So i use an IC now. And am thinking of upgrading to a plate chiller (sharron or thermonator type) with a march pump. Got a dumb question. When you are pumping through a plate chiller to you have to recirculate back into the kettle? Or is one pass through the chiller enough to bring it down to pitching temps?
Depends, mostly on your groundwater temps. I have a 40-plate chiller, and I usually recirculate (running my pump at full bore) for six or seven minutes, until I figure basically the whole volume of wort has passed through the chiller once. Other people, I know can go direct from boil kettle to fermenter (they must have colder groundwater or a prechiller, and must throttle down the flow).
I like doing it my way because I know that all of the wort is below DMS-temps within ~5 minutes, and I'm still in the fermenter at pitching temps within about 15.
So i use an IC now. And am thinking of upgrading to a plate chiller (sharron or thermonator type) with a march pump. Got a dumb question. When you are pumping through a plate chiller to you have to recirculate back into the kettle? Or is one pass through the chiller enough to bring it down to pitching temps?
Thanks!
It depends on how cold your tap water is! You can do it in one pass if you throttle down the speed of the wort, as chilling relies on the temperature differential.
I can do it in one pass, but I usually recirculate for a bit because I add a lot of late addition hops (I make a lot of IPAs and APAs) and the wort stays pretty warm during the recirculation, but not hot!
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Ok thanks for the replies guys. One more dumb followup question.
When you go from recirculating back into the kettle and transition to the fermentor, how do you stop the flow through the pump so you can take your tubing out of the kettle and stick it in your fermentor?
1. do you leave the pump running and stop the flow at the kettle ball valve?
or
2. Do you have a ball valve on the output side of the pump and shut off the flow there and leave the pump motor running?
or
3. Or do you shutoff the pump motor?
or
4. It doesn't really matter, why are you asking?
yeah as long as the pump head is full i don't believe you'll damage the pump..
its always good to run the boiling wort through the chiller for the last 5-10 min just to sanitize the inside of the chiller and tubing as well.. that being said, the groundwater and the size of your chiller will depend if you need to recirc anymore.. check out dudadiesel, they have great prices and with the one i have one pass is more than adequate to pump straight into the carboy
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