TriCoil 1.2 Review: Equipment Review of the CuS.S. Brewing TriCoil 1.2

I am so glad I had a chance to do a TriCoil 1.2 review! So I’m looking around the homebrewing market, and there are always things that seem to catch your eye and make you go hmmm. This triple immersion chiller from CuS.S Brewing did just that. I was curious about the claims I had read online, as well as the ones they had on their website and whether or not it actually chilled as fast as a did. I reached out to CuS.S Brewing and was provided with a TriCoil 1.2 triple immersion chiller to test out so I could put it through the paces. Jeremy McGranahan gave me the hook-up, I did not receive anything other than a unit to review.

Unboxing The TriCoil 1.2

So the looks, during the unboxing, I was immediately impressed with the precision that it was put together with. It definitely weighs a good amount, but when you think about the fact that there is three times the amount of coils, plus different adapters to hook it up, this totally makes sense.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Baseline Measurements With A Basic Immersion Chiller

So to test it out I decided that I should get a baseline with my single immersion chiller. It’s not a name brand, it’s your basic single immersion chiller which I’ve been very happy with across the years. I received it as a gift from my wife for a birthday or a Christmas present, and it has done the job. I am using it both inside and outside along the way. Here are the results of chilling a 5-gallon batch from that. It was 74F outside. The water temp was approximately 63F from the hose. I started the hose about 2 minutes after flameout. I created some vertical agitation for about 20 seconds every 2 minutes. After 5 minutes, thye wort was down to 143F. It was 110F at 8 minutes, and finally at 100F after 11 minutes.

TriCoil 1.2 Review Run

For the Tricoil 1.2 review, I brewed a batch of double rye IPA. The weather variables were very close between the two different trials. The TriCoil 1.2 chiller had a slight advantage on the fact that it was three degrees colder outside, at a nice 71F. While this does affect the groundwater temp by just a little bit, 1F or less, it is not enough in my opinion to skew the data that bad.

During the last 10 minutes of the boil, I put the TriCoil 1.2 directly into my brew pot to allow the boiling wort to help get it set to go. I had previously soaked it providing instructions that came with it. It was rather large in my brew pot, but still allowed my hop spider to sit directly in the middle to allow me to still keep control of the hop additions along the way.

I followed the great instructions that were included with it to have the hot water going to a bucket as I chilled the work so that way I could use the hot water to then clean the TriCoil 1.2. When I was done I loved this aspect that was suggested, as it allows me a chance to recycle the water a little bit and not waste as much, as well as make my cleanup less.

When I hooked up the cold water and turned it on my batch chilled so fast! I know I shouldn’t get too excited, but instead of around 11 minutes to chill my batch down too 100 degrees, at just after 2.5 minutes I had to RUN over to turn off the hose. It had already reached 100F. Then, it even slips a little bit lower as the water was still trickling through the TriCoil 1.2 – holy cow! This thing is no joke! I didn’t even have the time to take my measurements to compare timing! I agitated the wort with some vertical movement, but nothing crazy! It was a good thing that I took video of this, as some would not believe me otherwise! After about 1 minute, it was already down to 131F. At 2 minutes, it was 106.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I took the TriCoil 1.2 out of my wort, and then put it into the bucket of hot water. This is to help clean it and prepare it for my next use of it. Due to the size of my bucket it did not fit all the way in, so there was a slight portion of the neck of the TriCoil 1.2 that still had some wort and hop matter on it… but that made my clean up once I brought it inside to the sink so much faster.

Pros and Cons of the TriCoil 1.2

What do I think about it? Well, I guess I’m wondering why I never looked into a triple immersion chiller before now. Here we have a new upstart company that is putting out amazing products. You may have run into some similar products with another company, but I’ll let you do the research on that. Jeremy McGranahan is very responsive via email and other forms of contacts. I really couldn’t believe how quickly I received the unit.

Pros

So what are the pros of this TriCoil 1.2? The fact that I can trim off 8 to 10 minutes on a batch beer that I’m brewing is amazing! I know it doesn’t seem like a ton, but sometimes every little minute counts. I think it did a more even chill throughout the entire batch from top to bottom. There did not seem to be any thermal layers where one area was warmer than the rest. The TriCoil 1.2 was great on the fact that it reached a majority of the height with very little movement in the kettle.  As I was using it I was very impressed on the fact that it didn’t heat up to the point where I was not able to hang on to it with the full flow of water going through the pipe. I was still able to grasp it without having to wear any extra gloves and move it up and down to help speed the chilling process.

My hop spider sat right in the middle even while I was agitating the wort. So, I didn’t have to pull that from the equation to hit the next steps. This is definitely a positive thing!

Cons

What are some downfalls? Well the fact that this is set up to be used with a garden hose means it may be trickier to use it in the winter time. In the winter time, my outdoor hose bib is not usually accessible as it’s usually covered with snow. From reading up, the kitchen sink doesn’t provide the amount of water needed for this to be effective. I will probably run a test of hooking it up to my kitchen sink just to see if I can get a prorated result but to do this, I’m going to need to create a custom hose that I can attach to the faucet as well as the hose bib connections that are found on the unit. just on the fact that it is advised to just use the outside garden hose which has a higher flow rate than your normal kitchen faucet, this may be a turnoff for some brewers, depending on their weather situations the situation of availability of a hose bid to hook up to and so forth.

If I was an apartment brewer this definitely would not be something that I could use on a usual basis as they would probably not be a hose bib that I could hook up to without a special tool to turn it on and so forth. If you need to chill inside, there is another chiller, The Faucet Flow which is set up for the indoor brewer. If you need both, this could put a little drain on the wallet.

The weight of the chiller may “slow down” some brewers. It has some mass to it. I say this is a con, yet the extra copper and fixtures is why the magic happens….so I am conflicted on this con.

Final Thoughts On The CuS.S TriCoil 1.2 Review

I am a complete convert! I love the TriCoil 1.2! The downfall of not getting to my hose bib in the winter time is totally balanced by how well this thing works! You can see it in action here in my video review. Thank you to Jeremy for sending this review unit out. I can’t wait to see what other designs he comes up with! The TriCoil 1.2 is definitely a keeper in the equipment for a successful brewday!