BrewBuilt® IceMaster 100 | Glycol Chiller | Bulkhead Sets for 5 Fermenters | 2600btu | 110V | 8 Gal. Tank Capacity

Beware. I purchased my glycol chiller in may 2021. I've used it for approximately 5 to 6 brews max since purchase. My chiller was off and dormant for last 6 months between brews. I fired it up in preparation 2 days before my scheduled brew day and it won't chill the reservoir colder than a couple degrees below ambient temperature. I was planning on making 10 gallons of lager and the whole day had to be scrapped because I have no way to control my fermentation temps now. This was a very expensive upgrade and difficult to justify to my family on a working dad's budget. The warranty is only for 1 year from purchase but I feel with its limited use for it to break down so soon is unacceptable. I've reached out to morebeer! Via their online help center and have received no response. I don't normally go out of my way to review and bash a product butI feel defeated and out of luck with no help. I wouldn't recommend the risk buying ths product. In the future I'll be purchasing my equipment from another more reputable dealer with better customer service and that stand behind their customers and products, even if it costs me more. Good luck to all, happy brewing.

I purchased this unit as it was rated for 4 - 1 bbl fermenters and advertised to be able to cold crash 2bbl. After a year this product was not doing as advertised. I contacted more beer and was told that it was due to my slightly higher than normal ambient temperatures and was told it is what it is more or less.

I was shopping around glycol chillers again today roughly a year and half after contacted support, I noticed the product information has changed and the chilling specs have been reduced by half.

If this was the case i would have never ordered this product as it doesn't meet my needs. This is terrible business as I was being told it was my fault for ambient temps but obviously something has acurred that they had to respect the machine....

Thank you for the help morebeer.

The chiller is able to cool 8 gallons of glycol/water mixture to below freezing and keep it there, even in a garage at 75F. I haven't been able to hook it up to the fermenter yet to test. But it appears to do exactly what it is supposed to do. The default settings are reasonable and make it easy to get started.

The reservoir is too small to hold more than about 3 of the larger pumps that MoreBeer sells, so it isn't clear how to take advantage of all of the 5 in/out ports.

Once you route all of the internal hoses, it is difficult to impossible to remove the inner cover for the reservoir. Hopefully that will be a rare event.

The compressor is fairly quiet, but I am glad that it is in the garage instead of in the house. It would get irritating if I could hear it in my main living space.

The unit was packed in thin styrofoam that was busted to pieces when the package arrived. However, the unit appears to be undamaged and functioning properly.

The instructions are a bit lacking. It would be nice if there were a diagram of the unit that labeled the parts, etc. And a little more detail on steps like "install the drain plug" - like, where is the drain, what is the plug, how do you install it - would be helpful.

Overall a solid product, and I would buy it again, especially at this price point. But there is room for improvement in a few areas as listed above.

No issues out of the box, easy to set up and get running. I'm only using it on (1) 7 gal fermenter, but I have no doubt it would tackle multiple without issue. Works great. Also super handy to help speed up getting the wort to pitching temp if its too hot out of the kettle.

works very well--handles 2, 18 gallon fiberglass conical fermenters at 95+° and high humidity

I have no problem with the operation of this unit and it works like a charm and is what I envisioned when I purchased it.

The main problem that I had was with the set-up of the unit. I understand that equipment would vary between different types of units to chill, but I struggled with setting the unit up correctly. I think that you should offer an attachments kit with all of the hoses and clamps needed to connect the pumps to the bulkheads.

I feel the the inner cover could use a little bit more re-engineering, as it would be nice to have it close the whole system and just have holes for the hoses to enter and exit the unit. You could have plugs fill the other unused holes to keep the system as closed as possible.

I really do LOVE this chiller, and it is worth every bit of the money spent and hassle of setup. Thanks.

Works well. Some noise with it, but that is to be expected for what it is. Paired with a pump and temp monitoring (I use a custom setup using BruControl PC software), it holds temps very well. Definitely will make my brewing more precise than a fridge.

Purchased in early 2020, have kept in my basement and use for my 4-tap system on my first floor. As quiet as my chest freezer and as reliable. It's been running for a year straight so far without issue. It worked right out of the box with minimal setup. I bought penguin pumps and lines for this. This chiller seems tough to beat for the price.

So far so good. For the cost savings versus the Ss brewtech 3/8 HP chiller this is worth it. I have done one brew so far and it has worked perfectly. I would caution people to purchase their own shark bite style drain plug in place of the drain plug provided since this one can be a little touchy and leak.

I bought my Icemaster in mid 2019 after forgetting to recharge an ice bath and losing a 10 gal batch of beer.

A reliable chiller allows an entire fermentation to be done with precise temperature control and no user intervention, so you can brew with little concern for your upcoming schedule. The unit can also quickly crash chill the wort when fermentation is done.

I initially chose the Icemaster because of its attractive price relative to its cooling capacity.

The quality of my unit was excellent as delivered. is very quiet and has been trouble free.

So far so good. At first it wasn’t getting my fermentor down to mid 30’s for cold crashing but then I tried setting the ice master at -15C and it got there. I had to drill holes to run the hoses to my pumps into the glycol resivoir they were not already there. The only minor thing and it’s petty is that it is in Celsius.

After 18 months of great operation, my Icemaster 100 is dead w/ error code EE. Called Morebeer and they have no more insight on this than referencing other manufacturers' models with this code and suspect it is the temp probe. They said it is out of warranty, and that the temp probes are back-ordered with no due date for delivery – they suggested I hit e-Bay to see if someone it selling a probe as they could not find anything. I hit the Brewbuilt manufacture website and only see product listings; no manuals, no spare parts, no Q&A, and worse yet, no way to contact them. Be warned, you are on your own after 12 months - prior to that Morebeer would replace the whole unit. I'll now reach out to VISA and see if their additional year beyond the manufacturer one year warranty provides a solution. One should not spend this type of money on a glycol cooler and be left out in the cold with no path to fix it!!! Stay away from Brewbuilt - it's China made which is probably making it difficult to get any support at this time.

This chiller has worked nearly perfectly for about 2 months now - easily cooling two chambers that I keep at 53 F and 45 F. Each chamber is large enough for four 5 gallon carboys or kegs. There was no issue with leaks - the drain tube was intact and not obstructed. In the as delivered condition the fan was a bit noisy whenever the unit turned on - but as another reviewer has described, opening up a side panel (very easy) and tightening the fan bracket screws quieted it right down.
Would definitely recommend - it is a powerful chiller for the price, and the noise issue was easily corrected.

Unit arrived without damage.
No leaks at all.
Only reason for knocking off a star is due to how noisy it can be.
I don't know if something is loose somewhere but it had an awful rattling noise when running. I found that just lightly pushing on the bottom plate (accessible since I used the wheels) and it stopped the rattling.
I placed a small block of wood I had under it and used a bit of extra glycol line insulation to squish underneath it eliminate the rattling which greatly reduced the noise.
Hopefully it's a temporary solution and I can find a way of stopping it from inside.

Just powered up my unit today. Took a couple weeks to get all the parts necessary to connect to my Spike Brewing fermenter. There was one problem with screws missing from the internal lid to the chiller container. Actually found out that the threads through the sheet metal were stripped out. I had to get some screws with nuts to fix that problem but no big deal. I used the submersible pump from SB. Had some 3/8" hose for that hookup. Had to order the SS hose clamps (NORMA), Purchased some rubber pipe insulator tape from Lowes to tape over the opening on the inner lid to the tank. Still allows it to open. Punched two 1" holes in the fixed inner lid for my hoses to run through to pump and return feed. Got my Propylene Glycol and added to tank with distilled water.. Checked for leaks (no issues). Note that I did a modification to the drain tube. so that I could have an easy way to drain. I installed a 1/2" NPT ball valve to the brass coupling provided. Powered on to check function. Print off the instructions on this website as they are more clear to read. Unit is a little noisy. Might suggest some better damping to the internal fan to quiet down.

Note: It took a long time to get my shipment from FedX . Others complained about damage on receipt but this was packaged in a separate box with some Styrofoam and bubble wrap. Outer box was crunched a lot but inner box was intact & protected the unit.

Works great after a few adjustments to the fan and overflow drain.

Box arrived fairly beat up via FedEx and the drain port wasn't protected enough so I had to do the common replacement of the drain line and plug. MoreBeer was helpful in solving the issue and sent free replacement parts, but kind of annoying to pay almost $800 for this and then have to do immediate repairs to it. The repairs took about 4 hours in total from investigation to installation to testing.

The unit itself chills great and a short test run worked perfectly. The design is a little weird in that the bulkheads get the tubing into the unit, but not into the reservoir. I used silicon tubing and ended up leaving one of the reservoir panels off to make room for them (the included "slot" wasn't large enough). Others have said this won't impact performance and it didn't seem to in my test.

The initial quality and quality control is frankly appalling on a $800 product. Mine had 3 loose bolts rattling around the inside of it. Also, The fan was making a horrible rattling sound. I got it to stop by loosening the fan mount, and sliding the metal leg outward (its a slotted hole) and tightening it back down. That put enough extra tension on the mount so that it no longer rattles. It is now quiet.

Unlike other reviews, my chiller was packaged well and does not leak from the drain port.

The chiller does work well. Its just disappointing the initial impression is so bad. It also gives me a lack of confidence that it will last long term. Hopefully it will, but I am skeptical.

FedEx did not treat this package well, but the box was not really packed well either. When I received it, both ends of the box were open and the styrofoam on the bottom was destroyed on one corner. Fortunately all four feet were intact, and I swapped over to casters anyway. MoreBeer should do a better job of packing these to prevent shipping damage.

Did a leak test and 24 hour functional test with tap water with no leaks and seems to function perfectly. Looking forward to my first batch soon. Seems like they've worked out the bugs on some of the complaints that other reviewers have had.

My only complaint is that there aren't any bulkheads on the glycol chamber lids...only on the side of the unit, so gotta figure out how to get the intermediate hoses actually down to the pump while keeping the glycol chamber mostly sealed. Not a huge deal, but seems like a design oversight to me...

First one Leaked at drain could not fix it. Need to pack it better so Drain is Protected. It was replaced in a timely manner. Stainless bulkhead fittings are too Small, should have been 1/2". too much restriction thru fittings only 1/4" inside diameter.Most cooling coils use 1/2" diameter tubing and fittings. Inside cover needs to have openings for hoses and pump electric lines from pumps. Slot in corner can only fit 1 pump line and wire.Cools Great and maintains temperature good, hope it lasts.

Runs very quiet and packaging was excellent. Unit looks good and runs good.. I have a tiny leak at the drain plug. The leak is between the blue plastic insert and the first brass plug. Feet were intact. Casters went on easily. Basically all the crappy little items from early versions are corrected. I will update review after the drain plug fix.

The version I received is great- no leaks and easy to set up. Looks like morebeer May have resolved the pervious issues.

I have now brewed 4 different 5 gallon batches of beer. The chiller works great. I set for -5C (because the control only does celsius) and it chills my beer down to 35F.

Like others have said it is a bit noisy. But all I had to do is tighten down the screws for the condenser fan mount and it is nice and quiet for being a piece of refrigeration equipment. It runs no louder then my kegerator.

I removed the insulation to be ready for the leak that others have warned of on the drain. No leak out mine. The hose clamp is a worm gear style so maybe they have improved upon the design.

You won't find a better chiller for this price. You may as I stated above have to do a little yourself but it is worth it. So if your not a DIY person be warned. But who homebrews that isn't a DYIer?

Works great it’s quieter than my humidifier but it does leave condensation puddles but chills real fast.

I was a bit hesitant to order this after reading some of the earlier reviews, but I decided to pull the trigger...and glad I did. There was evidence it had been dropped during shipping, and one of the fixed feet had been broken off when I unpacked it. That's not a problem if attaching the casters, as I did. I went through the whole unit and found no missing or loose hardware. I filled it with water to test it, no leaks, chilled well, and it's quiet. I used the drain port to empty it. I found it drained quite adequately. I don't know if the design was changed because of earlier complaints about it draining too slowly, but it was fine. I'm now using it with the Grainfather Conical and their cooling pump to ferment a dark lager. It's working great, doesn't cycle very often (it's indoors), and sure beats using the Igloo and changing ice all the time!

Great little unit!. Arrived with 3 of the 4 stationary feet snapped off, but I was always going to use the wheels anyway, so it wasn't and issue. It maintains temperature well, I keep it at 0?C and it is quite than the DYI I had previously. Crashed the 7 gal Fermenter in about 2 hours from 70? - 34?F. Didn't have some of the other issues the other reviews have mentioned. Very pleased

I would have given it a 5 but filled it up and within a day it was leaking from the drain port hose. I had to tear it apart and add silicone and an oetiker clamp to stop the leaking. Does run quiet and cold crashes from 60 to 38 in about 2 ½ hours. Great addition to the brewery.

I first want to say that MoreBeer was great in regards to responding to the issues that I had with the unit and compensated me for my time for the tinkering I had to do to get the unit to run correctly. After I made the fix to the drain system, the unit worked fine. The first unit I received, the fan was off balance causing noise and the unit leaked near the drain. MoreBeer responded quickly by sending a replacement unit. On the new unit, the fan issue was gone, but the leak issue remained. The manufacturer uses a red rubber hose reinforced with stainless steel mesh. Well, the worm gear clamp that is used will not clamp the hose tight enough to stop leaking at the nipple of the tank due to the metal mesh reinforcement. Also the manufacturer uses a Sharkbite style fitting at the end of the hose with a brass cap. The fitting is of poor quality and leaks. So what I did was opened up the cabinet, totally removed the red hose, the worm gear, and the Sharkbite fitting entirely.
I replaced it with a braided food grade silicone hose, two new worm gear clamps, a stainless steel barbed fitting, and a quarter turn angled water valve.
It doesn't leak and the silicone hose should hold up to the possible expansion and contraction of any water that could possibly freeze.
It took about 3 hours total in time (and about 50 swear words) to get the hardware, open the cabinetry, removing the old hardware and install the new hardware, which was about $29ish. So far I’ve used the unit for two weeks straight and it’s been running like a champ. The compressor is not any noisier than a regular refrigerator/freezer compressor. I wish the PID controller was able to Fahrenheit readings vs Celsius, but that just takes a quick math conversion.

Shipped on its side due to double packaging so caused damage. Leaked during first use and sounded super loud when running. Do not recommend. Returned right away.

Only used for 1 lager but so far love it. Great price easy to hook up. Kinda loud but its in the basement so i dont mind. And it does not hold 10 gallons. I poured 3 gallons of glycol and 5 gallons of distilled water and it was spilling out as I moved it around.

Works great but....don't expect right out of the box flawlessness. Much like the previous review, I had a leak at the drain. The issue is the hose clamp holding the shark bite hose in place. Replacing the clamp with a higher quality one solved the leak issue, but i would recommend plugging the whole thing up anyway as the diameter of the drain is too small and needs a pump to drain quickly from this port. The bulk heads and many screws needed tightening. I spent about 5hrs fixing the leak and setting up the chiller with pumps and hoses. Its a great value, just problem solve the small issues that comes with it, its worth the savings iMo.

I’m giving it a 4 based on price and the fact that it is working well now......as stated in another review, the assembly workers need a motivational speaker. I plugged it in and it was incredibly loud, louder than my TRUE glass door commercial Volker that was on its last legs and rattled. After overcoming my disappointment and chastising myself for going for the cheapest option, I opened it up to see if there was an issue.
I first found that most of the noise was the condenser fan. And noticed an extra sheet screw holding the mounting bracket. The assembler stripped the threading in the housing and used an extra screw to try and secure it. Not good for vibrations and noise. It took a while to get the bad screw out as I had filled the unit and could barely access underneath. After removing and replacing with a new bolt and nut, I notice the motor itself was loosely attached to the mounting. Thankfully after all that it runs nice and quiet. If yours is noisy check the bolts. Other than that, it is nicely controlling my IPA and should work well.

I recently bought a Grainfather conical fermenter with basic cooling option (which I highly recommend), but quickly got tired of refilling a “chilly bin” with ice so I can hold my fermentation temperatures. I needed a glycol chiller. I narrowed it down to the Icemaster 100, SS Brewtech, Grainfather chiller, and Penguin 1/2HP chiller. The Grainfather chiller was not considered because #1, it wasn’t available in the US when I wanted it, and #2, it is a proprietary design that only works with Grainfather conicals (without hacks and mods). I chose the Icemaster because it was readily available in 2 days from MoreBeer, and it was the least expensive. The Penguin is built in the US, quieter, probably better quality, but was $100 more and took 2 weeks to ship.

First, the REAL specs for the Icemaster 100:
Dimensions: 16.38”W X 17”D X 28.5”H (with wheels installed)
Tank capacity: 8 gallons (overflows at 8.5 gallons)
Compressor: Donper L86BZ1 (China)
Made in China

The Icemaster basically has the compressor, expansion valve, condenser (mini radiator) and electric fan on the bottom with an insulated 8 gallon plastic tank above that has the evaporator coil and temperature sensor. It’s a pretty simple design. This configuration is different than the SS Bretech or Penguin chillers which have the tank and chiller side by side. I would prefer the lower profile of the side by side, but the price was lower for the Icemaster.

The Icemaster arrived in 2-3 days from MoreBeer with free shipping. It was packed well and arrived without damage. I ordered 2 gallons of propylene glycol. You will need 2 gallons to get the recommended 20% mixture. MoreBeer does really well with order/delivery. I unpacked the chiller and the only instructions were STC-1000 controller operating instructions in Chenglish. The controller is not intuitive (and only reads out in centigrade, not fahrenheit), so I will need to refer back to the instructions when I need to make adjustments. The only other instructions is a pdf file provided by MoreBeer under the “Documents” section of the Icemaster web page. 4 good quality urethane swivel casters (2 with brakes) came in a small box which you need to install yourself. This increases the height of the chiller about 1”, but are really needed to easily move the chiller with 8 gallons of glycol mixture in it. The chiller has peg legs that are height adjustable so it can be leveled if you choose not to install the wheels.

My chiller must have been assembled by a Chinese guy just before quitting time on Friday afternoon. There were several loose screws that weren’t threaded correctly. Not a big deal, but it took a bit to get things right. Expecting a 10 gallon tank, I poured 2 gallons of glycol in and then DI water. It reached the overflow at 8.5 gallons, so I siphoned some off to get to a manageable 8 gallons. There is a drain in the bottom of the glycol tank so you can easily drain the tank to change the glycol (recommended annually). Sounds like a good concept, but in the morning I woke up to find about a quart of glycol coolant on the floor. The leak was coming from the drain. It was hard to find, but either a poor quality quick disconnect fitting, brass end plug, or loose hose clamp. I tried to use the bottom drain to drain all the glycol back out but it drained very SLOWLY. I siphoned the glycol much quicker and pluged the drain permanently with epoxy. No more leaks for sure! Also, it’s a bit louder than expected. It’s not real loud, but you would not want this in your house. The sound would be very annoying. Mine has a knocking sound like an antique car motor.

I’ve been homebrewing beer for over 20 years, and my biggest problems are chilling the hot wort and maintaining steady, accurate fermentation temperatures. The glycol chiller and jacketed conical fermenter solves both really well. I brewed an IPA yesterday and was able to get the wort down to about 85F with my counterflow chiller. In under an hour in the fermenter the temperature was at the required 65F. The larger 8 gallon glycol tank really helps at crash cooling quickly.

Initially I had my chiller temp set at -2C, and the temperature in my fermenter was overshooting by about 5 degrees below setpoint. So I need to fiddle a bit with the chiller temperature to maintain a stable fermenter temperature (by adjusting the chiller temperature closer to the desired fermentation temperature). This would be the case with all glycol chillers.

Take a look at some related photos. In summary:

Likes:
Size of glycol tank helps in crash cooling quicker
Tank is insulated well
Wheels are needed
Price, availability

Dislikes:
Quality issues
STC-1000 controller not intuitive, not in fahrenheit
Noise
Upright configuration

So far cranked it down to 5 deg. C and it’s keeping my 14 gallon Chronical @ 68 deg. In a hot California garage.

My review is actually for the G40 which I purchased from MoreBeer in May. I have 2 7-gallon SS Brewtech Chronicals (one BME). I've done everything I can think of with this unit with no issue. For reference, my garage is consistently in the 82-86F range in the summer. To date I've:

1. Cold Crashed a 5 gallon batch of Golden Ale stepping down 5F per hour until I was at 36F
2. Brought post-chill wort from 88F to 72 and fermented a batch of Grapefruit IPA
3. While fermenting the Grapefruit IPA at 68F, I brought post-chill wort down from 97F to 72 in roughly 4 minutes
4. Fermented a 5 gallon batch of IIPA along wiht the GF IPA
5. Cold crashed the GF IPA while fermenting the IIPA
6. Cold crashed the IIPA in 20 minutes from 67.6F to 36F

The G40 has some design deficiencies that the 100 addresses. The main issue has to do with the fact that there are no bulkhead connections. There is one small hole in the side and a seemingly smaller hole on the opposite end of the unit for output and return tubes. The size and location is very problematic; particularly if you want to wrap your tubes to eliminate condensation. (and you will definitely need to do that). What I found odd is that videos and photos of the Australian units I saw did not have this design.

The 100 looks like a much better design with the bulkheads (stainless compared to brass and/or plastic as other models have) installed in a way that eliminates the issues I am having.

All that said, I'm primarily concerned about the chilling capability and have the skills to retrofit my unit. The price is great and More Beer is great. Mine arrived in 2 days as promised.