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A partial boil is boiling the malt extract in about 2.5 to 3 gallons of water and then topping off in the fermenter to get five gallons. It is fairly common with extract brewers although some extract brewers do do a full boil of about 6 to 6.5 gallons boiling off to about five gallons. Some feel that a full boil is better but with extracts a partial is fine IMHO. All grain brews use a full volume boil, I collect about 6.5 gallons of wort from my mashes and wind up with about five. Your mileage may vary.
Cleaning the copper coiled immersion wort chillers is very easy. After use I simply rinse it off as no wort goes through it, only water. Then the next time I use it I put it in the boil pot with about 15 minutes left in the boil to sanitize it. Counterflow chillers obviously need more work to clean as do plate heat exchangers. I've been happy with my immersion chiller for years and see no need at this time to switch to one of the others.
One thing to keep in mind, my advice is just what works for me. There are tons of forums on brewing and you will find that there is more than one way to skin this cat. Everyone who has brewed for some time finds that out. I've even noticed that on some forums it seems everyone does something one way and other forums everyone does something different. Dry yeast vs. liquid yeast, if you need to make a starter or not, Starsan or bleach all get debated and IMHO the best thing is to see what works for you and have fun.
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Don't always trust the opinions of experts.
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