shirron plate chiller vs. ebay plate chiller

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I have a chiller from Duda, used it twice so far and very happy with it. Don't think the Shirron is any different but have no experience with it.
 
A plate chiller, is a plate chiller, is a plate chiller. There really is no difference other than the amount of plates and efficiency. You have to take great care to eliminate hop debris with all of them or they will surely clog.
 
Is the trouble with clogs really worth it?

It's really easy to prevent with a hop filter. There are lots of different types of hop filters. CFC's can clog also. You will never get something for nothing. Everything is a trade-off. IMHO Plate Chillers are the most efficient at chilling wort.
 
Not sure where I read it, but there's a guy that puts his in the oven on "self clean mode" for an hour or so. It reduces any hop particles left in there to ash and then he just flushes it out.
 
I run Acid #5 through mine every couple of runs. Lots of folks do bake theirs for cleaning. IIRC, the Therminator used to include instructions for doing that but, not any more. Not sure why.

here's some perspective;

3983088442_3b31c83de3_o.jpg


that said, I am thrilled with my Therminator! and I ran a shirron for nearly 2 years prior to stepping up to more plates. I should have kept my shirron to rig as a pre-chiller. Doh!
 
baking it sounds like an interesting idea. they say its brazed together and copper braze melts at like 1400 degrees, your over on self clean gets to maybee 800 or 900 degrees. thats seems like it could possibly work.
 
Ha, no need to preface a fact as your opinion. ;)

OP, the 30 plate model is equivalent in volume and surface area to the blichmann therminator, for less than half the price. :)


on that model, it says theirs 3/4" npt (which i familiar with) and 3/8" sweat fitting. what the hell is a sweat fitting? does that mean it needs to be welded?
 
on that model, it says theirs 3/4" npt (which i familiar with) and 3/8" sweat fitting. what the hell is a sweat fitting? does that mean it needs to be welded?

a sweat fitting is a term for a soldered connection. No threads on it.
 
I'm just going to ask this:

Why four holes? Is the cold water going inside the chiller? I thought you immersed the plate.
 
I have about a hundred batches on my therminator... Obviously I love the dang thing!

It lives in three places and three places only.

When not in use, I take it straight off of Brutus, flush it with my 10 gals of ice water from the HLT used from cooling, drain it for a small bit and put it straight into a sub friggin cold deep freezer to freeze solid until next brew day.

Right before a brew I thaw it out, I flush it with hose water and let it sit in a bucket of StarSan for an hour or so until I need it for chilling...

That's it really. About every four batches or so, or once a month I will bake it in the oven at 500 for an hour for safe measure.

This thing has had a hell of a life. Like I say, about a hundred batches from me alone, and I got it well used from an avid brewer friend of mine that had to get out of the hobby!

As for the hops, I use bags myself along with my full false bottom... Old habits I guess! :)
 
I have used the 30 plate version about 12 times now. It is fantastic.

I use Bobby_M's hop filter that I built. It is probably one of the absolute best additions to my system. I just brewed a 12 gallon batch on Saturday with 9oz of hops in the boil. Pellet hops, added directly to the boil. I would say that less than 1% of the solids in the kettle made it to the fermenter. It is AMAZING. I used to have some clogging issues with my plate chiller. No longer. In fact, when back flushing it, I did not see any solids coming out. Previously there was a ton. I now consider the filter nothing short of essential on brew day. I was using a false bottom previously.
DIY Hop Filter by Bobby_M

Other notes:
1. To prepare the chiller, I place it in an extra pot full of water and boil it on brew day. Super easy, fast, and 100% effective.
2. To clean it, I just put the hose up to the port and flush it out. Reverse a couple of times, then hang from the edge of a bucket to dry.
3. When using it, I make sure to run boiling wort though it for a minute or so before turning on the garden hose water adding an extra sanitation step.

Flowing at full steam with 70F garden hose water, the chiller brings the wort down to 80-85F as fast as I can pump it out of the kettle.

12+ brews though it with no issues.
 
I'm just going to ask this:

Why four holes? Is the cold water going inside the chiller? I thought you immersed the plate.

Cold water runs through on side of a plate while the wort runs on the other side giving a large area of contact. Immersing the plate would do next to nothing IMO.

I have 1/2" npt 30 plate chiller. My QD's for wort are on one side and I found some nice brass 1/2" to garden hose connectors at an industrial supply house for fluid supplies.
 
I just purchased the Shirron plate chiller from morebeer, looking forward to longer using the pain-in-the-rear immersion chiller.

Those with a Shirron, have you found that it gravity flows just fine?
 
I would highly recommend a pump but it worth a try. I have always used my Shirron Chiller with a pump. Its cool to watch the cold water flowing into the chiller some out steaming hot. Very cool things, these plate chillers. I recommend using Lil' Sparky's paint strainer hop bag as a hop filter with the chiller.
 
I have a Therminator and I run an ice-water slurry through it with a March pump while gravity feeds the wort through.

Filtering is a VERY smart idea.

When I am not using it, I keep it full of Saniclean at around 200PPM (at and below that is no-rinse) and before usage, backflush Star-San. Never a problem.

I've thought about using an oven for sterilizing it, but one thing concerns me is that different metals expand and cool at different rates, and it seems like baking a Terminator at very high temps would lead towards problems. YMMV, of course.
 
I would highly recommend a pump but it worth a try. I have always used my Shirron Chiller with a pump. Its cool to watch the cold water flowing into the chiller some out steaming hot. Very cool things, these plate chillers. I recommend using Lil' Sparky's paint strainer hop bag as a hop filter with the chiller.

unfortunately, I don't have a pump right now, so I'm going to give it a run with gravity. I use a stainless steel scrubby on the dip tub and put whole hops in muslin bags, so I should be fine for minimizing clogging.
 
I have one of the ebay variety, my method of sanitizing is similar to what i did with an immersion chiller. with about 15 minutes left in the boil, i have chiller hooked up to the pump with the wort out feeding back to the boil kettle. i then let the boiling wort flow through at a low flow for about 15 minutes to sanitize the system.

the nice thing about this method is the only thing to sanitize with starsan solution is the fermenter
 
Just as an update. I did purchase the shirron chiller and it gravity feeds just fine. I've never chilled wort so fast with so little hassle. Buy one of these or a therminator NOW! You won't regret it....
 
Hmm my shirron seems a bit slow. We're talking 7-10 to fill 5 gallon fermenters with a pump. Just tossed it in the oven on clean cycle. Will see how it does next brew day.
 
I'm getting 10 gallons chilled to under 70 in about 10 minutes or so using syphon only. It's possible yours is a little clogged; the oven treatment should help.
 
When not in use, I take it straight off of Brutus, flush it with my 10 gals of ice water from the HLT used from cooling, drain it for a small bit and put it straight into a sub friggin cold deep freezer to freeze solid until next brew day.

Right before a brew I thaw it out, I flush it with hose water and let it sit in a bucket of StarSan for an hour or so until I need it for chilling...
You put it in the freezer to keep anything from growing in there I presume? Haven't heard of anyone doing that but it makes sense i suppose.
 
I've got a Shirron plate chiller, and about to buy a Duda Diesel one to replace it. Why? The Shirron has FAR fewer channels than either the therminator or the Duda Diesel one, so it plugs a lot more easily. I've got a friend with a therminator and he gets much better flow and less plugging. Of course... any plate chiller will plug if you don't filter your hops somehow.

I clean mine by running hot water with oxyclean through the wort side in both directions, then flush with clean water and let it drain/dry. I sanitize by running boiling wort through it for last 10 minutes of the boil. I also use a large hop bag for my hops.

To the person who suggests freezing your plate chiller, I discourage this. In fact the Shirron has a printed warning NOT to freeze it. Freezing and thawing puts incredible stress on the welds and channels. If you doubt this just look what happens to solid granite when water gets in and freezes during the winter. Probably a quick way to ruin your plate chiller.
 
Hey guys, I know I'm late to the party, but I've been in the market for a plate chiller. I found about 3 when I did an e-bay search for "plate chiller." But if you use "plate heat exchanger" then you'll get about 300 hits. I'm buying a 10 plate chiller right now for $40 with 1/2" MPT. That's about half price from everything in the LHBS. Hope it helps someone. Cheers:tank:
 
I have the Shirron plate chiller, but have purchased the Duda Diesel 30-plate chiller and can't wait to use it. I upgraded the size because I just purchased a chugger pump and just wanted more chilling capacity.

I was a little disappointed when I opened the box for the Duda Diesel chiller and it had a big ole "Made In China" sticker on it. I guess that's why they are much cheaper than the rest, but probably work just as well non the less.
 
For my education, on that Duda Diesel picture, could you use it just as it is oriented in the photo? I am guessing water goes in the right side connectors, and wort on the left.

I'm using only gravity, so I would just slide a tube from my boil kettle on the top left connector, and send cooled wort out the bottom left connector with another slide-on tube. Is that how it works?

Thanks for the info.


P.S. Were those fittings on the left side added after purchase, or did it come that way?
 
I have the same setup as Moose777 and those connectors are add-ons. And yes it can be used as shown in the picture; that's exactly how mine is mounted.

And by the way, with my 30-plate chiller and cold tap water (which is much colder this time of year) it was dropping my boiling wort down into the 50's so I had to speed up the flow a few times to raise the temperatures. Not a bad problem to have.
 
I'm in Southern California so while my water was cold I'm sure it was nowhere near as cold on yours.
I closed off the valve from the brewpot to restrict the wort flow about 50% and I measured it coming out of the chiller at 72 right into my BetterBottle fermenter.
Bubbling away now on the Denny's Favorite WYeast---Waldo Lake Amber all grain from Northern Brewer
 
I'm about to buy the 40-plate duda-diesel (http://www.dudadiesel.com/choose_item.php?id=HX1240BWGHF) and have been reading through all the threads. I'm going to use it gravity-fed for a while until I can get a pump. Right now it's winter in New England. My water is in the 50's. What is the trick to getting a desired final temperature, short of having a thermometer in line with the output? I was thinking of simply starting out with the kettle output as slow as possible, holding a thermometer in the fermenter, and opening the ball valvle as needed/if needed.

I also plan to heed the warnings regarding hop particulates. Thing is, I gave up using paint strainer bags a while ago because I don't like how the hops at the center of a ball of hops inside a bag aren't exposed to the rigors of the boil (that's for another thread). Anywho - what do people think is the next best thing? Bobby_M's hop screen?
 
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