Heat Exchanger

[elmondo]

Hi all.I recently purchased a chillout mk3 30 plate heat exchanger and was quite disappointed by the performance.I had tap water at 8 to 10 degrees hosing through it. My wort was running through it very slowly and it was still very hot to touch once it came out.Have I got a faulty one or is is consistent with most peoples experiences?I had to run it through in small batches, waiting for it to cool down before recommending flow.
Feed back appreciated.

 

[QldKev]

Hi all.I recently purchased a chillout mk3 30 plate heat exchanger and was quite disappointed by the performance.I had tap water at 8 to 10 degrees hosing through it. My wort was running through it very slowly and it was still very hot to touch once it came out.Have I got a faulty one or is is consistent with most peoples experiences?I had to run it through in small batches, waiting for it to cool down before recommending flow.
Feed back appreciated.

How did you have it hooked up? You have one of the best units available, and I've never heard of a bad one.

 

[razz]

Welcome to the forums elmondo. Sounds to me like you had the flows running the same way, instead of opposite directions. Easy to do first time around.

 

[elmondo]

Welcome to the forums elmondo. Sounds to me like you had the flows running the same way, instead of opposite directions. Easy to do first time around.

Thanks for your reply.I just followed the signs on the device. They are clearly marked water in/ out and wort in/ out.Good thought though.

 

[fcmcg]

Hi all.I recently purchased a chillout mk3 30 plate heat exchanger and was quite disappointed by the performance.I had tap water at 8 to 10 degrees hosing through it. My wort was running through it very slowly and it was still very hot to touch once it came out.Have I got a faulty one or is is consistent with most peoples experiences?I had to run it through in small batches, waiting for it to cool down before recommending flow.
Feed back appreciated.

I have another brand of plate chiller and have never had a problem with it....
In fact , during a Melbourne winter , it's brilliant , in so far as i can have the water flowing quite slowly and still get wort down to 18 degrees....
You state your wort was flowing slowly , what was your cold water flow like ?
F

 

[sim]

Do you know more specific flow rates, whether the flow of the wort was slower than the flow of the water?

 

[labels]

You can reduce the flow of the wort to a trickle while keeping the cooling side running with high flow tap water, that would help a lot.

If you have a pump (March pump) you can recirculate the wort back to the kettle until it drops to below 50C (40C is better). You can also use this recirculated wort to set up a whirlpool at the same time. Then switch to filling the fermenter. This what I do and it is very successful at cooling and keeping trub out the fermenter.

 

[elmondo]

I have another brand of plate chiller and have never had a problem with it....
In fact , during a Melbourne winter , it's brilliant , in so far as i can have the water flowing quite slowly and still get wort down to 18 degrees....
You state your wort was flowing slowly , what was your cold water flow like ?
F

Thanks for reply.I had the garden hose attached to it at full flow.My wort was flowing at a slow trickle. At a guess 100 mL per minute.

 

[QldKev]

Thanks for reply.I had the garden hose attached to it at full flow.My wort was flowing at a slow trickle. At a guess 100 mL per minute.

so it took you about 4 hours to dump your 23L??

 

[Wolfy]

Last night I chilled 23L (in about 10mins) to about 14degC with a similar 30 plate chiller, so you're doing something wrong.
I think it would be hard to get a faulty unit, which means that you need to change what you are doing.

If you are sure the hoses are connected the right way (water in should be next to the wort out), also ensure that the chiller is purge of air - especially if you are getting such low flow - other than that I thought they were easy to use.

 

[elmondo]

so it took you about 4 hours to dump your 23L??

Not quite.I accepted a higher temperature and ended up sitting it in the pool for a couple of hours. That worked!

 

[matho]

I don't own a plate chiller but from the mash master web site it states that the chillout 30 plate has 14 wort paths which I would assume that means the paths are parallel, if you get an air lock in a number of paths then the chiller performance would be greatly reduced. The setup instructions are a bit cryptic

HOW TO SETUP

Mount the ChillOut vertically with the writing on the name plate facing up. For pump and gravity setup to avoid air being trapped in the water flow it is suggested that water out be raised above the height of the water in flow.

try and make sure that all the air is out of the chiller and see if that improves the performance.

cheers steve

 

[robbo5253]

What was your height difference between the vessels the wort was going between? This could play a part in the flow speed.
Cheers
Robbo