Therminator™
The Therminator™ is the fastest way to chill your wort to yeast pitching temperature and get your fermentation off to a quick, bacteria-free start.

Features

The Therminator™ is the fastest way to chill your wort to yeast pitching temperature and get your fermentation off to a quick, bacteria-free start.

All 316 stainless steel plates and fittings.
Chill like the pros, as the Therminator™ is identical to commercial brewery chillers.
Brazed together with pure copper in an oxygen-free furnace, with no potential leaks like a gasketed unit!
Chill 10 gallons in 5 minutes to 68°F using 58°F cooling water at 5 gallons per minute (gpm).
Great for southern climates! (See notes on FAQ tab.)
Ultra compact (7.5" W, 4" D, 3" H)
Super-low restriction is ideal for gravity feed.
Easy to clean and sanitize, small enough to boil!*
Garden-hose thread connections on the water side means no extra adapters to buy!
1/2" male NPT fittings on wort side mates up with virtually all common hose-connector types, and they're easier to sanitize than female fittings!
With the lowest water consumption on the market, it saves you money!
Comes with heavy-gauge stainless mounting bracket.
Blichmann Engineering is committed to continuous product improvement, so design details may change from the photos shown.






Data



HOW TO USE THIS GRAPH
This graph is used to predict the gallons per minute (gpm) of wort you'll be able to chill from boiling down to 68°F (the ideal starting temperature for fermentation) using water from your garden hose as the cooling media.

Measure the cooling water flow rate in your brewery using a bucket of known volume and a stopwatch (gal/min). Then, measure the cooling water temperature using an accurate thermometer.
Choose either the blue (5.0 gpm), cyan (3.0 gpm), or green (2.0 gpm) line that best matches your cooling water flow rate. If your flow lies between these lines, it is acceptable to interpolate between them.
Go to the point on the Y axis labeled "Cooling Water Temp (F)" to your cooling water temperature measured in step 1.
Draw a horizontal line to intersect the cooling water flow rate line you selected previously (Blue, Cyan or Green) in step 2.
Draw a vertical line at the intersection point down to the X axis labeled "Wort Flow (gpm)" and read the wort chill flow rate you'll get at your brewery!
Example: If you have 58°F cooling water and 5 gpm of flow, draw a horizontal line (see dark line in graph above) at 58°F over to the blue line. Draw a vertical line (see dark line in graph above) from the intersection point down to the X-axis and read 2.0 gpm.

For notes on southern climates, please see the FAQ tab.





Competition


Let's face it: If you've got ice-cold cooling water and high flow rates, it's a short punt to design a cooler to get the job done. But the reality of brewing is that fall, spring and summer bring higher groundwater temperatures that causes a struggle to cool wort to acceptable levels. For ales, if you can't chill to 68°F, your fermentations will produce higher levels of esters, fusels, and other compounds that you may not want in your beer (except for those esoteric Belgians!). For lagers, the effect is even more pronounced.

At Blichmann Engineering, we've leveraged 20 years of experience designing cooling systems and coupled it with 17 years of homebrewing experience to develop the Therminator™. The result is a chiller that works well all year long, providing not only raw cooling horsepwer but the features brewers demand:

Broad operating range at fast cooling rates.
Low water usage for high efficiency.
Low restriction for gravity feed at high flow rates.
Compact size for easy use and sanitation.
Heavy-duty mounting brackets for simple installation.
Convenient straight-through water connections to prevent kinked hoses.
Resistance to plugging.
Substantial reduction in ice usage for chilling below cooling water temps.
We've tested and analyzed the competition at our facility using precision thermometers, flow meters, and a cooling water-blending module for precise control. The results? The Therminator™ remains the best overall value as the king of coolers!





FAQ



HOW DO I COOL MY WORT WITH HIGH GROUNDWATER TEMPERATURES?
The wort cannot be cooled below the cooling water temperature. While the Therminator™ is the highest-capacity homebrew chiller on the market, it will get you within a few degrees of your cooling water. But if you live in a warm climate area, that may not be enough. To drop below your groundwater temperature, you will need to use a cooling water pre-chiller. This is simply a 5/8" copper coil (25 to 50 feet) immersed in a pail of ice water. Use this to cool the groundwater before it enters the chiller. Stirring the ice water is recommended.