Going to get a plate chiller

[pist]

Hey all,

After brewing at a local craft brewery over the weekend, and increasingly becoming disappointed with the repeatability of my ipas and pales, i think it's time i reserved my no chill cubes for regular house brews, and just focus on knocking out single batch ipas and pales and start using a plate chiller. Ive decided to go a plate chiller as an immersion or counterflow isnt going to cut it on my double batch system. Need to know what i need to get up and running with the following in mind.

Tossing up between a 30 plate and a 40 plate. The chiller needs to be capable of running on up to 70 litre batches should i change my mind about only doing hoppy beers as singles

Most definitely want quick disconnects to make connections quick and easy for backflushing it

Inline thermometer would be handy to keep an eye on temp going through to fermenter. How do i plumb this in?

Anything else i need to take into account? Already have 2x 1m lengths of silicone hose. Im running a brown pump at the moment but will upgrade to a kaixin when it dies.

 

[MastersBrewery]

I would only go a plate chiller if I already had my kettle sorted for whirlpool and filtered pickup( like the blichman setup ) trub and hop material will block a plate chiller lickety split. And to whirlpool effectively you will need that new pump.

 

[user 35653]

I've got one of the 'commonly available Mk3' 30 plates. It's very good.

1. I'd be looking at the new pump along with the plate chiller - as suggested above
2. Depending on what you get, they usually come with a 'Barb' on the end - I've used a piece of silicone to connect the QD's male side to the Barb's male side
3. You'll also want a valve to control/limit the flow through the plate filler of the Wort as Summer(28c)/Winter(8c) water temps can be drastically different
4. For an inline Temp gauge you can use pre-made setup (google for this) or you can use a T-piece and integrate it into the 'out' side of the chiller and then screw a short probed temp gauge into this
5. There's also rubber attachments for a garden hose you can get from the usual suspects for about $10, they easily screw onto the water sided barb and make for easy disconnection
6. You haven't mentioned sanitisation, I soak the 'Wort' side of the chiller with Starsan for at least an hour before required (time it with the firing of the kettle usually), and when needed tip it upside down and run off the first 2-300ml of Wort that comes out of it
6. In terms of cleaning up, I connect my hose to the wort side and run it for about 30 seconds at full power on both the 'In' and 'Out', this removes the majority of hop debris that wasn't cleaned up by whirl pooling or I I stuffed up and didn't pay attention to how low the level in the kettle was

 

[Mardoo]

Have a look at the Duda Diesel website. A ton of information about how plate chiller design relates to cooling needs. There's also this great chart from them which lays it out simply, albeit with their products.

 

[Truman42]

i have 2 QD males on each end of my plate chiller. I use a T piece with a QD female in one end and a dial gauge temp probe in the other to monitor temperature.

I dont use a pump at all with my chiller. i whirlpool with a spoon wait ten minutes then open the valve on the kettle slightly and it gravity feeds through the chiller and up into the fermenter. i adjust the temp by either closing up the valve on the kettle and/or increasing water flow.

To clean it out I connect my tap up to the wort flow side in reverse and wash out my boil kettle and hoses etc while water is running through the chiller at full flow. (I have awesome water pressure which tends to get rid of a lot of shit particles)

Then i just hang it to dry.

On brew day once I start the boil I put some starsan in my HLT which still has about 12 litres of water in it at sparge temps. I crank it up to about 95C and recirculate through the plate chiller for a good 20 minutes each way. (Swapping the connections over so the water flows the other way)
I put a hop sock over the outlet with a rubber band to catch any small hop particles that come out of the chiller and they always do. This cleans my chiller and my march pump and sometimes I also connect the herms coil inline and give that a clean too.

At end of boil I drain the chiller and connect it up ready to go. My chiller and all my hoses I use for transfer have had 95C starsan through them for the last 40-60 minutes so nice and sanitised.

Plate chillers can be a pain with how hop debris can get caught inside them but Im confident my method cleans it out thoroughly.

 

[droid]

not sure if i'd go the plate chiller route again, i get the feeling that it never gets 100% clean but it gets a blast of boiling water put through it and then star-sanned till time to work where the first 250ml of runnings is discarded

i still just have barbs and slide the hose on and secure with hose clamps

sterilize the probe of a temperature controller and place it in the receiving vessel

re-route the water to the HLT through drinking hose for the next brew

 

[Howlingdog]

I use all of the above methods duri g the brewday, then every three brews I put it in the oven @ 160 deg.C for 30mins then let it cool before storing till next brewday.

 

[AJS2154]

I use all of the above methods duri g the brewday, then every three brews I put it in the oven @ 160 deg.C for 30mins then let it cool before storing till next brewday.

i second that method. I also put my plate chiller in the oven......I keep clean water in it until baked dinner night and then I put it in the oven when boss girl kicks off the roast. I leave it in there for about 40 minutes before I fish it out, wrap aluminium around all the posts and then put it back in for around another 30 minutes or so. The foil stays on the chiller posts until next brew day which effectively prevents contamination.

I don't have so many concerns with infections with this method, but I find them the plate chiller a hassle. I wish I could pull it apart and clean it in PBW......strangely enough I have been considering using no chill with my corny kegs occasionally just to avoid the plate chiller clean up routine, which is by far the worst part of a brew day for me. Too tedious.

Funny, we are looking to swap methods. See you, Anthony

 

[Goose]

Inline thermometer would be handy to keep an eye on temp going through to fermenter. How do i plumb this in?