Plate Chiller In Ice Water?

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jhalloran

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Hi,

I'm expecting delivery of a 40-plate chiller today and was wondering if submerging it in an ice water bath during recirculation would have any affect on reducing cooling times. I figured that combining the functionality of a pre-chiller and a plate chiller in one device would be cool.

Pointless? Brilliant? Waste of time? Meh? You decide! Thanks.
 
It will help, this coming from experience. That said, it does not provide the same exchange ratio as if this were an immersion chiller that had wort passed through it dipped in an ice bath.

And I hate to even bring it up. But doubly make sure you are flushing your plate chiller clean.
 
Thank you for the advice!

So to back flush, I was thinking that I would just boil some water in my BK after cleaning it out and pump it through in the
opposite direction of the wort chilling. Is that the correct way to do it?
 
I back-flush, forward-flush, soak a bit with PBW then flush it out again.

On brew day, I flush it out one last time, then circulate hot wort through it during the last 5 minutes of the boil
 
Submerging in ice water will help, but it's the sides of each plate that's touching ice water and the top/bottom. Many times that is just touching the hose water. More worth it to me to have the chiller mounted to my stand than floating in a bucket, but I can see why you might.

For cleaning, you want to flush it backwards and forward, but you have to use a cleaner. Recirculating with a pump is best, but even a good soak with a cleaner will help a lot. Star San is not a cleaner. A proper bake at the right time and temp will kill everything in there, but best to not have to kill a bunch of mold each time. Trying to sanitize with Star San with any kind of debris in there will never fully sanitized.
 
A better solution is to buy a submersible pump (like $15, Harbor Freight or Amazon) and use to to run ice water through the plate chiller once your tap water has taken the wort down to the mid-high 70s. This will get you down to pitching temps in no time. Also helps if you have especially high ground water temps.
 
A better solution is to buy a submersible pump (like $15, Harbor Freight or Amazon) and use to to run ice water through the plate chiller once your tap water has taken the wort down to the mid-high 70s. This will get you down to pitching temps in no time. Also helps if you have especially high ground water temps.

I do the same thing but start at 100F. Everyone's groundwater is temp is different though, so everyone's temperature at which the progress seems to stop will be different. Start recircing with the ice water whatever that temperature is for you.
 
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