Advice On Plate Chillers

[yeungnut]

Hi,

I'm after some advice on plate chillers from those that use or have used them. With the current water restrictions and concerns with how much water I'm using with my immersion chiller, I'm thinking of getting a plate chiller. I know of the concerns with cleaning but would like some advice on best way to clean, how long it takes to chill 25L and how much water it is likely to use with 20 or 30 plate chillers. Do you need to screen/filter out of your kettle before going into the chiller?

Is it worth it and any other options.

Thanks in advance for the advice.

Phil

 

[Cortez The Killer]

You could try no chill

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...;showarticle=56

Cheers

 

[Crusty]

Hey Phil.
I would hang on to you're immersion chiller. Instead of running water from the hose through the chiller & out to waste, get yourself a fish tub, freeze some water the night before & make a kind of ice slurry in the fish tub. Get a cheap submersable aquarium pump & re-circulate the water through the chiller to & from the fish tub. Temp will drop pretty fast & no wasted water, only whats in the tub. It will save a bit of water.
Cheers,
Brian

 

[BOG]

I've been thinking the same thing but the water supply for the plate ckiller was still a problem.
You have to pump you wort (march pump) and pump your water (??) and still it would require a large amount of water to chill a batch.

You have to get the water from somewhere and put the hot water somewhere.



BOG

 

[BOG]

It's going to get hot really fast crusty. Needs lots of ice.

 

[cubbie]

It's going to get hot really fast crusty. Needs lots of ice.

My mash tun or HLT takes the first 35 - 50 odd litres that I then use for cleaning after which it goes on the garden. Then the ice and pump can go to work.

 

[kirem]

Hey Phil.
I would hang on to you're immersion chiller. Instead of running water from the hose through the chiller & out to waste, get yourself a fish tub, freeze some water the night before & make a kind of ice slurry in the fish tub. Get a cheap submersable aquarium pump & re-circulate the water through the chiller to & from the fish tub. Temp will drop pretty fast & no wasted water, only whats in the tub. It will save a bit of water.
Cheers,
Brian

This is what I do with an old esky as the water bath. I have a few tubs of ice that I make using 2L ice cream containers and keep adding them as required.

I have also put an office water cooler peltier effect sump in line, I haven't fully tested it yet (the power supply blew up).

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=353193

 

[yeungnut]

Thanks for the input guys!

Cheers,

Phil

 

[drsmurto]

Hi,

I'm after some advice on plate chillers from those that use or have used them. With the current water restrictions and concerns with how much water I'm using with my immersion chiller, I'm thinking of getting a plate chiller. I know of the concerns with cleaning but would like some advice on best way to clean, how long it takes to chill 25L and how much water it is likely to use with 20 or 30 plate chillers. Do you need to screen/filter out of your kettle before going into the chiller?

Is it worth it and any other options.

Thanks in advance for the advice.

Phil

I've been thinking the same thing but the water supply for the plate ckiller was still a problem.
You have to pump you wort (march pump) and pump your water (??) and still it would require a large amount of water to chill a batch.

You have to get the water from somewhere and put the hot water somewhere.



BOG

I am a proud chiller.

I use a plate chiller.

You dont need a pump to move wort from the kettle thru the chiller to your fermenter as gravity is your friend. I pump the water from my rainwater tank, thru the chiller and then back into the tank.

Cleaning is as simple as running hot water thru the chiller after use followed by a sanitiser.

I use a beerbelly hopscreen to keep trub etc from getting into the plate chiller.

 

[Katherine]

I use a plate chiller with an immersion chiller in iced water. I could not say how much water we use goes into the garden though. Takes about 1/2 an hour to 40 minutes comes out at 18c!

 

[cliffo]

I pre-cool a jerry can filled with water (20ish L) the run it through the chiller via gravity and collect the resultant hot water in another container.

This then gets used in the washing machine.

Cleaning can be a problem but generally no dramas.

I get about 21L wort down to 25-35 degrees in a single 10 minute pass.

Never used any other form of chiller and don't see a need to as this has been working fine for me.

cliffo

 

[Yorg]

I think the best aspect of the plate chiller - and I have made and used cfc, immersion and now use plate - is its size and low internal pressure that allows easy pumping.
Big downside is that it clogs at the drop of a hat when you use pellets - you have to have a way of keeping them from entering.
I am starting to think that a 1/2" cfc ( I had a 3/8" that my March pump couldn't push through with any reasonable flow and that's when I went to plate) would be best - circulating the wort back to the kettle for a whirlpool effect and quick drop below DMS precursor formation temps, before diverting to the fermenter oncer down to pitching temp.
As for water, using the frozen drink bottle / icecream containger circulation method described by others, using a cheap aquiarium 'sump pump" of decent head pressure capability and decent volume ( about $60 or even less) is a good solution.

 

[Screwtop]

I am a proud chiller.

I use a plate chiller.


Cleaning is as simple as running hot water thru the chiller after use followed by a sanitiser.

In the past I cleaned my plate chiller using caustic solution after use then clean hot water to rinse. Tried PBW and holy shit, the stuff that came out of the plate chiller, PBW only now, followed by a flush out with tap water, used it last Fri and crap was still coming out after 3 washes with PBW, must have been quite a build up in there. A tip hook the plate chiller up to the tap and flush out the wort path, then swap direction for a back flush, I do this half a dozen times and with every swap of direction more crap. The first time I flushed out my pump and chiller by recirculating from the HLT so much stuff came out it looked like the HLT was full of corn flakes. You might think the thing is clean!

Screwy

 

[drsmurto]

I think the best aspect of the plate chiller - and I have made and used cfc, immersion and now use plate - is its size and low internal pressure that allows easy pumping.
Big downside is that it clogs at the drop of a hat when you use pellets - you have to have a way of keeping them from entering.
I am starting to think that a 1/2" cfc ( I had a 3/8" that my March pump couldn't push through with any reasonable flow and that's when I went to plate) would be best - circulating the wort back to the kettle for a whirlpool effect and quick drop below DMS precursor formation temps, before diverting to the fermenter oncer down to pitching temp.
As for water, using the frozen drink bottle / icecream containger circulation method described by others, using a cheap aquiarium 'sump pump" of decent head pressure capability and decent volume ( about $60 or even less) is a good solution.

In the past I cleaned my plate chiller using caustic solution after use then clean hot water to rinse. Tried PBW and holy shit, the stuff that came out of the plate chiller, PBW only now, followed by a flush out with tap water, used it last Fri and crap was still coming out after 3 washes with PBW, must have been quite a build up in there. A tip hook the plate chiller up to the tap and flush out the wort path, then swap direction for a back flush, I do this half a dozen times and with every swap of direction more crap. The first time I flushed out my pump and chiller by recirculating from the HLT so much stuff came out it looked like the HLT was full of corn flakes. You might think the thing is clean!

Screwy

Beerbelly hopscreen - works a treat. Keeps it all in the kettle. Never had it clog up yet and i use more pellets than plugs/flowers despite promises to myself that will change!

 

[remi]

beerbelly hopscreen for me also. immediate foward flush and then backflush via pump after wort passes through. then recirculate cleaning solution for 10-15min, then rinse with hot water until the output from the chiller stops feeling 'soapy'.

just did a double batch on the weekend (50L), so i have some water usage figures for you...chilled 50L to 25C or so with 22-23C tap water (forgot to get ice to pre-chill with my old immersion chiller). single pass only, it is amazing the different output temps you get with very minor changes in tap water/ wort flow. i have a thermometer on the chiller output.

total chilling water for the 50L batch was approx 120L...30-40L was used for backflushing/ forward flushing/ making up 10-15L of cleaning solution (oxyper in my case), and then rinsing clean after (this was for cleaning the whole brewery after brew day).

The remaining 80-90L or so went into a few 20L buckets/ old fermentors and gets used over the course of the week for household laundry.

remi

 

[Yorg]

Beerbelly hopscreen - works a treat. Keeps it all in the kettle. Never had it clog up yet and i use more pellets than plugs/flowers despite promises to myself that will change!

But do you use ONLY pellets with the Beerbelly hopscreen with a Plate chiller and its successful at keeping the Plate chille from blocking or slowing terribly?
If so, do you do anything else, such as whirlpool, before moving through the P chiller?

 

[BOG]

Remi,

How many plates in your plate chiller ? I've just placed an order for a 20 with BB, but was seriously considering paying the extra for a 30.

I also added the hop screen in the order based on comments here.


BOG

 

[remi]

mine's a 40-plate. i've no idea whether the number of plates bears a linear relationship to cooling ability- my guess would be no.
remi

 

[drsmurto]

But do you use ONLY pellets with the Beerbelly hopscreen with a Plate chiller and its successful at keeping the Plate chille from blocking or slowing terribly?
If so, do you do anything else, such as whirlpool, before moving through the P chiller?

Yes, i do a whirlpool and then walk away for 15-20mins. The i start to run it out of the kettle. Crystal clear!

I use plusg and flowers as well but i'd say half my batches would be 100% pellets.

Well..... until i bought a kg of styrian plugs.... :icon_drool2:

 

[Screwtop]

Beerbelly hopscreen - works a treat. Keeps it all in the kettle. Never had it clog up yet and i use more pellets than plugs/flowers despite promises to myself that will change!

Use a hopsock here, sinply talking about deposits left by the wort. Could probably wash out hop trub using water.