Red Reaper Counter Flow Chiller

This high efficiency copper core counterflow chiller will get your wort down to pitching temp in no time at all.

This particular wort chiller uses PEX tubing that's swaged and soldered to the copper wort pipe. This produces a stronger connection than you would get with a clamp, and it means the mains water pressure you're using to chill your wort will never get anywhere near what it'd take to break the PEX. 

Paired with the duotight 9.5mm range, you'll have your hose or camlock fittings attached within seconds. This particular kit doesn't come with 9.5mm push in fittings.

Specifications:

• 5.6m length
• Inlet/outlet size: 9.5mm duotight compatible barbs
• 3 x rubberised feet
• 1 x hinged hanger (for BrewZilla handles)

Recommended cleaners:

StellarClean Powerful Brewery Wash 1kg, optimum 80°C, minimum contact time 5 minutes. Change the flow back and forth as you clean to get the deepest clean possible, then rinse with water at the same temperature.

We'd always recommend recirculating the last 15 minutes of your boil through the Red Reaper to sanitise it before running cold water through the chiller. Do not actively boil and use the pump as cavitation can damage the impeller.

What is PEX?

PEX tubing, short for cross-linked polyethylene, is a flexible plastic pipe used as an alternative to traditional copper or steel pipe in plumbing. It's incredibly pressure and temperature resistant, which is part of why it's widely used in place of copper in the plumbing industry, along with its flexibility and ease of manufacturing.

How it chills

The Red Reaper is a copper-cored Counterflow Chiller, meaning your wort recirculates through internal copper tubing and cools as it goes. You get a large amount of heat transfer between the copper and the cold water passing in the opposite direction.

The typical design of a CFC is copper tubing housed within another tube. The outer tubing carries a cold water source flowing in one direction, while hot wort is pumped through the inner copper tubing in the opposite direction. The main benefit is efficient single-pass chilling from a rolling boil down to pitching temps. CFCs work similarly to a plate chiller but have a larger overall area for wort to flow through, which reduces the risk of clogs from hops and overall a counterflow chiller is substantially more sanitary than a plate chiller, especially for homebrewers where extremely caustic cleaning agents aren't used for safety purposes. The trade-off is they take up more space than a plate chiller.

Storage notes

• Do not store in sunlight. It'll degrade the PEX over time.
• Do not store with StellarSan or any acidic products. It'll break down the copper.