Shirron VS Counter Flow

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Gabe

It's a sickness!
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Why is 1 better than the other? if you had 1 chiller which would it be? just getting my AG gear ready for it's new brewstand and I wan't to build the chiller into it. So I gotta get one or the other. Some thoughts?
 
No War, like all else, it's all a matter of preference. I prefer the CFC I built because it's very easy to clean. Just drain some oxyclean solution into it and let it sit while I finish cleaning the other bits. Run sanitizer thru after about 30 minutes and it's fine. I've used it for about 30 brews and used a friends fiber optic to look at the inside and it's a nice clean copper color with no residue. I'm sure cleaning the plate chiller is easy, but I would think that it would be easier for gunk to catch up on the small gaps between the plates.
 
My Shirron is off the charts efficient but I do worry about cleaning as Hopfan suggested. I backflush like crazy and do a soak in cleaner immediately after brewing but one nice thing I do really like about the Shirron is that to dry or sterilize I put aluminum foil loosely over the wort in/out and bake it in the oven. So far so good but I sure wish I had access to Hopfan's fiber optic to look inside. Someone on the forum once suggested a plate chiller that disassembles; that would be very nice.
 
I've never used a plate chiller, so I can't comment.

I recently got a CFC, and am very pleased with it. (Works much better than the immersion chiller that I used for the past 15 years.)

-a.
 
First let me say I don't know if this is true or not but I think the Plate chiller will cool better.
at least they are advertised to be better. I use a CFC now that I built from Phills Pieces.
In the warmer months when the lake temps rise my counter flow just don't do the job. so for now I have to quit brewing for about two to three months til the tap water gets cold enough again.
Hope someone knows for sure. I'd like to know too before I get desprate and just go buy one needlessly
 
Wow, I've only visited MI once up near Traverse City and then down to Rochester Hills but I can't imagine the it ever being to warm to brew. Being down in Texas I was having similar issues so I made a pre-chiller and would place that in a 5 gallon bucket with a two or three 2 Liter plastic soda bottles that I'd filled 3/4 full with water and froze overnight. Upon my first use of the pre-chiller I actually cooled too low and had to warm up before pitching; that day was 102°F in the shade. People have great ideas for pre-chillers from things as cheap as discarded heater coils at an autoshop to plastic tubing to copper which is pretty expensive as of late. Do a search and you'll see what others have done and then you'll be set. Don't stop brewing in the summer brother.
Jeffrey
 
snaproll said:
First let me say I don't know if this is true or not but I think the Plate chiller will cool better.
at least they are advertised to be better. I use a CFC now that I built from Phills Pieces.
In the warmer months when the lake temps rise my counter flow just don't do the job. so for now I have to quit brewing for about two to three months til the tap water gets cold enough again.
Hope someone knows for sure. I'd like to know too before I get desprate and just go buy one needlessly

If you used to use an immersion, you can use that as a pre-chiller by putting it in an ice bath and running the wort thru it before going to the CFC. You could also make this with hi-temp tubing, but the price on that stuff seems to be climging lately.

How long is your CFC? (nothing personal) You may just need to extend it if it's too short.
 
I've used both of these quite a bit, and I prefer the shirron. Mainly for its small size and ease of cleaning. It can also be baked, a CFC can't.

The only advantage for the CFC that I can see is the break and hops material may not get it stuck--but I use a hopstopper anyway so nothing gets past that into my shirron.

I mounted the shirron on a temporary mount so it can easily be removed but is sturdy during the cooling process.

As far as efficiency, I think the shirron is slightly better but it all depends on ground water temp. If the ground water is really cold, I can chill 5 gallons in less than 10 minutes. I slow it down in teh summer to about 5 gallons in 15 minutes, even with a prechiller. My pre-chiller consists of an IC hooked up to my ground water source in a bucket of ice water. As the water goes through that, it cools it and then routes into the shirron.
 
I have both and the cold plate chiller is by far more efficient and as to the ease of cleaning. The cold plate is a little more detailed but well..... worth the extra effort to gain the speed at which it cools.:mug:
 
Thanks for the input guy's, I don't have anyway of stopping smaller debrie from getting paste my false bottom and siphon and into a plate chiller, so with the water staying cold year round here in Cali I'll probably go with the CFC. Unless I found some SS mesh and made a hopstopper for the bottom of my siphon----Hmmm. Any ideas for design or material ? How would one secure it to a siphon?
 
Stainless steel screen or go to a hardware store, plumbing section and look for a SS lint filter designed to go on the drain hose of your washing machine. They normally come in packs of 2, put one inside the other and clamp it onto your siphon hose. Instant hop filter.
 
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