How do you do a 170 Degree WP with a plate or counter flow chiller?

[Hwk-I-St8]

I was thinking about my brew process and how it would scale up last night. For a NEIPA I typically drop a load of hops at FO and chill to 170, then add more hops and whirlpool for 30 mins. This works well for me because I use an immersion chiller. FO to 170 is about 5 minutes or less and I can hold at 170 (+/- a couple degrees) quite easily.

This got me thinking about how this would be done at a commercial scale where an immersion chiller isn't really an option (as far as I know). My understanding is that a commercial brewery typically uses something like a place chiller in line and chills the wort on the path to the fermenter. If this is the case, how could a process like mine with FO and WP hop additions be done in that environment?

 

[Upthewazzu]

You'd need a hop sack in the kettle or you'd plug the plate chiller. I use one regardless of whether I'm us the PC or the IC.

It's my understanding that commercial breweries use an inline hopback like this: https://conical-fermenter.com/Hop-Backs/. I'm not sure what their process is for keeping the plate chiller clear of hops. My assumption is that the commercial sized chillers have bigger openings and thus won't get clogged as easily.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

You'd need a hop sack in the kettle or you'd plug the plate chiller. I use one regardless of whether I'm us the PC or the IC.

It's my understanding that commercial breweries use an inline hopback like this: https://conical-fermenter.com/Hop-Backs/. I'm not sure what their process is for keeping the plate chiller clear of hops. My assumption is that the commercial sized chillers have bigger openings and thus won't get clogged as easily.

I wan't so much concerned about clogging up the plate or counter flow chiller, more about having a 30 minute window with the hops in the kettle at say 170 degrees. If you chill en route to the fermentor, you never have the partially chilled window in the kettle to do a whirlpool.

The only idea I had was to have the chiller in the loop for the whirlpool with the chilling water flow turned way down such that it only chilled to the 170 mark and was returned to the kettle or just run full bore until the kettle temp reaches 170. Then it's removed from the loop for the whirlpool, and re-connected for transfer to the fermenter.

 

[Upthewazzu]

Yes, you'd need to recirculate back into the kettle, not into the fermenter. Obviously, this would require a pump as well as two valves on your kettle (one out and one in), with a whirlpool attachment like this. That's the way I do it, along with some high temp silicon hoses and stainless quick disconnects.

I use this in conjunction with a sump pump to recirculate the cold water through the plate chiller in a closed loop, cooled inline by the IC submerged is a bucket of ice water. Once you hit your desired whirlpool temp, just turn off the water and let the wort recirculate for however long.

 

[brick_haus]

+1 ^^^
I cool it to 170* while recirculating. Then I simply turn off the cooling water to the PC and continue recirculating. When my WP time is up, I just turn the cooling water back on.

 

[liljohn]

Some commercial breweries have a whirlpool kettle which is designed for this purpose.