Temp of water going into plate chiller?

What temperature should the water be that is going into your plate chiller?

Also, how long does it take you to chill your wort with your 30 plate chiller?

Set up? Pics?

I have no experience with your model, but a good counter flow or plate chiller should be able to get your wort within a few degrees of ground water temp. Never any colder though unless you cool the incoming "coolant"water in some other method. So use that as your guide. If your ground water isn't cold enough, you can cool it further in a swamp style cooler ice bath, or fermentation chamber before pitching yeast.

I just did a test run with boiling water last night through my 10-plate Shirron chiller. Ground water was probably between 65F and 70F (I should have written it down, but I know it was not too cool). Draining the kettle at 0.5 gallons per minute and running water through the chiller at 6 gallons per minute (full bore from my washing machine supply) got 11 gallons down to 70F in 21 minutes. I was fiddling with output rates on the kettle and the hose, so I could probably bring the kettle rate down to about 15 minutes, just using a bit of gravity.

So, yeah, a plate chiller can get you really close to the incoming coolant water if you get it set up right as far as flow rates go. That's what I'm trying to determine now, as I want to get a pump to recirculate my coolant water instead of wasting 100+ gallons.

I have three good factors going for me. I have a forty plate, pump and well water which is 55-60 degrees. Cools my five gallons of boiling wort to 74 degrees in about four minutes.

rwinzing said:

I have three good factors going for me. I have a forty plate, pump and well water which is 55-60 degrees. Cools my five gallons of boiling wort to 74 degrees in about four minutes.

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What's your coolant flow rate? Are you pumping the water or the wort?

Not sure how to calculate my flow rate. I pump the wort.

rwinzing said:

I have three good factors going for me. I have a forty plate, pump and well water which is 55-60 degrees. Cools my five gallons of boiling wort to 74 degrees in about four minutes.

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I have a 40 plate chiller, a pump, and similar well water temps. I have no prayer of ever seeing a 4 minute cool time for a 5 gallon batch. Can you elaborate on your setup and process? Chiller model, hose water flowrate (i.e. full blast). Are you going from flameout thru chiller/pump, and into the ferment bucket/carboy? Or are you "batch chilling" by pumping out of the kettle, thru the chiller, and back into the kettle?

Thanks

Sure thing. I have a top tier setup and use the Thermenator. I go from boil kettle into the pump through the chiller and directly into my fermentor. I got this setup less than two weeks ago. I have cam locks and half inch hoses. I have used this now three different brews. I have a throughmometer to watch my temps. I have a valve on my pump to manage the flow. One batch with the valve wide open it was coming out at 78 degrees. One batch there was 10 minutes between flame out and transfer. I held the valve half open and it went in the fermentor at 70 . Yesterday I brewed and it was half way open no time between flame out and transfer and it came out at 74 degrees. All well within pitching range. All three had active fermentation so my temps are good. The hoses are cool to the touch. The Thermenator is a great piece of brewing hardware.

rwinzing said:

Sure thing. I have a top tier setup and use the Thermenator. I go from boil kettle into the pump through the chiller and directly into my fermentor. I got this setup less than two weeks ago. I have cam locks and half inch hoses. I have used this now three different brews. I have a throughmometer to watch my temps. I have a valve on my pump to manage the flow. One batch with the valve wide open it was coming out at 78 degrees. One batch there was 10 minutes between flame out and transfer. I held the valve half open and it went in the fermentor at 70 . Yesterday I brewed and it was half way open no time between flame out and transfer and it came out at 74 degrees. All well within pitching range. All three had active fermentation so my temps are good. The hoses are cool to the touch. The Thermenator is a great piece of brewing hardware.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I have a similar setup (pump, output valves, thrumometer, water temps, flow rate). Only I have a 40 plate duda diesel.

I've played with my methods quite a bit, and the best I can do is 10-12 min. I'm only saying this to provide a second opinion for the OP.

I find it best to have the input water flow rate as high as possible. Though this may be unnecessary and waste water, I just open it up and forget about it. I also start out by batch cooling back into the kettle, usually only because I'm not ready to go into fermenter yet. Sometimes I just say screw it and batch cool all the way down to 70. This usually takes 15 minutes for 5 gal.

The thrumometer and output pump valve are critical to your cooling success. They allow you to achieve your target output temperature immediately by slowly opening the ball valve and watching the thrumometer. Once you reach your desired pitching temp, you let it go. Without these, you end up reading output batch temperature, and it's often too late to make adjustments.