Cooling my Wort....need advice please

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ILOVEBEER

ILOVEBEER

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Hello.

As some of you are aware I am in the process of building a RIMS system. In my opinion the most important step (aside from being sanitary) is the cooling of the wort.

I have read the PROS and CONS of the imersion chiller, CFC and plate chillers.

I have been in email contact with dudadiesel.com These guys make plate chillers for biodiesel cooling. Several guys buy these for home breweries.

I can get a plate chiller with the same dimensions of a THERMINATOR for less than 1/2 the cost ($85.00)

I have a setup I bought from moreflavor that is constructed of SS. It has a 2" thermometer, .5 micron oxygen stone and barbed inlet and outlet. I could make an awesome bracket to house the oxygenator and the plate chiller since I am gearing my brewing rig rack to house everything I need in one place.

I have not decided what to do, but want some feedback from those that have used plate chillers and the results they have achieved over the other two methids of cooling the wort.

Thanks for your time.
Joe
 
I was seriously about to post a similar question, but thought (I'll use the search function...) and found this question.

I'm wondering about the same thing. I currently use a 25' immersion wort chiller, but it still takes like 20-30 minutes to cool my wort down to 65 degrees F.

So to answer the OP's question, IMO an immersion chiller takes too dang long.

I'm looking for something that I can pump wort through that will get me 65 degrees on the other side.
 
I really am leaning toward a plate chiller...I know people say it is hard to clean...but running hot water and santizer through it??? I dont know if it will be that much of a problem...IMO

Anyone else?
 
Can it chill to pitching temp in one pass? How fast can you get a whole batch through?

One argument I have heard against them, is that the flow is slow, and while you are doing this, the whole kettle sits at boiling temps, evaporating your aroma hops.

Never used one, just a question.
 
ILOVEBEER said:
Hello.

As some of you are aware I am in the process of building a RIMS system. In my opinion the most important step (aside from being sanitary) is the cooling of the wort.

I have read the PROS and CONS of the imersion chiller, CFC and plate chillers.

I have been in email contact with dudadiesel.com These guys make plate chillers for biodiesel cooling. Several guys buy these for home breweries.

I can get a plate chiller with the same dimensions of a THERMINATOR for less than 1/2 the cost ($85.00)

I have a setup I bought from moreflavor that is constructed of SS. It has a 2" thermometer, .5 micron oxygen stone and barbed inlet and outlet. I could make an awesome bracket to house the oxygenator and the plate chiller since I am gearing my brewing rig rack to house everything I need in one place.

I have not decided what to do, but want some feedback from those that have used plate chillers and the results they have achieved over the other two methids of cooling the wort.

Thanks for your time.
Joe
Click to expand...


Plate chillers are very efficient chillers but can be a nightmare if you are not careful about how you handle hops in your boil kettle. If there is little or no hop debris sent to your plate chiller, they are easy to clean and very efficent at chilling the wort. If you decide to go with a plate chiller I suggest you go with a setup like the one below.

hop%20filter.jpg


I would love to take credit for the device above because it works so well but alas Lil' Sparky came up with this one. I have found a better alternative to the paint strainer bags for Lil' Sparky's hop filter gadget. I use the 150 micron Polyester Multifiliment version of these:

Bags19a.JPG


http://www.filterbags.com/filter_bag_pricing.htm

The Polyester Multifiliment version is good to 300* F and you can load the heck out of them with pellet hops. Back in July I did some tests on the bags to see if they would restrict hop flavoring. I brewed a simple brown ale. I had enough grains to do a 10 gallon batch so I split the grains and brewed one 5 gallon batch on a Saturday without the a hop bag using an immersion chiller and on Sunday I brewed the other 5 gallon batch using the Polyester hop bag and a Shirron plate chiller. I used an equal amount of hops in each batch. When the beer was ready to drink (barely) I had my brother Gary do the taste test. Damn if he could tell a difference in hoppiness and neither could I. While this was not a perfectly controlled laboratory test. I told me what I needed to know. The cool thing was that I found no hop debris in Keggle when using the bag. The other neat thing is that you do not need a clamp when using the Polyester Multifiliment Bag as they have a molded top that is wider than the small piece of PVC pipe I used. They are washable also.
 
The Pol said:
Can it chill to pitching temp in one pass? How fast can you get a whole batch through?

One argument I have heard against them, is that the flow is slow, and while you are doing this, the whole kettle sits at boiling temps, evaporating your aroma hops.

Never used one, just a question.
Click to expand...

Pol, I don't know of any chiller available to a homebrewer that by itself can chill to pitching temperatures. If you you know of one, spit it out, because I would go for it in a heartbeat.
 
Sawdustguy said:
Pol, I don't know of any chiller available to a homebrewer that by itself can chill to pitching temperatures. If you you know of one, spit it out, because I would go for it in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...

No, I dont... I have never used one, just heard the argument that since you arent cooling he WHOLE kettle at once, you are leaving a large amount of wort near boiling temps and thusly affecting your hops. Could be a myth, but this is what I have heard.

I like that hop bag idea... but, it means Id have another piece of equipment and I tend to be a minimalist. Err, but I like it.
 
Plate chillers can cool to pitch temps in a single pass as long as the water temps are low enough. A large plate can flow 12G in about 15-20 mins. To keep aroma at its max, I recirc back to the kettle for about 10 min then switch to the fermenter. This helps drop the kettle temp enough so aroma isn't lost to vapor.
 
The Pol said:
No, I dont... I have never used one, just heard the argument that since you arent cooling he WHOLE kettle at once, you are leaving a large amount of wort near boiling temps and thusly affecting your hops. Could be a myth, but this is what I have heard.

I like that hop bag idea... but, it means Id have another piece of equipment and I tend to be a minimalist. Err, but I like it.
Click to expand...

Thanks Pol. I don't think it would be much different than "No Chill" would it? I know you have done a couple of "No Chill" batches.
 
Sawdustguy said:
Thanks Pol. I don't think it would be much different than "No Chill" would it? I know you have done a couple of "No Chill" batches.
Click to expand...

All of my beer since February has been no chill. Yes it would be similar, except I have a chart that I use to adjust my hop additions to compensate for this extended HOT time.
 
The Pol said:
All of my beer since February has been no chill. Yes it would be similar, except I have a chart that I use to adjust my hop additions to compensate for this extended HOT time.
Click to expand...

Soulds like a neat experiment for someone to try, using your hop chart when using a plate chiller.

Question for you. I have never done a "No Chill" batch. Does "No Chill" intensify the hoppiness or decrease the hoppiness?
 
My little shirron plate chiller will take my beer down to about 70 in one pass recirculating Ice water.
 
Part of me would be willing to chill my beer IF... IF I could accomplish it with 10 gallons (or less) of ice water.

I would place this water in my MLT after it was cleaned (during the boil) and recirculate it with my March pump... through something.

If I had a plate chiller and 10 gallons of ice water to recirc, what would happen?

I wouldnt mind having the option to chill... and I have $400 sitting around for brewing stuff and I am at a loss as to what to do with it.
 
Ive got a second march pump. I put about 20 pounds of ice in my MLT (for a five gallon batch), recirculate that at full speed, after a minute or so I start to pump the wort through, I run it at about .5 gallons per minute.
 
Orangevango said:
Ive got a second march pump. I put about 20 pounds of ice in my MLT (for a five gallon batch), recirculate that at full speed, after a minute or so I start to pump the wort through, I run it at about .5 gallons per minute.
Click to expand...

TO this end... I am intruiged. So in 10 minutes it would get 5 gallons to 70F?



Sawdust... no chill actually increases utilization. It is the outcome of extra time at high temps.

I have a 10 gallon MLT, ice is easy to make, I have a pump... I have no plate chiller to test this. Can you gravity flow through a plate chiller?
 
Hey sawdust....

I sent you a PM in regards to your control panel switches....where did you get the toggle switches and the safety covers?
 
Considering I plan to bag my hops...is this going to benefit me with a plate chiller?
 
What if.

I had a pump to circulate the 10 gallons of ice water in the plate chiller. Used another pump to recirculate wort through the chiller and whirlpool in the BK?

I have a thermocouple in the BK that would read the wort temp.
 
Pol that should work pretty well although I have misgivings about recirculating cooling water since it melts the ice so fast. Maybe start with 10G of ice water and instead of recircing, have a continual inflow of tap water into the ice bath and dispose of discharge water. This would keep the ice from melting as fast, provide better cooling of wort, and decrease cooling time. With a 5G batch I think your idea would work. When I used to use my https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/hell-earth-wort-chiller-73315/ it took every bit of 20 lbs of ice packed around a post chilling coil to get single pass cooling of 12G.
 
If you are going to recirculate your wort and your cooling water you could do that with and immersion chiller still. I have seen a design that causes the wort to whirlpool and is supposed to be very effective and has the side benefit of collecting all of the break and hop material together as it cools.
I don't know if it has the same effect after the boil but copper is supposed to help with sulfer compounds (I think sulfer). Though that may only be effective in the mash.

If you are planning to recirculate both your wort and cooling water I'd try it with the immersion chiller first and save the cost of the plate chiller if I didn't need it.
 
Immersion chillers are a pain in electric BKs... the element is in the way. I want the plate chiller, it is more eff.
 
I'm currently using a plain old IC, roughly 30-40 feet of 1/2 ID copper. It does a really good job of knocking the heat in my 6 gallon batches down to about 100*F very quickly (maybe 4 or 5 minutes). My plan, though, is to add a plate chiller on top of this (not to replace the IC altogether). My reasons are two fold: 1) the longer the bulk of the wort stays above 120, 130, 140, whatever, the bigger the chance for DMS, precursors, etc. to form in the wort. Getting the bulk of the wort down quickly should help alleviate this issue. My IC does a good job of this I think. 2) My IC, however, does NOT do a great job of getting the last 20 or 30 degrees out of the wort. This obviously has to do with the input water temperature, but I'm willing to try a plate chiller to try to speed this process up. If the tap water is about 70* on average, I'm hoping that the plate chiller will make faster work of those last 20-30 degrees than the IC does...

Not sure my plan will work as I predict, but I like to build stuff and I'm kind of a gadget freak, so I figure; "why not give it a shot?"... I was planning to get one of the Duda chillers too--the prices are right, and I can't see a big difference otherwise. I never thought of baking one of those to santize--I'm going to have to look into that...
 
Until recently I recirculated my boiling wort through a counter flow chiller back to the boil kettle with my old immersion chiller sitting in an ice bath cooling my well water down to the mid 40s. The whirlpool effect was not great, could have done better with a mash paddle, and it still took 20 minutes or so to cool to pitching temps.

In the future instead of using the IC as a prechiller I'm thinking of splitting my hose to feed both the CFC and the IC and running them at the same time. To increase the power of the whirlpool I may try to reduce the wort out on my CFC to increase the pressure.
 
Guys, Pol canot use an immersion chiller because he has an electric hot liquor tank. Understand?
Click to expand...

No offense, but this isn't the Pol's thread. The OP was asking for a discussion about the pro's and con's of the 3 chillers. I think that's what is going on.
 
What does my HLT have to do with using an immersion chiller????
 
my chiller is 30' 3/8" copper tube in a ice / salt water bath it cools to 75 to 80 degrees
it also eats 8 lbs of ice in about 15 minutes.Iit is gravity fed, i am thinking of an plate chiller or a counterflow chiller myself the old guy at my LHBS suggested using my current chiller as a pre chiller to the water flowing in to the chiller. good idea sure......... is it necessary ????
 
:off:
hahaha I don't mind...I am just trying to figure out if I should bother making a CFC with 3/8" tubing inside 5/8" heater hose or buy a plate chiller from dudadiesel.com and work it that way
 
ILOVEBEER said:
:off:
hahaha I don't mind...I am just trying to figure out if I should bother making a CFC with 3/8" tubing inside 5/8" heater hose or buy a plate chiller from dudadiesel.com and work it that way
Click to expand...

The meduim 30 plate chiller has more surface area than the Therminator, and both are MUCH more eff. than a counterflow from what I hear. Surface area is your friend, and plate chillers have a lot.

I am thinking of the 30 plate meduim plate chiller from Duda as well for my closed cooling system.
 
Oh cool so you have checked ou their site.....The 30 plate seems to be a good investment?
 
ILOVEBEER said:
Oh cool so you have checked ou their site.....The 30 plate seems to be a good investment?
Click to expand...

It has more surface area than the Therminator... I sent them an email because in the pull down, it sayes 1" NPT fittings, on the spec sheet it sayes 3/4".

I need to know which it is...
 
Cool let me know...You can always get some SS reducers and call it good. Thanks for your help
 
Here is the response from Duda...

The pull-down shows all that we have right now. We don't have anything with
NPt fittings as of right now. Maybe in 2 months or so.
 

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