30 plate heat exchange unit for use in herms.

[timmi9191]

Interested in opinions on the viablity of using a 30 plate heat exchange unit for the dual purpose of heating during the mash and chilling post boil.

The set up would be:
1 - wort circulating through one loop and hot water from a kettle of similiar controlled by an STC1000 circulating through the other for temp regulation and stepping during the mash.

2 - post boil, move the intake and return lines from the kettle (heating loop) and place into a large water source for the cooling.

 

[Parks]

I would be very concerned about the about of grain bits passing through it and the chance of clogging.

 

[timmi9191]

Sorry should have mentioned double batch BIAB.. No grain bits to speak of

 

[Mardoo]

Yeah, I've been wondering why I haven't seen anyone doing this. Seems like a simple filter could solve the grain bits problem.

 

[RelaxedBrewer]

I looked into this recently, with the price of copper now plate chillers are really attractive.
There were some people trying it on the American forums, have a search there.
I think they all stopped after a while as the plate chiller was beginning to get really hard to clean. They were using a filter as well.

 

[Jace89]

If your confident with your method of filtering out the grains, then there is no reason why this method wouldn't work perfectly.

The only thing you need to think of it where are you gonna get this hot water from? If your just going to use boil/heated water or then it might be easier to simply buy some copper and make a coil that will sit in the water, or were are you gonna get this hot water from the tap? If not the tap your still going to need a pump anyways you might as well make a traditional style HERMS.

Also your going to have to clean/sanitise the plate chiller before using it to chill (sorry if this is obvious).

I'm not saying your idea wont work. I certainly considered it but decent for a 'traditional' style HERMS.

 

[hsb]

Good point about cleaning it before using it to chill.

It sounds like a complicated way to do HERMS.
Isn't a plate chiller designed to have maximum surface area ratios to chill? Isn't this fighting against that?
Also liquid is going to be foamy at points in the mash, going to get messy inside the plates.
How about flow rates through the chiller? Temperature of the liquid would be all over the place.

Woulda counterflow chiller be simpler? Bigger flow. Less chance of blockage. Easier to clean.
Still need a way to feed hot water at the right temperature through the other way, same as plate chiller.

My 2c. Never used a plate chiller or counteflow chiller so could be more like 1 1/2c

 

[Dan2]

I have a plan to do this and hope to have it up and running soon. No doubt everything else will get in the way and won't have it running for another month, but I'll let you know how it goes.
Rather than BIAB, I'm going to try a kind of malt pipe like the Braumeister.

 

[timmi9191]

Will be waiting to hear how you go dan..

 

[timmi9191]

I looked into this recently, with the price of copper now plate chillers are really attractive.
There were some people trying it on the American forums, have a search there.
I think they all stopped after a while as the plate chiller was beginning to get really hard to clean. They were using a filter as well.

Found quite a few mentions of using a counter flow plate chiller for this dual purpose on homebrewtalk.com

Think I've found my next project..

 

[Dan2]

Will be waiting to hear how you go dan..

I've abandoned the idea and gone with this:
http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=4330

I just realised I'd been building a brewery for a while, and would still be building/tweaking a brewery for a few weeks to get something I wasn't exactly happy with.
I want to brew, not build breweries.

Still keen to hear about how you go though timmi. Keep us posted - and pics of course.

 

[surly]

Hey guys, any of you built this?
The same idea occurred to me while trying to sleep last night, so curious if it is effective or not.

Some other thoughts I had about this concept:

1. You wouldn't need to specifically "sanitise" the plate chiller once ready to chill. Just pump boiling wort through it before chilling (recirculate back into BK).
2. Cold break. Wouldn't it be possible to chill while recirculating back into the BK? This could hopefully be done in such a manner as to cause a whirlpool allowing the settling out of cold break as well - probably not worth the effort though.

 

[Parks]

surly - seriously forget about it IMO.

These 30 plate chillers are hard enough to get all the hop debris out of after chilling let alone grain husks.

 

[surly]

Not something I have any intention of doing Parks. Just merely academic curiosity.

Some form of filter would obviously be required, but having never used a plate chiller, I am unaware of how easy they are to block/difficult to clean.

 

[Parks]

You would need a very fine mesh filter after your grain bed but regardless of all the false bottom options I have used grain bits still need to be recirculated to be filtered out, using the grain bed.

But, well, people are certainly welcome to experiment

 

[TheWiggman]

Maybe one of these extreme-o units is in order?

http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/hop-stopper

They look like a good product. A good way to gain some extra efficiency too.