Plate chiller

i know there is more to using a plate chiller than that meets the eyes, i have been told there needs to be some sore of hops filter or something else that you have to use.

The fear is that there are lots of nooks inside those things for gunk to trap in. No one has yet to pony up and risk slicing their chillers to prove exactly how much. Because they work too good.

However, logically, you'd do good to minimalize teh potential for a clog mid chill so, you need to filter hops and hot trub as best as possible. Most, including myself, use a simple paint strainer bag application made into a hop sock.

Periodically, I follow this up with a heavy dose of caustic cleaner.

+1 on some form of strainer bag. After chilling I flush my chiller in both directions and have yet to see anything nasty coming out of it. I usually run some oxyclean & then sanitizer through it just to be sure.

This one will work great but was originally intended for paint sstainer bags. I found a better alternative for the paint stainer bags and they are pictured below. Your plate chiller will never clog with hops (whole or pellets).



I have found a better alternative to the paint strainer bags for Lil' Sparky's hop filter gadget. I use the 150 micron Polyester Multifiliment version of these:



http://www.filterbags.com/filter_bag_pricing.htm

The Polyester Multifiliment version is good to 300* F and you can load the heck out of them with pellet hops.

GilaMinumBeer said:

The fear is that there are lots of nooks inside those things for gunk to trap in. No one has yet to pony up and risk slicing their chillers to prove exactly how much. Because they work too good.

However, logically, you'd do good to minimalize teh potential for a clog mid chill so, you need to filter hops and hot trub as best as possible. Most, including myself, use a simple paint strainer bag application made into a hop sock.

Periodically, I follow this up with a heavy dose of caustic cleaner.

Click to expand...

GilaminumBeer,

never know what people have.... Got this pic from work.

lots of little spots for stuff to get stuck. "Real" breweries use gasketed plate heat exchangers that can be taken apart and cleaned. Waiting for a "reject" from work to get a hold of one of those.

Mike

Wow -- I always wondered what the inside of one of these looks like !!

Double wow, nothing like I envisioned, much smaller crevices. Now I am really glad I filter the heck out of my wort when I chill it.

Good on you Buffalo, finally someone has the image.

I have to say, they are as I expected them to be. I have also seen the plate and frame chillers used in industry and they aren't pretty (in the context of nooks and crannies).

I am glad to finally see the section of one of these things. and am still confident that a periodic recirculated dose of diluted Nitric will erradicate any potential buildups in my Therminator.

I'm probably going to end up using a brazed or welded unit when I get my brutus built. I'm not sure if the "scrunched" portion of the cooler got that way when they cut it open or if they are that way. The plates have many strategically laid out ripples to maximize the surface area and cooling capacity. I would be more worried about plugging it up than having bugs in there after cleaning, sanitizing and running hot wort through to heat sanitize it.

If you are using a plate chiller and use just a hop bag for your hops should you be using anything else to filter out the trub?

an idea I've heard here on HBT (although I've never tried it on my plater chiller since I've never had any problems with gunnk) is to toss it in your oven on "self-clean". The heat will basically disintergrate anything in the chiller to dust and then a quick shot of star-san and you're good to go.

Cape Brewing said:

an idea I've heard here on HBT (although I've never tried it on my plater chiller since I've never had any problems with gunnk) is to toss it in your oven on "self-clean".

Click to expand...

So you use a hop sack and the trub just goes through with out any clogging issues?

I do the oven thing, although sometimes I just cook at 350 for an hour instead of the self-clean cycle. Makes me feel better knowing I turn to ash anything that didn't get backflushed.

MgMt_Home_Brew said:

So you use a hop sack and the trub just goes through with out any clogging issues?

Click to expand...

yup... so far... and I've ton a bunch of batches with it with the largest single batch being about 20 gallons.

After each session, I clean my BK, fill it with some hot water and PBW and circulate that through the chiller for a bit... rinse, repeat... done.

And then at the start of any new brew session... I run a little star san through it and it's been golden.

MgMt_Home_Brew said:

If you are using a plate chiller and use just a hop bag for your hops should you be using anything else to filter out the trub?

Click to expand...

I use a kettle screen in my BK to filter out cold break and trub. It works well and holds back a lot of cold break. I would recommend using one with a plate chiller based on my experience. I tried a chore-boy ss scrubby in the BK and it clogged badly with cold break, I don't recommend that.

I chill my wort in a single-pass through the chiller, so anything to filter the trub would have to be after the plate chiller, not before it, since the cold break forms as the wort is chilled. If you use it in a recirculating system, maybe the cold break as it passes through again could be a problem.

I recirc and it hasn't been a problem for me.

Thanks for the input guys. I am thinking of pulling the trigger on the 30 plate chiller off ebay.

I am considering buying a plate chiller, but the clogging issue has me worried a bit, too.

I will be using a hop-bag, but it's the break material that I was concerned about.

Sounds like you guys don't have any issues, so I feel better about it, but I had a couple of comments.

Hot-break could be filtered before getting to the chiller, but wouldn't cold break form INSIDE the chiller (where the wort suddenly cools)? Meaning, no filter before or after the chiller will really do much to prevent it. Actually, a filter AFTER the chiller could cause a build-up of material that eventually backs up into the device if the filter is too close to the chiller, right?

One other question: for those that do a single pass through the chiller, are you PUMPING it through, or does gravity work well enough?

Walker said:

One other question: for those that do a single pass through the chiller, are you PUMPING it through, or does gravity work well enough?

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I think there are guys who have been successful with gravity feeding a plate chiller but I think a pump is preferred.

I use a paint strainer hop bag filter thingamajigg as pictured earlier in this thread, and chill in one pass with my plate chiller using gravity. I've not yet had any issues, I clean my plate chiller with a few oxyclean soaks, then let it soak in starsan while I boil. It's worked for me so far!!!

Boom! The thread re-awakens... Maybe.

Anyway, I will be using a superior pump to recirculate iced water and gravity feeding wort through a plate chiller (PC) of which I have yet to get. (one thing at a time due to wallet not so fat) I received the pump this past week: http://www.waterpumpsdirect.com/Sup..._term=superior pump 91025&utm_campaign=models

I've heard that some peeps will recirculate wort through the PC till pitch temp reached and then just fill the primary from the BK while others gravity feed wort through the PC into the primary.

Considering the expense of a, say, a SteelHead pump along with fittings, pressure/temp tubing, etc, what would be a benefit to recirculating wort that would outweigh those costs along with the added work and slight increased risk of infection? For those that recirculate, did you start doing such because ya wanted to do something hobby related or did you see benefit(s) toward beer quality that outweighed issues mentioned above?

Me wants to know.

After this discussion (I hope there's a discussion) I'll have another question regarding the actual wort circuit building/method if I seriously consider wort recirculation...

To those of you that recirculate or have done so and respond with your thoughts to the above question(s), THANK YOU.

Only a couple of reasons I can think of for recirculating:

1) recirculating to chill down to whatever the brewer wants to get to so they can then whirlpool (sub-80F) Begin debate on value of whirlpooling...... NOW!

2) recirculating to chill down to the point where the brewer can then add a flame-out hop edition in order to preserve as much flavor and aroma from the addition as possible (about 175ish)... Begin debate on need to chill for flameout additionnnnnn..... riiiiiiiiiiiight... NOW!

3) the PC simply won't chill the wort down to desired temp in one pass... so it is recirculated back until it is chilled enough that it can then be brought down to final temp in one pass and into the fermenter.

That's what I'm able to come up with off the top of my head.