badhabit

Recipes 

I am starting design work on what I think will be a single tier, direct fired RIMS. I am thinking about using a plate chiller in the new build and I came up with a question that I have been unable to find an answer for. What happens to cold break material if you use the plate chiller? Do you need to move to a pot to whirpool and sit after cooling but before nmoving to the fermenter? I always use a bag for my hops durring the boil so I have very little material that needs to be held out of the fermenter to start with.

bmick

Recipes 

When you use a plate chiller cold break goes into the fermenter and settles out with the rest of the trub. It has no adverse effects on the beer whatsoever, so no need to worry. You really don't want to expose your wort to too much after it's cooled, just pitch, seal, and let it do its thing.

openthewell

Recipes 

As bmick stated above, some of the cold break does indeed end up in the fermenter but a good portion of it stays in the plate chiller itself. That's the main reason plate chillers can be so hard to clean. A simple flushing isn't good enough if your wort had a lot of cold break. It's really best to remove the chiller from the stand, and let sit for a time in some warm PBW to really clean in the insides out. Once you let something dry in there, good luck getting it out.

southerngroove

Recipes 

If you are able to do so, back flushing with pbw is a great idea. Preferably right after brewing.

badhabit

Recipes 

Thanks for the info guys. I have been reading a lot here about cleaning the chillers and am thinking about how I would mount so that I can remove easily to clean.

IrregularPulse

Recipes 

Instead of removing, loop up CIP. (Clean in Place) Just run a cleaning cycle through the whole brewery post brew. Everything has to be cleaned anyway right?

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samc

Recipes 

At least one study showed that break material improved fermentation by providing nutrients to the yeast. I no longer have my chiller mounted because I like to be able to do a final soak/cleaning after the CIP solutions are run through it. And unless you are blowing compressed air through when done, you will find that water stays in the chiller unless you can change its orientation to allow it to seep out of the various channels in the chiller.