Immersion or plate cooler?

Looking to upgrade my brew experience. I really hate waiting for my wort to cool using the ol ice bath method. Which method should I use immersion or plate?

I believe a plate cooler will cool your wort faster......I use a 50' immersion chiller I made myself with 3/8" copper tubing from HD (I think it was about $50) ....cools 5.5 gallons of wort from 212 to 65 in under 12 minutes.....with 58 degree water from hose connection (spring an dfall water temp....faster in winter when water supply is in the 30's). In summer I use a bucket filled with ice and water and circulate through chiller with a 12V pump....only way to cool quick enough and to a low enough temperature (since water in summertime is in the mid 80's).

My "discomfort" with a plate cooler is how well can you clean and sanitize if it is a plate cooler you cannot disassemble.....I have some ignorance here since I have never used one....but I am sure it is fine if cleaned properly.....since they are commonly used. Some others can will chime in on this I hope. I just like the simplicity of an immersion chiller....easy to clean, etc.

I would recommend an immersion chiller. They're cheaper, they don't necessitate a wort pump, and they do the job adequately IMO.

I now have both because during summer brewing my water is warm making it necessary to use a prechiller. I will use the IC as a pre-chiller and the plate chiller will hopefully do the job.

I would start with an IC first.

My next project will be a DIY counterflow wort chiller. It seems easier to clean than a counterflow plate chiller and as efficient. Our water is pretty cold all year long.

Here is the link

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/counterflow-wort-chiller-build-use-182236/

Immersion chillers are easy and effective (and probably cheaper too) - so long as your water is cold enough. I made myself a 50', 1/2" copper chiller and wouldn't ever think of "upgrading" it unless I moved far South.

I used to do the ice bath when I was a new brewer. I then upgraded to an immersion chiller. I then upgraded to a plate chiller that I gravity fed my wort through. I NOW have a convoluted counterflow chiller and a pump.

I perfer the counterflow chiller over all other methods. I would rate the immersion chiller second. The plate chiller was great at chilling wort quickly (8-10 minutes with my 30 plate using hose water), but I always had trouble keeping it clean.

If you have the $$$, consider a counterflow chiller and pump, and a recirculation loop back into your mash tun/boil kettle.

If you can't justify the cost of a pump, go with a immersion chiller, the bigger the better. The guy I brew with has a 25" prechiller that he sticks in ice water, and a 50" prechiller that goes in the wort, and he chills every bit as fast as I do with my counterflow chiller (about 12-14 minutes). I think that I'll get this back to around 8 minutes if I use ice water and a sump pump.

Good luck!

I have tried ice bath, immersion and plate chiller.

The plate chiller is by far the quickest, It takes me around 30 mins to get down to pitch temperature with the IC, whilst the PC it takes about 5 mins or less and that's to 61F, I couldn't get much colder than 67F with the IC even after 30 mins. This using using mains water, you can set up a gravity or pressurized cold liqueur tank for even faster cooling, this would able you to open the pump speed more and drain the brew kettle faster, I suspect it would just take a few minutes this way. The cold break I get on my plate chiller is really noticeable compared to the immersion chiller too.

Cleaning is more difficult than the IC, especially if you don't have a pump. If you do have a pump like me you can recirculate hot PBW solution through the chiller and then reverse flush. Then rinse by filling the grant continuously with water whilst having the return hose to the drain. I always chuck in some left over starSan before a final rinse just to act as an acid rinse not make sure there is no PWB residue. Its not hard, just time consuming and needs to be done straight away.

If you don't have a pump you can using a piece of tubing with a hose connection at one end and a brewery fitting (eg camlock) at the other and simply flush the PC from the mains water supply. Of course you can't use PBW in this way but you can gravity feed it from the grant.

To santize is easy, I connect the pump and PC to the brew kettle whist bringing the wort to boil, I then circulate for ten minutes at boiling. Again if you don't have pump you'll need to put it in the oven for a hour.

So basically PC performs significantly better, however they are significantly more expensive, especially once you add the price for the pump, hosing, connections and grant and they are more time consuming to clean and sanitize. That said a brewery pump can be used for a multitude of applications, recirculating wort, filling the brewkettle, vortexing for a whirlpool.

The other thing you'll need if you go with a PC is a hop filter of some kind to stop the PC getting clogged. I use a 400mirco hop spider. Works fine. My PC can take up to 900 Micro particles.

So the choice of PC vs IC is largely a budget question but also a question regarding overall brewery design such as if you want to have a pump for your mash tun. Space is also a consideration especially verse a counterflow chiller. PC use up very little space.

Also not all PC and IC are made equal, you need to consider the the Kw rating of the PC verse the length/diameter of the IC. My IC is relatively sort whilst my PC is rated to 125Kw.

BybleTyme said:

Looking to upgrade my brew experience. I really hate waiting for my wort to cool using the ol ice bath method. Which method should I use immersion or plate?

Click to expand...

I'd give consideration to a 25' CFC.
Great chilling efficiency & very easy to clean.


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I've used immersion chillers, counter flows, and plate chillers. My 40 plate wort chiller is by far the most efficient. I can cool 10 gallons of wort to 65 degrees in about 10 minutes. That is gravity feeding. I personally would not want to pump through it because I figure it would pull through a lot of trub. In my setup it is easy to clean, I just attach a quick disconnect to a keg with cleaner and back flush the plate chiller.


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Plate Chiller stomps the nuts of an immersion. It is more difficult to clean and is best used with a pump. If you have the means, get one.... if not, don't worry about it.

I've started using my old immersion chiller as a prechiller for my plate chiller. I'm a huge fan though admittedly I finally did a BOILING PBW back flush on my plate and was a little surprised at some of the stuff it got out. If you use a hop spider or really good whirlpool, you shouldn't have much to worry about in your plate chiller.

Definitely the fastest way to chill wort with my water.

The problem with plate chillers is keeping them clean. Unless you can do a hot caustic CIP, you will never get it as clean as you think.

Immersion Chiller.

My last 12 gallon batch went to 42 degrees in 30 minutes.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/triple-coil-immersion-chiller-pics-448915/

thanks Kevin

I have been using an IC for years, it's a double coil.
When I built my single tier stand I added ports to the BK to recirculate the wort and create a whirlpool so I didn't have to stir it at all. It works great.
I like the IC for simplicity and ease of use/cleaning. When I'm done cooling, I just drop it into a bucket (that I store it in) filled with some hot water from cooling, give it a few dips, spray off with the hose if I see anything left on it and it's good to go for next time.

The problem with plate chillers is keeping them clean. Unless you can do a hot caustic CIP, you will never get it as clean as you think.

Click to expand...

This is exactly the reason I switched to a convoluted counterflow chiller. The plate chiller definitely cooled faster, but I typically felt like I had to disconnect my plate chiller and put it through about 30-40 minutes of the oven clean cycle to make sure all of the residue was vaporized.

With the CCC, I just run the recirculation loop with some hot PBW and it cleans that sucker very well in place.

I was chilling in about 8-10 minutes with the plate chiller, and now I'm at about 14 with the CCC using just the straight groundwater from the hose. With the hassle factor of the plate chiller, and I'm fine with waiting an additional 6-8 minutes.

The convenience is definitely the selling point of the immersion chillers as well. If you do go that route, just go ahead and spring for the 50' chiller over the standard 25', or else you'll find yourself wanting to upgrade pretty quickly! Well worth the extra $30-40.

haeffnkr said:

Immersion Chiller.



My last 12 gallon batch went to 42 degrees in 30 minutes.



https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/triple-coil-immersion-chiller-pics-448915/



thanks Kevin

Click to expand...

Hope it was a lager!


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