Plate Chillers

I'm thinking of trading in the immersion chiller for a plate chiller. Right now it's between the 40 plate cowboy chiller and the Shirron chiller any thoughts or recommendations. This will be gravity feed for the time being.

I highly recommend it. I have a long 20 plate from DudaDiesel and love it. I gravity feed 10 gallon batches and go from boiling to ~60*f in 10-15 minutes. Speed is highly dependent on your ground water temperature however. Have used it for about 10 batches without any issues.

RoundKid said:

I highly recommend it. I have a long 20 plate from DudaDiesel and love it. I gravity feed 10 gallon batches and go from boiling to ~60*f in 10-15 minutes. Speed is highly dependent on your ground water temperature however. Have used it for about 10 batches without any issues.

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How high is your gravity feed?

I have done it from 2ft, but 3ft worked way better. I just bought this: http://amzn.com/B0002APT4A for less than $10 and made my own wort wizard.

I have used it one time and with it could probably suck the wort out of the kettle from ground level. I am not sure I will ever need to buy a pump.

With a plate chiller you do need to prevent/control lots of hop matter going into it. Use whirlpooling, a pickup tube, hop basket, or false bottom, etc. to keep hops in the kettle.

I know a braid doesn't work, it plugs up in no time. Bazooka tubes (using wider mesh) let the finer material go through until they too clog up eventually.

I use a 20-plate chiller from Duda Diesel. Great product. Make sure to get the right port outlet configuration that works best with your setup. Keep QDs and Camlocks you (will) use in mind.

For most plate chillers to work as fast as they can, you will need a pump of some sort. You can cool down 5 gallons to pitching temps in 5-10 minutes or less.

I have a Duda Diesel plate chiller too. I use a nylon bag for my pellet hops and have a sort of false bottom in my keggle with 3/32 holes that collets all the full leaf hops I use. I between the two of these I never have a problem with the plate chiller getting clogged. I push my wort with a march pump and have my faucet on almost full. With my well in the hills of NH I can't push the wort through fast enough to keep up with the heat transfer. I capture a little of the hot water to help use to clean the equipment, which ran through the wort side of the chiller as soon as I'm able keeps it clean too