Plate Chillers

OUTDOOR WOOD FURNACE , BRAZED PLATE HEAT EXCHANGER 50S - eBay (item 170253295457 end time Aug-30-08 10:43:05 PDT)

Anyone have any opinions on a plate chiller of this size?

I am about 97% done with building my AG rig and the only peice of equiment I have left to buy has to do with chilling. I have an immersion chiller that's not going to cut it for my rig. I doubt I'll do them often but I'll have the capacity to do 20 gallon batches and will probably do 10's and 15's often given there's a number of brew-club buddies that live close so we'll share batches.

Anyway... I'm trying to figure out the best way to chill 10-15 gallon batches. I've been able to get my hands on a lot of parts for short money and while I'm not looking to light money on fire, I'm not horribly opposed to spending in the nieghborhood of this chiller if it's going to work well.

i was thinking I would plumb it into a kettle that I would fill with ice water... I have a pump that would circulate the water through the chiller and a pump already plumbed into my boild kettle for circulating through a chiller and whirlpooling.

... any thoughts??

Cape Brewing said:

i was thinking I would plumb it into a kettle that I would fill with ice water... I have a pump that would circulate the water through the chiller and a pump already plumbed into my boild kettle for circulating through a chiller and whirlpooling.

... any thoughts??

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My experience with plate chillers is limited to the Shirron I have. I've been very happy with it and very happy with using a plate chiller in general, despite the anecdotal warnings to the contrary. IMHO, recirculating ice water through it would be effective in terms of heat transfer but it just doesn't seem cost-effective (especially since you're trying to save money) with the extra pump, plumbing, etc. If your tap water isn't too warm, you could recirculate the wort from the kettle to the chiller back to the kettle. Produces better hop aroma/flavor retention, and quicker overall cooling of wort below 140° (SMM - DMS threshhold).

Looks good though. Would be nice if they could supply you with more than just one pic.

Good luck!

Isn't that basically a discounted therminator?

I think it is basically the exact same thing as a therminator... but I don't have any real experience with that either.

I have a Shirron already and it's plumbed in as the heat exchanger between my HLT and MLT.

I already have all of the pumps and plumbing so it's not as if I would be spending more money on that stuff.... I'm really just curious how effective something like this large plate chiller would be versus 15 gallons of boiling wort.

... and I would circulate the wort from the kettle, through the chiller, back to the kettle (whilpooling it on the return) and back through again.

I was thinking, for the "cold water side" of the chiller, I would recirculate ice water from an extra keggle or pot.

... again... i have all the pumps and everything so that's not a problem.

I'm curious what success folks have had doing it this way and am curious about "Yeah, I bet you would get a boiling wort down to 70 degree in XX minutes doing it that way... but why not just do it this way... it would be quicker"

GilaMinumBeer said:

Isn't that basically a discounted therminator?

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Similar, but for being a 50-plate chiller for what it's listed for compared to others, it seems like a good price. Blichmann probably buys from a similar supplier, slaps a Therminator sticker on it and resells it.

Cape, if you do get it, please post pictures and review.

I have contemplated buying an exchanger like that from ebay, but the big question I have about the ebay plate chillers compared to the shirron or a therminator would be how many flow paths are inside the unit. Most auctions don't say and the one's that do only seem to list 2 flow paths. The therminator has 18 and the shirron only has 4. The fewer flow paths the better chance of clogging. I have a shirron and have been very happy with it so far. Here is some info I found interesting.
ChillOut MKIII - MashMaster Specialised Brewing Equipment

I thought real hard about getting that very chiller. My thinking is that 50 plates is overkill and just way too many plates to worry about cleaning. You'd have to hope that your cleaners and the turbulence of your cleaning water would actually do a decent job of reaching and effectively cleaning the last few plates. I think you should just get another shirron if you're happy with that.....most people have been really happy with them, even for 10 gal batches.

I have had that heat exchanger bookmarked for several months, and plan on it one day. the drawbacks that I have seen are it is 3/4" and all our plumbing is 1/2 or 3/8. and no fittings come with it. On the positive it is made by the best known heat exchanger manufacturer, has 10 more plates than the therminator, and due to it being 3/4 vs the therminator 1/2 should flow faster and deliver the same temps (or lower temps at the same flow rates) this is assuming the you have cold enough tap water that you don't max the cooling capacity of the cooling water you are using. I say go for it and let me know what I'm missing.

I don't think it would be a bad decision by a longshot. I mean, this thing is even bigger than the therminator and it's cheaper! It's also covered by *warrantee* so if you put it in the oven and have problems, get your money back. The truth is, these things are designed to cool huge amounts of liquid for long periods of time. 10-15 gal batches every few weeks isn't even going to touch this thing. Just make you are religious about cleaning it and do so immediately after chilling with it.

You have all talked me into it... I'm going to pull the trigger and I'll certainly report back what the results are once I get it plumbed in and the rig itself working.

... Rig is just about done... just need this chiller for the last piece and then my father to come up and install my burners (he's a "heating/air conditioning guy" and has two burners hooked up with pilots and gas valves that'll be controlled by a PID and a switch.

In terms of cleaning... my rig is all hard-plumbed in with unions ALL OVER the place so I CAN take it all apart if I want to but I'm going to just go with bringing a number of gallons up to a boil in my HLT and then just pumping the boiling water through the whole thing to clean. When I'm ready to brew again, I'll pump boiling water through, some warm water with Iodifor, and then boiling water again... I think that'll take care of cleaning.

This is off topic, but .....Dude...you might reconsider that hard plumbing... Silicon hose with QD's is WAAAAY easier. You're going to want to take your vessels off the stand and scrub them out. Doing this with the MT is an absolute must.

If you're doing CIP (clean-in-place) recircing all that boiling water/PBW through your kettles AND the plate chiller, remember you may pick up pieces of grain, hops, etc. that may clog your chiller. I'd consider doing a separate recirc just to protect your investment.

The vessels come off the stand easily. It's a single tier system and the kettles disconnect with just a couple of unions. It's a lot easier than it sounds.

and it's too late... I've already done HOURS AND HOURS of plumbing work and there's no turning back now.

I'm using a false bottom and a manifold under that... I'll use hop bags... so I'm hoping I don't have a whole lot of grain/hops floating around anywhere in the system. I'm also going to whirlpool the boil kettle so anything that does end up in the kettle, i'm hoping even a small percentage of that will actually make it through the chiller.

All of my solenoids are all one inch stainless steel, the pumps I'm using are fine with particles and with the filtering I'm doing, I'm hoping I don't have an issue with the heat exchangers.

We'll see.

50 plates is overkill. That's 25% more surface area than a Therminator.

I think this $115 30 plate chiller is plenty, plus it's got 1/2" ports instead of 3/4".

Brazed 30 Plate Stainless Steel Heat Exchanger - eBay (item 170254801054 end time Sep-03-08 11:28:53 PDT)

How is it overkill? And I don't mean that as some wiseass crack... I'm honestly asking.

If my objective is to cool my wort as quickly as possible, is it a matter of a 30 plate probably doing it in twenty minutes and a 50 plate doing it in nineteen? (that's why I started this thread... to get some advice on that sort of thing).

It's a $20 difference to get 66% more surface area. As I mentioned before, I'm certainly not looking to light money on fire but I'm willing to spend around $140 since this is, pretty much, the last thing I'm going to have to buy for quite some time (other than ingredients).

I also don't understand why 1/2 ports are better than 3/4's? I'm hard plumbed with unions everywhere so I can take everything apart so I'm going to have to get a 1/2 fitting for the port anyway.

No matter what the size/number of plates, you're limited by the temp of the cooling water. Some people with warm groundwater still have to recirc icewater to get the temp down.

I really don't think the Therminator is any better....it's a plate heat exchanger, plain and simple. Blichmann is just established in homebrewing and it's a trusted name. But that doesn't mean it's head and shoulders above the ebay unit. Let's be clear here....both this and the Therminator are overkill for any homebrewer....from what I hear, a Shirron will do just fine with giant batches. (I can't imagine the practicality or need for brewing 40+ gallons at once, other than a yearly club brew) Most of us just do 5-15 gallons, a couple times/month.

Get the unit.....it'll work great, I'm sure. But again....be prepared to have a bunch of crap come out of the thing when you do some intensive cleaning. Likewise with your hard plumbing. If it doesn't bother you, then don't lose sleep over it. If it does, I'd invest in some good caustic and acid, and store and use them safely.

Let us know how it turns out....I'm real interested because I was pretty close to buying this thing.

I guess I'm still lost on the "overkill" part... and like I was saying before, I don't mean that as a smartass remark... I'm honestly confused.

I guess the easiest way to get me over the hump here is just to ask it this way...

If I have 15 gallons of boiling wort... and I use a plate chiller that is having ice water circulating through one half... how long (BALLPARK) would it take to chill 15 gallons using a small Shirron, a 30 plate or a 50 plate??

Again... not looking for exact numbers, I'm just trying to figure out the differences.

I'm basically trying to figure out if it's...

"Shirron should do it in 45 minutes, a 30 plate should do it in 40 minutes and a 50 plate should do it in about 38 minutes"

OR...

"Shirron should do it in 45 minutes, a 30 plate should do it in 30 minutes and a 50 plate should do it in about 10 minutes"

If it's the first scenario, then I understand the point that it's overkill... if it's the second scenario, then I don't mind spending the few extra bucks.

Well, first the 30 plate chiller has about the same surface area as the Shirron, so you can lump those together.

At high temperature differences the 50 plate chiller will probably be a little more efficient, but as the wort temp drops the two chillers will be about equally efficient because the wort leaving will be nearly the temp of the coolant in both cases. If you're pumping ice water through either of those chillers, it should be a one pass affair being done in < 10 mins, and you'd probably have to throttle down the ice water on the 50 plate chiller to avoid over-chilling the wort.

Lil' Sparky said:

If you're pumping ice water through either of those chillers, it should be a one pass affair being done in < 10 mins, and you'd probably have to throttle down the ice water on the 50 plate chiller to avoid over-chilling the wort.

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That sounds like it would be a good thing. You could use less ice.

Well I ordered one of these chiller before this thread was written however I have not had a chance to try it yet as it is still on route. Once it arrives I will try to post some more pictures.

bludrgn said:

Well I ordered one of these chiller before this thread was written however I have not had a chance to try it yet as it is still on route. Once it arrives I will try to post some more pictures.

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Excellent. A little write up/review would be nice for the rest of us.
Guinea pigs always welcome.

I guess people are calling it overkill because even the least expensive chiller will get your output wort down to temp in the same amount of time. The amount of plates (which is directly proportional to cost) is irrelevant with small batches for homebrewing. You're limited on all the chillers by how fast you can get the bulk of the wort through the chiller (restriction). The more plates you use, the more obstacles the wort must overcome, so that increases restriction if the plates aren't further spaced. Likewise, with more plates the more crevices you have to hope are clean. Supposedly, the therminator has the least restriction, so theoretically you could chill the fastest with that. If you're using a pump, restriction is much less of a factor because you're forcing the wort through.

So I guess overkill means that if you could achieve a similar result with the Shirron at a fraction of the cost and with less plates to clean, why not go that route? If after 4 years of heavy use you start having infections, you could sell/toss your old one, buy a new one, and still not have spent as much as you would on a therminator. I guess the ebay 50-plate is a compromise, as the price sits right between a Shirron and Therminator. You still probably only need half the plates to get the job done, but what the hell

Did you guys see the other ones he sells with 1/2" fittings in 20 and 30 plates? I have been considering a new chiller as well, and following this thread. Here's the link:

20 plate:

OUTDOOR WOOD FURNACE , BRAZED PLATE HEAT EXCHANGER 20S - eBay (item 150291067857 end time Sep-14-08 09:03:44 PDT)

30 plate:

OUTDOOR WOOD FURNACE , BRAZED PLATE HEAT EXCHANGER 30S - eBay (item 160279635984 end time Sep-14-08 09:03:18 PDT)

I bought this one. It has 1.4 sq. ft of plates. I used it for the first time yesterday. With 67* ground water, it cooled the wort to 100*. So I recirculated the wort and cooled 5 gallons to pitching in about 10 minutes.

I think next time I may try EdWorts recirculating ice water cooling method.

That's a pretty good turnaraound. Did you have any problems with coldbreak? How did you clean it afterwards, and what came out?

I didn't notice any cold break. I made a mild and couldn't see it. I pumped 15 gallons of water through forward and reverse. The stuff that came out at first was kind of murky, maybe the cold break.

Just bought an ebay unit 40 plates with 3/4" MPT for $79 shipped. I wanted the 3/4" because my whole rig is 1" triclover and 5/8" silicon hose. Guess I'm gonna take the plunge and become a plate chiller type of guy!