Northern Brewer have them for US $189. I have emailed them for a cost on postage. There are a couple of brew shoips in California that stock them as well. My Brother travels there at least 3-4 times a year. I just messaged him hoping he would be there but unfortunately he is in Singapore at the moment.
I figure I may pay more now but it should last for a very very long time and I really like the fact that they are so small and dont use anywhere near as much water as other chillers.
Ibrew in Queensland sell them for $365. This includes the connectors/adapters for Australian hose fittings.
I want one!!

cheers
johnno
 
Just thought I'd toss in my 2 cents. I have one and it does work beautifully. I think the one caveat for y'all will be that it is threaded in the States for 3/4" Pipe (garden hose) for the cooling water, and 1/2" Pipe thread for the wort. Don't know if you can buy adapters or what.

The flow thru is great. I can gravity feed the wort with a vertical distance of 2 feet (60cm), and it will chill it to 25C at full throttle in 5 minutes.

I usually depend on my 50 ft immersion chiller, but this thing really works nicely.
 
on the *** site the only issue raised with the therminator has been in efficiently cleaning the unit and what chemicals/cleaners not to use.
any thoughts on the best method to clean these jj palmer.

cheers
big d
 
I was reading the manual for the chiller,

They say PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash), followed by idophor.

Unlike Chillzilla you can't boil the complete unit. It says that the seal on the body can be damaged this way.

Warren -
 
What happens if hops makes their way into the therminator? I'd imagine the internals to be some very narrow capillary-like tubes?
 
They say on their site to back-flush them initially to remove any hop or break material.
 
NRB said:
What happens if hops makes their way into the therminator? I'd imagine the internals to be some very narrow capillary-like tubes?
[post="52643"][/post]​

They're like this inside, pressed sheets of stainless with the two liquids flowing in opposite directions to each other.
http://www.doucetteindustries.com/brazedplate.pdf
I guess the amount of fouling would depend on how small the gaps are.

Cheers
Ausdb
 
Since I am i the market for a chiller I am seriously starting to consider these ones.
The comapny that makes them do not sell direct to the public. Northern Brewer have them for US $189. I have emailed them for a cost on postage. There are a couple of brew shoips in California that stock them as well. My Brother travels there at least 3-4 times a year. I just messaged him hoping he would be there but unfortunately he is in Singapore at the moment.
I figure I may pay more now but it should last for a very very long time and I really like the fact that they are so small and dont use anywhere near as much water as other chillers.
Ibrew in Queensland sell them for $365. This includes the connectors/adapters for Australian hose fittings.
I want one!!

cheers
johnno
[post="52542"][/post]​
[/quote]

So around $250 + postage plus Aust fittings. Even if you said $300 that is still a $65 saving. Now all I need is the $300... Somehow I think I'll be sticking to my Immersion chiller for a while yet :(

Shawn.
 
I was doing a little bit of reverse engineering tonight on the therminator. It has been made with a much lower pressure drop than you would normally use in a brazed plate heat exchanger. I am going to make a few enquiries here and see what a similar item would cost

Cheers Ausdb
 
Gough said:
So around $250 + postage plus Aust fittings. Even if you said $300 that is still a $65 saving. Now all I need is the $300... Somehow I think I'll be sticking to my Immersion chiller for a while yet :(
Shawn.
[post="52706"][/post]​


ausdb said:
I was doing a little bit of reverse engineering tonight on the therminator. It has been made with a much lower pressure drop than you would normally use in a brazed plate heat exchanger. I am going to make a few enquiries here and see what a similar item would cost

Cheers Ausdb
[post="52724"][/post]​

Gough,
Yes they are expensive. I'm more hoping I can get my brother to pick one up for me in the States. I'm still not sold on them as yet but I really like the fact that they are so compact (then again so is the Chillzilla). I dont have that much space at all. Also they dont use much water which is a bonus. I used an immersion chiller for the first time last Sunday and I wasn't happy with the amount of water wasted. I dont have a garden or pool so it just went down the drain.
$3 to 4 hundred dollars may be a lot now but it will save on water bills in the long run.

Ausdb
Top stuff! Thats what I love about this site. Hopefully you will come back with good news.

I will post on NB forum to see if any Yanks are using them and what they think of them.

cheers
johnno
 
johnno said:
. I used an immersion chiller for the first time last Sunday and I wasn't happy with the amount of water wasted. I dont have a garden or pool so it just went down the drain.
$3 to 4 hundred dollars may be a lot now but it will save on water bills in the long run.

[post="52730"][/post]​

johnno,

i'm on tank water & can't afford to waste at all - i have my chiller fitted to a simple bilge pump (boat type) & 2 cubes of chilled water bring my brew down to 18c in no time. these are recycled back into the cubes & chilled for the next brew...
 
warrenlw63 said:
I was reading the manual for the chiller,


Unlike Chillzilla you can't boil the complete unit. It says that the seal on the body can be damaged this way.


[post="52634"][/post]​

I was reading the specs of the therminator on the companies PDF of it, and apparently you can boil it. The seal your referring to is a protective rubber on the back of it to prevent a sharp edge from cutting people. The therminator works without the seal, but is more dangerous when handling. The boil does not apparently damage it too much unless you move the seal when it is still hot and hasn't had a chance to harden up as it cools.

Will
 
johnno said:
I used an immersion chiller for the first time last Sunday and I wasn't happy with the amount of water wasted. I dont have a garden or pool so it just went down the drain.
$3 to 4 hundred dollars may be a lot now but it will save on water bills in the long run.

Hi Johnno

I don't have a garden or pool for the cooling water, so I just collect it in jerry cans and use for the next brew and/or watering the pot plants. Currently I use a Chillzilla, which works fine. No matter what chilling device you use, the amount of water is going to be an issue, some are just less of an issue. You might want to consider options such as using a pond pump to recirculate chilled water in your immersion chiller or a CFC from somewhere like Goliaths or Grumpys coupled with the pond pump would also work well. The therminator is still going to use loads of water, just marginally less, so collecting the water or recirculating are the better options to consider IMHO.

Cheers
MAH
 
Just thought I'd toss in my 2 cents. I have one and it does work beautifully. I think the one caveat for y'all will be that it is threaded in the States for 3/4" Pipe (garden hose) for the cooling water, and 1/2" Pipe thread for the wort. Don't know if you can buy adapters or what.

Even though I got mine from ibrew and was told it would come with Australian fittings, it only came with the standard american fittings as described by john above.

This was no problem however as I just bought some 3/4" to 1/2" garden hose adapters from Buinnings to sort out the water side and I just bought some hose to fit over the supplied 1/2" barbed brass fittings supplied for the wort side :)

Wobbo
 
I am curious - what is the Australian equivalent of PBW and where do you get it?

Cheers Peter
 
If youre talking sanitiser, I use idophor to sanitise the Therminator. Dunno if thats the Aus equiv of PBW but it works.

Cheers
Wobbo
 
From what I've read PBW is a sodium metasilicate/sodium percarbonate mixture. The active ingredient in nappysan is sodium percarbonate which is what I'm gonna use when my therminator arrives from the states. If you look on the supermarket shelves you can find products that have as much as 36% sodium percarbonate w/w in them. I've read that PBW is better than sodium percarbonate alone but you gotta work with what you can get and I haven't found any sodium metasilicate in Aus yet. Anybody know a source of that?
 
racemate said:
From what I've read PBW is a sodium metasilicate/sodium percarbonate mixture. The active ingredient in nappysan is sodium percarbonate which is what I'm gonna use when my therminator arrives from the states. If you look on the supermarket shelves you can find products that have as much as 36% sodium percarbonate w/w in them. I've read that PBW is better than sodium percarbonate alone but you gotta work with what you can get and I haven't found any sodium metasilicate in Aus yet. Anybody know a source of that?
[post="57112"][/post]​

Old post bump, i know. Found the thread from the shirron heat exchanger thread.
Anyway, brewcraft brewers detergent is apparently sodium metasilicate
 
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