Plate Chiller Technique?

I have brewed 5 batches now with my plate chiller and although I've learned some things, I don't think I've quite mastered it yet.

Some specifics:
- 40 plate chiller from DudaDiesel
- 10 gallon batches
- March Pump with output ball valve
- Town well water that fluctuates with the seasons, but has been 58 degrees the last few times I brewed.

This is my cooling process as of my last brewday:
- Plate chiller stands up on its side, long way is vertical. Wort-in is on the bottom, Water-in is on the top.
- Start out by recirculating back into the kettle, with a whirlpool. I let it run for a minute or so to sanitize, then turn on cold water. Ball valve is 100% open during recirc. In about 6-7 minutes the wort is down to 120.
- Now I drain into ferment buckets. I would say I need the ball valve about 33% open to get the 68 degrees I'm looking for. This takes another 10-12 minutes to fill 2 buckets, for a total cooling time of 15-20min.

I'm happy with that cooling time for a 10 gallon batch, but I don't have any brewing buddies that use plate chillers, so I wanted to compare notes just in case. The only variable I'm really not sure about is hose water flowrate.

Thanks,
Bryan

What is the temperature of the wort coming out of the chiller?
If the temperature is already at pitching temperature, then recirculating is self defeating.
Why take cooled wort and warm it back up again?

I dont own a plate chiller, but my thoughts would be similar to OneHoppyGuy's comment..

After your 1 minute of full throttle sanitizing, why not try throttling the wort to 33% or less, and see what the temp is exiting the plate chiller.. if its in the 70deg range, just go right into the fermenter..

I guess the key would be, look at the temp at the output of the plate chiller, and not the total volume temperature in the kettle.

OneHoppyGuy said:

What is the temperature of the wort coming out of the chiller?
If the temperature is already at pitching temperature, then recirculating is self defeating.
Why take cooled wort and warm it back up again?

Click to expand...

I'm a little confused by your question. At flameout, I start recirculating. So the 212 degree wort is being pumped out of the kettle, thru the chiller, and back into the kettle. This is mainly to whirlpool, but it gives the plate chiller a head start for the final chill into the fermenter. I found that if I try to run near-boiling wort thru the chiller, and right into the fermenter, its very hard to control the final temperature, and it has to drain veeeeeery slow.

Again, I'd love to hear other techniques because I don't doubt I'm doing something wrong

aquenne said:

I dont own a plate chiller, but my thoughts would be similar to OneHoppyGuy's comment..

After your 1 minute of full throttle sanitizing, why not try throttling the wort to 33% or less, and see what the temp is exiting the plate chiller.. if its in the 70deg range, just go right into the fermenter..

I guess the key would be, look at the temp at the output of the plate chiller, and not the total volume temperature in the kettle.

Click to expand...

yes sorry, i left out that going from boiling to 70 wasn't working out for me...see above

We were experiencing a drop to 110 degrees with 60 degree water. That's why developed this system:

OneHoppyGuy said:

We were experiencing a drop to 110 degrees with 60 degree water. That's why developed this system:

Click to expand...

so you're sensing output temp rather than batch temp and can dial it right in?

yup
Temp out is the only thing that matters. The goal is to drop the temperature as rapidly as possible.

OneHoppyGuy said:

yup
Temp out is the only thing that matters. The goal is to drop the temperature as rapidly as possible.

Click to expand...

and you dont batch cool/recirculate at all? just go from boiling, thru chiller, into fermenters?

Here is a direct quote from John Palmer's 'How to Brew'

7.4 Cooling the Wort

At the end of the boil, it is important to cool the wort quickly. While it is still hot, (above 140°F) bacteria and wild yeasts are inhibited. But it is very susceptible to oxidation damage as it cools. There are also the previously mentioned sulfur compounds that evolve from the wort while it is hot. If the wort is cooled slowly, dimethyl sulfide will continue to be produced in the wort without being boiled off; causing off-flavors in the finished beer. The objective is to rapidly cool the wort to below 80°F before oxidation or contamination can occur.

Rapid cooling also forms the Cold Break. This is composed of another group of proteins that need to be thermally shocked into precipitating out of the wort. Slow cooling will not affect them. Cold break, or rather the lack of it, is the cause of Chill Haze. When a beer is chilled for drinking, these proteins partially precipitate forming a haze. As the beer warms up, the proteins re-dissolve. Only by rapid chilling from near-boiling to room temperature will the Cold Break proteins permanently precipitate and not cause Chill Haze. Chill haze is usually regarded as a cosmetic problem. You cannot taste it. However, chill haze indicates that there is an appreciable level of cold-break-type protein in the beer, which has been linked to long-term stability problems. Hazy beer tends to become stale sooner than non-hazy beer. The following are a few preferred methods for cooling the wort.

One thing I do during clean up is, put about 2 gallons of water and some PBW in mlt
bring it to 120 degrees and let it recirculate through chiller and back into kettle for awhile. After I dump that I'll flush it with fresh water.
I learned the hard way about keeping 'em clean, I had to dump 11 gallons which got infected and I traced it back to my dirty chiller.

If your ground water isn't cold enough to drop the wort to pitching temperature the first time through, you can hook up a prechiller w/ an ice bath or put a regulator on your wort, post-pump, to slow the flow thereby increasing the amount of time the wort has contact w/ the plate chiller.

I use an immersion chiller to cool my wort, first with hose water to get it down a hundred degrees or so, and then I put the boil pot in an ice bath and hook up an inexpensive submersible fountain pump in the bath. This works really well. Our ground water in Charleston can be in the 80s during the summer, so I quickly hit the upper limit of how quickly hose water will cool down the wort.

I would lay your chiller down with all inputs and outputs facing up. I have been looking into getting a chiller and have talked to several people including the manufacturers and they all have told me that, that is the best way. They way you have it now is second best but can lead to air pockets being trapped in the water paths. What I would do is set the chiller down as I first mentioned then as it runs give it a few shakes to work air pockets out and I bet you will have better results. Lets us know either way

I will def try changing the chiller orientation.

Can anyone comment on effect of hose water flowrate?

If you have 58 degree hose water you should have no issue going into the fermenter in a single pass.

Wait, so most people dial back on the wort going into the plate chiller? I always ran it full blast and recirculated. I assumed it took so long because I have a small 10 plate chiller.

I throttle the output of the chiller

Well it might be because you have a small plate chiller, lol. But basically if you dial back the flow then the wort moves through the pipe slower = more contact time to transfer heat to the pipe.

I throttled back my water thinking that would increase heat transfer. hrmmm.

I may be mistaken, but I don't really see how water-flow would make much of a difference besides saving water. If you have it too fast then all it does is waste water. It's when you have the wort-flow too fast then it affects wort-cooling.

throttle the wort out. there should be no throttle of the wort in or water in or out

Yea it was mostly to save water. (figured it was better a little warm water comes out then a ton of cold water)
I'll definitely have to try turning down input to my kettle =D I assumed wort flow didnt matter since the slightly cooled wort was going back into the warmer wort and cooling it.

if your recirculating i would not throttle at all until your getting close to target temp, assuming the water out isnt cold but hot

Well basically heat transfer should occur fairly quick, but it's not instantaneous or anything. You should slow your wort output if it's not dropping that much. Your water-output should be quite warm. If it isn't, slow it so you aren't wasting water.

How do you know your pitching temps if you aren't recirculating? Is it just a matter of dialing in the first pass? It seems rather hard to repeat with precision.
Could I throttle back on my pump output/kettle input with similar results using recirculation?

most people attach a dial thermometer to the output of the plate chiller and adjust the ball valve on the output of the chiller to hit proper temps. I wouldnt throttle anything before the output of the chiller that way the chiller stays full

Bah, to think I just put a thermometer on my BK to monitor cooled temps.

Yeah I'm just going to whirlpool, recirculate and measure my temps in the kettle. I'd assume your ground-water temperatures there in Georgia are hot-as-balls like here in Texas. You shouldn't have to worry about over-cooling by recirculating more than one pass, even in winter.

But if you want you can always buy a simple T and attach a thermometer to the wort-output.

Yea water is like 80*F already this year.

you could just recirc. till you hit your temp then drain into the carboy with no further cooling

like i said at first, i've been finding that a combination of recirculating and passing into fermentation is working OK, not great.

If i try solely cooling to pitching temps via recirculating. I find it slows down drastically at 100, and time is better spent draining into fermenter.

If I try just passing right into the fermenters with no recirc, I have to dial the output way down, and the fermenters fill veeeeeeery slow. BUT i too have no valve on the chiller output, just the pump.

so the idea is that a valve at the chiller output lets the chiller channels stay full, and will improve cooling times?

rmullins said:

If you have 58 degree hose water you should have no issue going into the fermenter in a single pass.

Click to expand...

thats the basis for this whole thread. i feel like with 58 deg water and a 40 plate chiller, i should be seeing better results, and must need to improve my process.

how many plates do you have? what is your ground water temp? how long would you say it takes to fill your 5 gallon bucket with the no recirc method?

I think the ideal plate chiller set up includes a thermometer teed into the wort output, a control valve in the wort path (if using a pump, a valve on its output will work) and a valve on the water path.

If the output wort temp is too high, you throttle the wort side until it comes down to ideal temp. Otoh, if the wort output is too low, you throttle the water side until the wort temp comes up to the desired temp.

As for keeping the plate chiller full, that's going to depend on its orientation. I have my long chiller mounted vertically with the wort entering at the bottom and exiting at the top, so any air should be expelled and no matter the rate of wort flow its side should be full. The water side flows top to bottom, but running it wide open at the start should blow any air out, and then I can control its flow with a valve at the bottom end.

Things could get more complicated when a plate chiller is mounted horizontally...

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

I think the ideal plate chiller set up includes a thermometer teed into the wort output, a control valve in the wort path (if using a pump, a valve on its output will work) and a valve on the water path.

If the output wort temp is too high, you throttle the wort side until it comes down to ideal temp. Otoh, if the wort output is too low, you throttle the water side until the wort temp comes up to the desired temp.

As for keeping the plate chiller full, that's going to depend on its orientation. I have my long chiller mounted vertically with the wort entering at the bottom and exiting at the top, so any air should be expelled and no matter the rate of wort flow its side should be full. The water side flows top to bottom, but running it wide open at the start should blow any air out, and then I can control its flow with a valve at the bottom end.

Things could get more complicated when a plate chiller is mounted horizontally...

Cheers!

Click to expand...

ha - this is getting complicated. so a valve at the water output to make sure those channels are full.

i think im on board for implementing an inline wort output thermometer. better stat searching for ideas...

I follow the following procedure, which is very close to yours:

Recirculate wort through plumbing and plate chiller until the output temp reaches inlet temp (~198F). Spray the keggle with a mist of water to cool hot metal parts so I don't waste cooling power on the kettle.

Turn on recirculating ice bath pump (1440gph pump in cooler 20lbs (for 5 gallons of wort) of ice and a few gallons of water).

Wort recirculates back into kettle forming whirlpool.

Once temp reaches ~60F in the kettle (for ales), turn off both pumps and let it settle. After 10-15 minutes, drain kettle (no real need to pass it through wort chiller again, and the 60F creates a great cold break).

Cooling takes about 6 minutes, so 15-20 minutes after I start knockout, the wort goes into the keggle.

For 10 gallon batches, just double everything ( 12 minutes to cool, and 40lbs of ice).

I've had zero complaints from judges about oxidation , and no infections using this method (5 years and counting).

Bottom line, everyone has their on comfortable way of doing it. If your method works for you, and it produces good results, just keep on that track.

DavidR said:

I follow the following procedure, which is very close to yours:

Recirculate wort through plumbing and plate chiller until the output temp reaches inlet temp (~198F). Spray the keggle with a mist of water to cool hot metal parts so I don't waste cooling power on the kettle.

Turn on recirculating ice bath pump (1440gph pump in cooler 20lbs (for 5 gallons of wort) of ice and a few gallons of water).

Wort recirculates back into kettle forming whirlpool.

Once temp reaches ~60F in the kettle (for ales), turn off both pumps and let it settle. After 10-15 minutes, drain kettle (no real need to pass it through wort chiller again, and the 60F creates a great cold break).

Cooling takes about 6 minutes, so 15-20 minutes after I start knockout, the wort goes into the keggle.

For 10 gallon batches, just double everything ( 12 minutes to cool, and 40lbs of ice).

I've had zero complaints from judges about oxidation , and no infections using this method (5 years and counting).

Bottom line, everyone has their on comfortable way of doing it. If your method works for you, and it produces good results, just keep on that track.

Click to expand...

so you're submerging your plate chiller in ice/water?

Nope, two pumps. One pumps the worth in a closed system of 1/2 stainless steel tubing. The water pump sits in an ice chest with the second pump. The water leaves the ice chest, enters the plate chiller in opposite direction of the wort, then returns to the ice chest to be cooled down. At first, it comes back about 90F, but quickly gets down to 60F. I get 20lb bags of ice for $1, so it is more economical to use the ice than a bunch of ground water (at 80F in the summer) to cool the wort.

bmbigda said:

so you're submerging your plate chiller in ice/water?

Click to expand...

I doubt it, as that's a highly ineffective method (think about it - the wort is traveling through a bunch of sandwich layers that are essentially insulated from any "outside influence").

It's nearly certain he is recirculating the cooling water through the plate chiller and then his ice bath using the big pump...

Cheers!

Easiest way I've found to monitor the temps is with a thrumometer (check northern brewer or more beer sites) attached inline to the wort output hose between the chiller and fermenter. Very quick temp readings, easy to clean, and hooks right into the line (3/8" ID) without any effort. Ball valve between pump and chiller controls wort flow ( though post chiller is better to maintain back pressure and keep chiller full), and second valve at water inlet to slow water flow as needed on the fly to dial in the temp. Takes me less than 10 min to transfer 10 gallons into fermenters this way with 58 deg water. You can always use an old IC coil submerged in an ice bath prechiller if your water temp is too warm....