Advice on water in/out on Duda Diesel plate chiller

Hey gents. I'm going from an immersion chiller to a plate chiller, along with a pump and camlock fittings. This is all new to me. I just ordered a bunch of camlock fittings from Bobby. I also have a 20 plate duda diesel plate chiller coming. I need help with the water side. The chiller I bought has 3/4" male NPT fittings for both the in and out.

I'd like to have the water input be a quick disconnect from my hose, as well as have a flow control valve so I can throttle the flow of water according to the wort temp. Anything like that exists?

As far as the water out, what kind of fitting should I put on the 3/4" NPT? I'll be collecting the water out into buckets for cleanup, watering the garden and washing cars.

Any help is appreciated as I want to do a trial run next week Wed/Thur and brew next Friday.

Cheers Justin

I'd be interested to see if you get recommendations for placing a water flow control on the intake or output. I'm sure you can rig up a ball valve to control the flow.

Are you planning on using the old immersion chiller to pre-chill your water?

I was planning on selling the prechiller/immersion chiller to offset some cost. I should rig up the smaller prechiller to the hose then go to the plate chiller? My hose/city water is 64*F as it is though. I'd like to not do a full ball valve but maybe a cheaper plastic hose valve if anything like that exists, into a hose quick disconnect but I have no idea how to piece this together.

I want to set something up just like this but confused on what the parts are. Is this a duda diesel chiller with the garden hose for the inlet and what is on the outlet, where can I buy that? TIA - Justin

With 64°F domestic water you can chill your wort down to a few degrees above that. There's really no need to pre-chill if that's your target temp. With my 30-plate Duda Diesel plate chiller (short model) I can cool down 5.5 gallons of wort to domestic water temps within 10-15 minutes, at full bore in the beginning, tapering the flow off toward the end. Faster in the winter. With a pre-chiller (coil) you can save some water at the expense of ice. It also allows you to bring your wort down to lower temps than your water supply's.

Our domestic water is about 75° at this time of the year. Last night I put my plate chiller in a small tub with water, ice, and ice packs, and kept pouring the ice cold water down the chiller's water inlet (both water hoses disconnected). About half an hour later my wort was down to 62°F from 80°F. You may want to hang on to your chiller coil just for that purpose.

Some people use a cheap second pump to recirculate ice water to bring their wort down the last 10-20 degrees. Again, all depending on your water supply's temps.

Outlet in the photo is a stainless T with a QD on one out port and thermometer on the other out port. Not sure how they rigged the thermometer tho.

Thanks guys. Ports in question I have is how to rig the water side of that chiller.

For the water side, you can get hose fittings at Walmart or Lowes, etc. Get two sets of quick disconnects and an inline ball valve (with garden hose thread). These are all in the garden hose aisle.

I got my plate chiller with 1/2" thread on all the connections and put camlocks on everything. That way I can just move the water over to the wort side to flush it.
Ideally, you'd throttle everything as it comes OUT of the chiller. You want to make sure that the chiller is completely full of water and wort or you lose efficiency.

mpcluever said:

I got my plate chiller with 1/2" thread on all the connections and put camlocks on everything. That way I can just move the water over to the wort side to flush it....

Click to expand...

My Duda plate chiller also has male NPT on all ports. I really like that configuration with 1/2" camlocks on all. And as you said, easy to back wash with the water supply hose.

mpcluever said:

Ideally, you'd throttle everything as it comes OUT of the chiller. You want to make sure that the chiller is completely full of water and wort or you lose efficiency.

Click to expand...

I prefer the flow valve on the exit port of the pump. But either should work. Previously I had a feedback loop, to prevent pump cavitation. The feedback valve was on the exit port of the chiller, but recently I reconfigured that whole setup, and just use the flow control valve on the pump, and like it much better.

It's amazing how you can chill 5.5 gallons of wort close to water supply temps in 10 minutes flat, full 1/2" bore.

Me again! I have it all pieced together, but the quick disconnect I got for the water in side, there both outside thread pieces. I have an older hose, can I get an adapter for my hose to get this to work?

for the price of an adapter you could probally just buy a FMGHT QD