Any thoughts on Plate chiller versus counterflow chillers?

I need to upgrade my wort chiller. I currently use my original 25' copper immersion chiller and its just not cutting it for 10 gallon batches.


My plan is to add a new plate or counterflow chiller and recirculate while I whirlpool/hop stand. I was going to keep my immersion chiller and put it in an ice bath to get my wort down to pitching temps.

I keep thinking that plate chillers will clog and counterflow chillers won't. Is clogging a real issue with plate chillers? For sanitizing - I plan on flushing it with hot water after brewing and then when I connect it for the next brew session.

I do like the idea of throwing the entire thing in the oven at 350 for an hour to sterilize it - if I have any cleaning problems or suspicions I can always do that.

For the counter flow - I was thinking of this one: http://www.williamsbrewing.com/Product.aspx?ProductId=3452&CategoryId=107&More=1

For the plate chiller: http://www.dudadiesel.com/choose_item.php?id=HX3620

I have a plate chiller and have been less than impressed with the results. I brew some seriously hoppy beers though (half a pound of hops or more per batch). Clogging is something I fight with every batch.

I have the very similar plate chiller to the one you linked.

Yes, clogging is an issue but using a hop bag in the BK solves most of that. For sanitizing pre-chilling I just recirculate boiling wort through it for the last 15 minutes or so of the boil. Sure does the trick.

Cleaning it is a bit of an issue. Back flushing it seems to go on for ever. I can back flush for a chunk of time and then come back an hour later for more back flushing and it seems there's more gunk in there.

All of that said, they do chill incredibly fast. With a good pump I was able to cool and transfer 18-20 gallons down to pitching temp in 10 minutes. I like that.

That's really dependent on your ground water temp. Keep that in mind.

Doesn't matter what type of chiller you use if you're like me and have 70F ground water. Still takes a bit.


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I use a similar plate chiller and I recently upgraded to the stage 3 false bottom from NorcalbrewingSolutions and have had zero issues, no clogging. I did use a hop spider, but was tired of having to clean it, which is very difficult. With the FB I just pull it out and hose it off a little and its good to go. With the ground water here in florida relatively warm, I have to use a sub-pump to pump my ground through and then when my wort reaches 78ish coming out of the chiller I add ice and recirculate with the ice through the chiller.Gets me down to around 65 into the fermentor.

As long as you stay on top of the cleaning (post brew), than you should have no issues with junk in the chiller next time.

I've got a Duda unit - and I whirlpool and havent clogged it yet.

I fill the chiller up with Starsan at the beginning of the brew day

I whirlpool without the plate chiller in the liquid circuit and let the kettle settle for 20 minutes.

I pump the kettle out and through the chiller, modulating the flow to get the desired outlet temperature.

To clean I pump Homemade PBW solution through the chiller in reverse at 180f for half an hour or so and then rinse out with boiling water and store.

atoughram said:

I've got a Duda unit - and I whirlpool and havent clogged it yet.

I fill the chiller up with Starsan at the beginning of the brew day

I whirlpool without the plate chiller in the liquid circuit and let the kettle settle for 20 minutes.

I pump the kettle out and through the chiller, modulating the flow to get the desired outlet temperature.

To clean I pump Homemade PBW solution through the chiller in reverse at 180f for half an hour or so and then rinse out with boiling water and store.

Click to expand...

I have a Duda also, and use it nearly the same way. It definitely works great
and I've never had it clog. the only downside is the cleaning, I run if for the last 15 minutes of the boil and and also run homemade PBW through it at the end.
So, if you like your immersion chiller maybe consider adding another 25' of copper to it. A little solder and a couple tubing size couplings and your GTG.

Another Duda user here, and I love my plate chiller. I've only had a couple very minor issues with clogging, but I take precautions.

I use a cylindrical 300-micron stainless steel "hop screen" to contain my hops during the boil, custom made by Arbor Fabrication (several posters on this site have had him make hop screens/spiders for them). Here's a picture:



In addition, I use a "Hop Stopper" on my outlet valve. This is designed to block hops, but in my case, since the hops are already contained in the hop screen, it only has to block break material (which it does quite effectively). If I skip the hop screen and throw the hops directly into the boil and just rely on the Hop Stopper, I find it clogs up. So I use both.

I recirculate through my plate chiller and back into the boil kettle until I reach pitching temperature, then siphon from the kettle into a carboy.

On two occurrences, I've had a very minor clog of my plate chiller that was easily resolved by simply stopping the pump momentarily, and then restarting it.

Before chilling, I sanitize the chiller by hooking everything up and simply pumping the wort through it (and back into the kettle) while it's still boiling, but without running any chilling water through it. Of course, this causes the boil to stop, so I only do it for a minute or two towards the end of the boil (usually with around 10 minutes to go), then I turn off the pump, bring the wort back to a boil (only takes a few seconds), and finish the boil. Then at flameout, everything's already hooked up and sanitized, so I just turn the pump back on, kill the flame, and open the faucet to start the flow of chilling water.

If your tap water is too warm (one poster above mentioned his is 70° F), then you can simply employ your existing copper immersion chiller as a "pre-chiller" for your chilling water. Connect it to your hose and set it in a camping cooler full of ice water, and have the output of that be the input to your plate chiller.

After brewing, I clean my plate chiller by reversing the inputs (so that the cleaning solutions flow in the opposite direction that the wort flowed) and run the following through it for 5 minutes each:

• Hot water
• Hot PBW/Oxyclean
• Cold water
• Star San
• Cold water

I've used it for dozens of batches and I love it. It's incredibly effective, chilling 5 gallons of boiling hot wort down to 65° F in between 3-5 minutes.

For brewing lagers, I use tap water to chill it down below 100° F, then I switch the chilling circuit to a second pump hooked up to a camping cooler of ice water to chill it down the rest of the way. This gets my wort down to 45-50° F.

Thanks everyone for the responses. It seems that most don't have any or many clogging problems with a plate chiller. I use a home made hop spider or hop bags - depending on how many additions I have to make so there isn't much hop material to worry about.

So far, no one has any experience with the counterflow chiller. It seems that it would be very difficult to ever have a clogging problem on the counterflow chiller. It is really a matter of time to chill - if the plate chiller and counterflow both chill at the same rate, I would be inclined to opt for the counter flow.

Any idea if the time to chill 10-11 gallons would be substantially better with a plate chiller versus the convoluted counterflow?

I may be a bit biased as I saw one of these counterflow chillers in action at a larger nano brewery where they used the morebeer version of it to chill a 3.5bbl system. They had to play with tap water versus chilled water and they had a system to recapture the water after use. They also don't use any sort of hop strainer - they just dump lots of hops directly into the kettle.

i have a duda plate chiller, a false bottom from norcal and have zero issues with clogging even though i usually use 5-8 oz of hops in each 5 gallon batch.

I'll give the opposing product an endorsement. I run a convoluted CFC from Morebeer. I recirculate and whirlpool through it. No hop bags, spiders, or blockers. Absolutely no clogging issues and it chills quickly.

dcbc said:

I'll give the opposing product an endorsement. I run a convoluted CFC from Morebeer. I recirculate and whirlpool through it. No hop bags, spiders, or blockers. Absolutely no clogging issues and it chills quickly.

Click to expand...

I'd be very interested in hearing some details if you don't mind...

What kind of performance do you get out of it? What batch size do you usually brew? How long to chill to what temp with what ground water temp?

Patirck said:

I'd be very interested in hearing some details if you don't mind...

What kind of performance do you get out of it? What batch size do you usually brew? How long to chill to what temp with what ground water temp?

Click to expand...

By the time I get to whirlpool, I probably have 12 gallons in the BK. With summer groundwater in Texas (guessing 75 degrees F), I can get it down from boiling to between 90--100 degrees F in what I estimate is around 20. I have left it running longer and gotten down to 80. I'm usually cleaning and am not worried so much about time to chill. I'm running the pump at a pretty high speed at that point.

After I let the trub pile settle for about 20 minutes, I run off very slowly through the CFC into a 15 gallon corny that has been in the chest freezer at 34 degrees. On my last batch, the wort in the chilled fermenter was 74 degrees at the end of run-off (or that's what the probe taped to the side read.

I'll let the chest freezer take it down the rest of the way and pitch when it's at the right temp.

I have pumped ice water in a loop through chillers before, but dealing with ice, coolers, and pond pumps is a hassle to me (I'm sick of the process at that point in the brew day). But it works great. I think I took an 11 gallon batch down to 36 degrees F using a WIC. It was a bopils. Pitched at 39 and let it free rise to 45. Turned out great.

Sorry I know this is slightly old but just curious, how much hops are we talking? I usually use about 10-12 oz per 5 gal batch.

I have the same chiller from Morebeer and fully support it. Way better than my plate chiller. I have been afraid to whirlpool through it though.

Had a disastrous clog with my plate chiller that I don't want a repeat of.


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