Northern Brewer Stainless Steel Counterflow Wort Chiller

Now I've used this for the first time I'm happy to say it's a great product and a recommended upgrade. It took me about 10 minutes to chill 20 litres of beer to pitching temp. It's a reassuringly solid construction and being stainless steel hopefully it should last a long time.This has improved my brew day in several ways. Firstly the reduction in time, not only because the chilling time is quicker but also because chilling and transfer to the fermenter are done simultaneously. It might only be a matter of minutes, but the removal of one step from the process is very welcome.I also find it more convenient attaching this externally rather than having to dump a chiller into the kettle during the boil. I've read that there are also benefits to having small amounts of wort rapidly chilled, rather than a large amount slowly chilled, but I'm not a scientific enough home brewer to be able to verify this!In terms of negatives, I think it would be difficult to work without a pump, and even with one it can be a bit tricky. I'm looking to add a bleed valve to mine in addition to the throttle valve. You also need to factor in the cost of attachments. I couldn't find many suppliers of US NPT camlock (or adapter) fittings and ended up having to pay a high price for imports from the US. It may be more economical to find a UK supplier of an alternative product, but at the time I was buying there weren't any available.Finally the Amazon US import service worked really well. Compared to ordering directly with a US supplier, having to pay FX fees, customs fees, delivery fees, admin fees for processing customs fees and waiting weeks for all this to be resolved, it was very simple and quick.