50ft immersion chiller or 30plate wort chiller?

DakotaRules said:

Another option is to get an aquarium pump ($15) and pump ice water through the chiller.

Click to expand...

or make a small immersion pre-chiller that would sit in an ice-bath, run the hose water through that and into the plate chiller. Setting the chiller in an ice bath isn't nearly as efficient since you'd only be chilling the outer plates - yeah the first quart of wort going through the thing would come out ice cold, but after that putting the chiller in an ice-bath isn't going to make much difference.

I have my system set up that way but I was suggesting that so he didn't have to buy both.

Joesf35 said:

It has 25% more surface area than 3/8 but will flow at a slower velocity. Go with 3/8.

Click to expand...

I built my own using 20' of 5/8 OD copper and I can cool down in about 10 min. with Mich. well water. I have very good pressure so the larger dia. works well. 3/8" has 1.17" cir. while 5/8" is 1.96" cir. so thats 67% more surface area.
I plan on reforming it larger and adding another 10' to it since it is being used in a 15 gal. BK. But even being only 20' long it still cools well with the larger surface area.

Here is a good bit of information to check out that could help you decide.

http://www.mrmalty.com/chiller.php

I just gave up my 20' CFC for a 50' IC with Whirlpool recirculation after reading this.

The CFC preformed awesome, but the 'set it and forget it' method of the IC works for me. I can start cooling, and go about cleaning up without worry, and I get to leave most of the cold break behind.

While cleaning and sanitizing the CFC wasn't hard, cleaning and sanitizing the IC is less hard.

Great info from Jamil Zainasheff/Mr. Malty...

WHEN I make up a brew stand, I was thinking of going single level... So, with that, I would need to use pumps to move the wort and water around. I could go with that method of chilling... Especially since my kettle already has a valve fitted in it (both of them do, 32 and 60 quart sizes)...

Until then, I've found that moving the IC around inside the wort really helps too... I'm going to adjust my IC to make that easier before I use it the next time. I also plan on making the next IC with that in mind...

he makes alot of sense.. I like my plate chiller but I guess whirlpooling with an IC would be fine. Back when I was using an IC, I tried stirring really well with a spoon and moving the IC around and it didn't work, still took way too long and too much water to cool with my IC. I think a plate chiller is nice because there's no need to get a good whirlpool for heat transfer, the design of the chiller does it for you automatically.

bruin_ale said:

he makes alot of sense.. I like my plate chiller but I guess whirlpooling with an IC would be fine. Back when I was using an IC, I tried stirring really well with a spoon and moving the IC around and it didn't work, still took way too long and too much water to cool with my IC. I think a plate chiller is nice because there's no need to get a good whirlpool for heat transfer, the design of the chiller does it for you automatically.

Click to expand...

Guess that's one of the differences between east coast and west coast...

BTW, what's the temp of the water coming out of your faucet? Out here, until it's the middle of summer, I haven't seen it over the mid 50's (usually much cooler/colder)... I think it's in the 40's during the winter months (or except for a few months during the heat of summer)...

Not sure what I'd need to do IF I was to move where ground water (or the tap water) temp was above 70F... Probably go a little more insane trying to get it cooler, or to chill my hot wort faster.

right now, the ground water is really cold but I haven't measured it. In the summer months, it'll warm up a bit - but this isn't AZ, we probably don't get over 70.

Ive used both IC,CFC and a plate chiller and honestly I will always stand by my plate chiller. Super fast chilling, easy clean up and little water use. The cfc also worked fast but was a paint to deal with, setup and clean.

Had a 20' x 1/2" IC with my previous 3 gallon setup. Now moving to 10 Gallon RIMS batches and I'm building a 50' x 1/2" IC, MrMalty Style. I like the idea of the plate chillers but I really can't believe that they are easy to clean, and I mean really clean. I mean your running 70F wort through those things, you have 1 moldy chunk of hops in there and your toast. I guess we'll see though, can be a pain in NJ when its 100 out.

I have all three chiller types (immersion, counterflow, plate) and I prefer my plate chiller over the other two. It's more compact than the counterflow and works faster than the immersion.

With all these "worries" about the plate chiller not being cleaned or sanitized, I wonder about your cleaning process. After I'm done brewing I clean everything so it's ready to go for my next batch. Run water through everything and rinse it off and your done.

DakotaRules said:

With all these "worries" about the plate chiller not being cleaned or sanitized, I wonder about your cleaning process. After I'm done brewing I clean everything so it's ready to go for my next batch. Run water through everything and rinse it off and your done.

Click to expand...

The worry I have is, what if some trub or pellets get lodged in one of the corrigations and then you don't have the water pressure to get them out or don't even know something is lodged in there? Or when the fluid makes its turns around the heat exchanger maybe you could get build up on the low pressure side of the flow? But anyone could probably list areas of possible contamination for every apparatus... so maybe there is no need to worry?

You are right, you can make an argument for every apparatus but there are ways of cleaning them all. For total sanitation of the HE you can bake it to burn out any foreign object but one thing that I do before I hook up the chiller is to recirculate the boiling wort back into the kettle through my hop bag to filter some of the trub. It's not going to get it all but it'll get most of it. Once I've recirculated then I hook up the chiller and make a single pass directly into the fermentor and don't sweat the small stuff, cold break isn't going to do anything to the flavor profile and a little trub isn't going to hurt it either. I loom at the total overall efficiency, less water and a fast cool down to pitching temps.

So this is how I have my chiller set up.

Originally I was going to get rid of the IC but I figured on hot days, needing to really get the temp really down, I would utilize the IC to "pre-chill" (throwing in ice or freeze packs in the IC's bucket) the water entering the chiller.

Now that I have a pump, I can take the boiling wort and recirculate back into the hop bag and filter some of the hot break and hop partials before going into the plate chiller, and then chill and go into the fermenting vessel.


I dont have the pump in this picture but you get the idea.

Nice set up! One day...

It took a while but I got there! You'll get there eventually too!

I vote for the immersion chiller myself. As said before....plates are hard to clean (and or verify if they are clean) and also cloggable. You also have to bake them after cleaning to dry them out.....another PITA.

I vote plate, I have the shirron which is not that big, and I could never go back
to my immersion chiller, I turn the cold water on I turn the pump on and out comes 66 degree wort.
Doesn't get easier than that. I've never baked it either. 36 batches of beer so far, never a problem.

DakotaRules said:

Another option is to get an aquarium pump ($15) and pump ice water through the chiller.

Click to expand...

+1. This method works great.

Some plate chiller questions for you experts. I purchased a 40 plate chiller recently on a whim and will be using it on a new brew stand.

1) I'm using those camlock QDs from Pro Flow on the wort sides. So to back flush, I need to add some kind of extension piece to my regular hose that will end with a camlock QD. Then just switch back and forth ever minute or two to back flush? Anything else to it?

2) When done with step one, just use my pump to run sanitizer through the wort side for a minute or two. Do I also do it for the water side?

3) Can it then sit with sanitizer in it for extended periods of time?

4) The chiller will be bolted to my brew stand so taking it apart and baking it would not be feasible.

Anything else I should be concerned with? I plan on sanitizing it before chilling by running boiling wort through it for 15 minutes at the end of the boil.

Thanks all.

Sounds good.. Here's what I do:

1. Run boiling wort though it for 15 minutes at end of boil (as you plan to)
2. Pipe water->out to HLT while chilling
3. During cleanup I pump that water (may put oxy in it if things are really dirty) through pump and chiller and through HERMS. You can also just spray the hose through the wort out side, it works just fine.
4. I follow it up with a dunk in the star-san and let it soak for a bit.. I don't let it sit in there, but I don't think it would hurt it.

Thanks Bruin. So you run the HLT water through both ends of the chiller or just one end?

So you don't worry about star san sitting inside the chiller once your done?

Thanks.

I just backflush it, run the hot HLT water through the wort out.. The restriction inside these things is really low, you can see it flush all the wort out within about a second or two it happens so fast it's hard to even see it - especially if it's a lighter beer. I dunk and fill with starsan, then tip it upside down and you can see it mostly empty itself.

Just be aware that if you keep it in your garage and there is ANY possibility of it freezing, it will be destroyed if ANY fluid remains inside it.

BTW: I would never let it sit for any period of time with fluid in it. No matter what.

Thanks all.

I built a 50' 1/2" IC and have been using it for 5 and 10 gallon batches in a 3-tier keggle system. I can get boiling wort (~199*F due to living at 7k feet) down to 65*F in 10 minutes or less. My ground water has been in the 40's this winter. When the water warms up it takes a few minutes longer, but not too many. I control the flow of water through the chiller with a gated wye on the hose. I do a primitive whirlpool with a march pump. I've been lazy and haven't made up a special piece of copper like MrMalty shows. I'm a big fan of the IC because it is easy to use and I can sanitize my carboy while the wort is chilling. Also, with the whirlpool the runoff to the carboy is cleaner and I have less hop matter in my fermenter (thats good because it seems all my beers have a ton of hops!!)