new plate chiller

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ninrugger

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So......my bro just picked up a new plate chiller and we tried it tonight....worst brew night ever. After we would run sanatizer through it.....we'd hook up the wort and immediately get an air lock. After taking everything apart, sucking sanatizer and wort into my mouth, and a mildly boiled thumb....we finally got it to work. Are there any secrets to avoiding the air lock?
 
We have the pump before the chiller. We had the pump primed, the air lock seemed to be in the chiller.
 
We have the pump before the chiller. We had the pump primed, the air lock seemed to be in the chiller.


I have never had this problem. I also never prime anything with the chiller not hooked up. Just make sure the chiller it higher then your pump and it should push any air right out.
 
As stated above, make sure the pump is primed, and make sure the chiller is slightly above the pump.
 
Used my pump and plate chiller last night. Had the kettle on the burner, above the level of the pump. Primed the pump, had the chiller in line, recirculated boiling wort through the plate chiller to sanitize a few minutes before flame-out (no need for StarSan that way). The plate chiller is at the same level as the pump, with a short length of silicone tubing connecting it (all QD's)...

This was the second time I've gone this route, and it worked even better than the first time. I also found that I can get the wort flowing into primary and turn off the pump. The flow was sufficient to keep everything going. I would use the pump from time to time, since I had to really slow down the wort out flow (ground water was annoyingly warm last night).

Next time, unless the ground water has cooled down enough, I'll probably run the chill water through the plate chiller after flame-out but recirculate back into the kettle until it's at a lower temperature. Then I'll run it into primary, chilling the rest of the way. IMO, that's where having a good pump really comes into it's own.
 
Well, after the first nightmare of an experience with the plate chiller everything went smoothly for our 2 batches on Saturday. We just need to make sure all liquid (star san) is out of the chiller before running the wart through it.

We might run hot wort through it to sterilize in the future but we whirl pool before chilling and don't want to disturb the pile in the bottom of the kettle.

We might gravity feed it but its nice to have the pump running incase some hops start to plug up the flow a bit despite the hop blocked.

Besides the air lock in the plate chiller, we had a leaky bulk head on th boil kettle, a leaky bulk head on the mash tun along with the manifold on the bottom popping off and nearly having a stuck sparge, and having a Hung and blow off plug and fly off causing a nice little mess and a few minutes of an open ferment....so all in all, if was our first time at the rodeo, I'm sure we would have called it quites and went to the nearest store and bought beer like everybody else.

This better be an epic beer...lol

Thanks for the help guys.
 
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