plate wort chiller connection questions

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pieters

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All,
Looking at Shirron and Therminator wort chillers. I believe I understand the cold water side (need to get male to female adapter), but I don't understand the wort side.

1. What hose(s) do I need to get, assuming gravity setup?
2. How the heck does the gravity setup work? Do you put one pot on the counter and one on the floor, and siphon the wort through the chiller?
3. How hot is the outflow from the cold water side? I need to conserve water up here in the Colorado mountains, so I'm thinking of directing it to the little flowerbed we occasionally water, at the end of a 50' hose.
4. The Therminator is more than twice as expensive as the Shirron. Is it correspondingly better?

Environment: very cold inflow water, from deep well; 5 gallon batches, but I'm cooling only 3 gallons at a time (all I can lift); current efforts to cool the wort efficiently haven't panned out.

Any info greatly appreciated.
Pieter
 
they actually sell kits so you don't have to think about it. The kit costs about $20, if you were to buy all the fittings separately from the hardware store or a catalog they would probably only cost 10 or 15, but it saves you from ordering the wrong parts... at this point it is really up to you.

They have charts that will tell you how much water to run through the chiller and at what rate to get certain temperature drops, but yest you put the pot on the counter and the carboy on the floor, as the wort moves through it cools to within a few degrees of pitching temperature. You need to know the temperature of the cold side water and have a valve on your pot to control the outflow of water so it doesn't go through the chiller to quickly.

Again the charts will tell you about how hot the outflow will be, but expect it to be in the 120 - 140 range depending on your rate of flow. All in all the therminator will save more water it can cool about 5 gallons of wort using 10 - 15 gallons of ice cold water, so it is really up to you.
 
Also, you might want to search for the Wort Wizard. I used that before I went with a March Pump.

I too used to use a homemade Wort Wizard with my Shirron chiller. It worked fine with no help from gravity at all. You can see some pictures of my old setup here.
http://brewing.lustreking.com/gear/shirron.html

Another option for reusing your waste water other than the flower bed is directing it into the washing machine and washing a batch of clothes.
 
If your chill water is always 60 F or colder, there is no need to spring for a super duper chiller. Even a modest homemade counterflow chiller can get boiling wort down to ale temps with chill water at that temp. If your water is cold enough, you will likely have to throttle the chill water back a little to keep from overchilling. I would definitely plan to put some kind of valve on the chill water loop so that you can throttle the chill water flow to get the right wort temp. Oh, and just a warning - the chill water exits the chiller HOT! If you water plants with it directly, you'll kill them.

Prosit!
 
they actually sell kits so you don't have to think about it. The kit costs about $20, if you were to buy all the fittings separately from the hardware store or a catalog they would probably only cost 10 or 15, but it saves you from ordering the wrong parts... at this point it is really up to you.

They have charts that will tell you how much water to run through the chiller and at what rate to get certain temperature drops, but yest you put the pot on the counter and the carboy on the floor, as the wort moves through it cools to within a few degrees of pitching temperature. You need to know the temperature of the cold side water and have a valve on your pot to control the outflow of water so it doesn't go through the chiller to quickly.

Again the charts will tell you about how hot the outflow will be, but expect it to be in the 120 - 140 range depending on your rate of flow. All in all the therminator will save more water it can cool about 5 gallons of wort using 10 - 15 gallons of ice cold water, so it is really up to you.
A Kit sounds great. Where do I get one?

Thanks for the help!

Pieter
 
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