Are you happy with your plate chiller?

I'm looking to move from an IWC to a plate chiller. The chilling process is the part of brew day I dread the most - a bunch of hoses hanging into a boiling pot, I have to dead-lift the thing to the sink, and then the hands-on stirring. If I go from 5gal to 10gal batches and start doing this outdoors I don't want to carry over these difficulties onto a larger scale.

I want everything to be external to the pot so a leaky hose doesn't contaminate the batch - a plate chiller or counterflow is the closest to a plug-and-play solution for this.

Scaling up the IWC for 10gal batches is going to cost me anyway so I'm considering the plate chiller. What I'd like to know is if people are happy with their equipment?

I love my plate chiller. I can take 10 gallons from boiling to ~ tapwater temperature in about 15 minutes using a pump. Our tapwater is 80 degrees in the summer and I hate fooling around with ice, so I just put the carboys in my fermentation chamber and pitch the next morning.

If you have a IWC (which I'm interpreting as immersion whirlpool chiller) why is there hands-on stirring?

And with a plate chiller, there's still going to be lots of hoses in addition to extra cleaning. I like mine, but there are pros and cons to each.

Plate chillers are sweet, but there is in my opinion a ton more cleaning and whatnot involved. Lots of flushing and backflushing. Plus if you brew hoppy beers you'll probably need a solution to keep hop gunk from clogging up the chiller. To be honest I rather wish I had a Chillzilla counterflow chiller than my non-name plate chiller. I've used a buddies and it worked flawlesssly.

I'm pretty happy with mine - a Chillhog 4000. I haven't found it difficult to clean, but I use a hop spider to keep the hop gunk out - I imagine it'd clog easily otherwise. It will cool a 5-gallon batch in 5 minutes or so easily when recirculated using a pump. I actually have to be careful not to over-shoot my target pitching temperature.

Without a pump, I'm not sure I'd bother though. I originally was using it to cool straight-through using gravity. The wort had to be flowing at a trickle for it to reach 70 degrees. I think my immersion chiller was actually faster.

To clean, I typically run hot Straight A through it forwards and backwards for 10 minutes each way. Then I empty it, flush it with hot water, empty it again, then fill it with Star-San and cap the inlet and outlet.

I'm looking at the 40 and 60 plate Duda Diesel chillers.

I'll be doing gravity fed for now.

PseudoChef said:

If you have a IWC (which I'm interpreting as immersion whirlpool chiller) why is there hands-on stirring?

And with a plate chiller, there's still going to be lots of hoses in addition to extra cleaning. I like mine, but there are pros and cons to each.

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I'm stirring to circulate the wort around the coil. Otherwise just the wort near the chiller is getting cooled which slows the process.

So it's not really an IWC, then?

I have the blingman therminator, I gravity feed right now with plans to integrate a pump to recirculate, but using a simple prechiller on my water I can gravity feed wide open from boiling to ~ 70 - 73 degrees as fast as it will drain roughly one gallon per min

That's definitely still an IWC I think. Lots of folks stir a bit with an immersion chiller to either whirpool or just to get the immersed coil in contact with all of the wort.

Arrheinous said:

I'm looking at the 40 and 60 plate Duda Diesel chillers.

I'll be doing gravity fed for now.

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Instead of more plates get longer, wider plates. The B3-23A 30 plate chiller is what I just upgraded to and it's a beast.

hillhousesawdustco said:

That's definitely still an IWC I think. Lots of folks stir a bit with an immersion chiller to either whirpool or just to get the immersed coil in contact with all of the wort.

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Typically when people picture a Immersion Whirlpool Chiller it's using a pump to recirculate the whirlpool. However, IWC can also stand for Immersion Wort Chiller.

Here's the link to Jamil's whirlpool chiller
http://www.mrmalty.com/chiller.php

Oh man! I had purchased the Therminator a few weeks ago and used it this past weekend. I am in Northern Illinois so the water was cold but I could not pump the hot wort through the chiller fast enough. It literally took less that 3 minutes to cool to lager pitching temps with 5 gallons. I love this thing.

PseudoChef said:

So it's not really an IWC, then?

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^ What's not an immersion wort chiller about this? It's a wort chiller you immerse in the wort.

I stir around it to make sure the temperature of the wort is even since heat loss is tied to the difference in temperatures between the coil and the wort. If only the wort around the coil gets cold then it's not going to get colder and the whole process slows down.

<laughs>

I blame TLAs...

Cheers!

jww9618 said:

Instead of more plates get longer, wider plates. The B3-23A 30 plate chiller is what I just upgraded to and it's a beast.

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I have the same plate chiller here in SW Ohio and have no trouble getting to lager temps. We typically do 10 gallon batches and can chill all 10 gallons in less than 10 minutes to lager temps. Great device. Cleanup slightly longer than with the immersion chiller I went from but I am in love with my plate chiller.

Oooooooh. Immersion WHIRLPOOL Chiller. Just what homebrewing needs, another confusing acronym.

Immersion wort chiller came first. It gets seniority over IWC. Whirlpool can take IWpC.

I'll definitely scope out the B3-23A series. Their chart is pretty handy.

jww9618 said:

Instead of more plates get longer, wider plates. The B3-23A 30 plate chiller is what I just upgraded to and it's a beast.

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Ditto... I use mine gravity fed most of the time with a lot of hoppy beers. Very efficient, never clogs and the cleanup is a breeze.

I guess a regular immersion chiller is just an IC to me...carry on...

PseudoChef said:

I guess a regular immersion chiller is just an IC to me...carry on...

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Oh np, I didn't realize the whirlpool chiller could be IWC too but I see that now.

I used an immersion chiller for years with 5 gallon batches, and it generally did well enough (although used a lot of water) but when I made the jump to 10 gallons I picked up a Shirron plate chiller, chugger pump & QDs from Brewhardware, and built a hop-spider to help hop filtration. A bit of an upfront investment, but it will save me time, make my sessions more efficient, give me better beer, and keeps me from lifting heavy wort in my advancing age.

The plate chiller has made a huge difference in my brew days and I recommend it. I just used it two weeks ago on a 5-gallon pilsner and dropped to pitching temps in about 10 minutes

Good to hear, I'm looking to accomplish the same. Slick in-line thermometer. I'll take a look at setting up something similar.

The extended cleanup required for running a plate chiller isn't a problem for me - I can sterilize while I setup, mash, boil, and all that. The last thing I want to do, and the thing that makes me dread brew day, is man-handling the IC and hoping it doesn't pee into the kettle in the process.

Plus the PC should scale up for 5, 10, 15 gallon volumes. I'd need to spend more money for 50' IC recommended for 10 gallons. Or buy a second 25' and strap them together.

As far as clogging, no one here has mentioned a problem with the B3-23A and I've got a bazooka screen on the kettle. Not much gets through that.

For an IC that you need to stir or Jamil's IWC, is there the potential for hot-side aeration/oxidation?

At the end of the day: I just want to pull the lever and let gravity/thermodynamics do my bidding. I work plenty enough during the week. Next I'll be looking at kegging.

The B3-23A will clog the same as any other plate chiller. I use a hop spider and haven't had any issues. Does the bazooka screen work well with hop pellets?

It clogs with pellets but I can scrape around it. I typically use whole/plug hops. Such a neat plant.

So I think I'm pulling the trigger on B3-23A 30 today. Going with 3/4" and 1/2" NPT so I can tinker with new configurations ad nauseum.

Arrheinous said:

It clogs with pellets but I can scrape around it. I typically use whole/plug hops. Such a neat plant.

So I think I'm pulling the trigger on B3-23A 30 today. Going with 3/4" and 1/2" NPT so I can tinker with new configurations ad nauseum.

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That's the setup I have with a pump. I love the plate chiller. I bought mine through brewhardware and got my camlocks, thermometer, and other fittings from bobbym. Good luck.

I have the duda diesel 20 plate long chiller setup with camlocks and a analog thermometer and it works great.

I use a paint strainer bag to filter hops form the kettle.

I have used the plate chiller with gravity feed, however, a pump is convenient for cleaning and for sanitizing by recirculating boiling wort through the chiller during the last 10 minutes of the boil.

I have a DD 40 plate chiller, I love it, it saves time. I have 50F ground water all year, I can drop 10gal to temp in 10min. It's easy to clean and just to be safe I pressure can it before any big 20+gal brew day.

Arrheinous said:

It clogs with pellets but I can scrape around it. I typically use whole/plug hops. Such a neat plant.

So I think I'm pulling the trigger on B3-23A 30 today. Going with 3/4" and 1/2" NPT so I can tinker with new configurations ad nauseum.

Click to expand...

We just fired up our duda for the first time today, and it was amazing. We have the b3-23a-60 and were able to take 24g from 212 to 65 in one pass straight to our fermentation buckets, and this was pumping at full speed..

Got mine in the mail today, 30 plate.

The 60 plate looks like a monster.

jww9618 said:

Instead of more plates get longer, wider plates. The B3-23A 30 plate chiller is what I just upgraded to and it's a beast.

Click to expand...

Exactly. That chiller rocks. So to answer the OP: using the Duda B3-23A yes very happy.

I have a duda diesel 30 plate chiller, it works quite well. I have had clogging issues in the past but I find a few quick blasts with the hose cleans out hop goo. A hop spider is a must.

I run boiling wort through my chiller for 10 minutes prior to chilling with it to sanitize it.

Just brewed a ten gallon batch today. I use a hop spider and a hop stopper so very little except wort leaves the BK. I have the Duda Diesel B3-23A-30ST plate chiller and I was hard pressed to keep the wort at 60F going into the fermenters. My ground water temperature right now is around 50F so this chiller is awesomely efficient. I believe that with the right precautions and clean-up afterwards, that the plate chiller is a very cost effective means of chilling the wort at the end of the brew. Good luck with yours.

Is there a good place to pick up 3/4" FNPT x GHT (M and F)? I checked out Bargainfittings and Brewhardware for them but no GHT.

The amount of time saved cooling is incredible with a pump. And the cleaning is simple with a pump. Dump water collected from the cool down into the boil pot with some pbw and in a couple min everything is clear coming out of the chiller. I usually do 4-5 gallons forward then another 4-5 gallons with the lines switched. I have the 30 plate Duda and I cool 11 gallons to pitching temp in under 10 min. I do recirc through my home made hop spider to chill it faster.

orion7144 said:

The amount of time saved cooling is incredible with a pump. And the cleaning is simple with a pump. Dump water collected from the cool down into the boil pot with some pbw and in a couple min everything is clear coming out of the chiller. I usually do 4-5 gallons forward then another 4-5 gallons with the lines switched. I have the 30 plate Duda and I cool 11 gallons to pitching temp in under 10 min. I do recirc through my home made hop spider to chill it faster.

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I ordered a Chugger pump today.

I'm thinking of going with a plate chiller. Specifically, the 30 plate long from duda diesel. From what i've read, cooling is a breeze. But cleaning is a bit of a pain. So using a plate chiller gets the wort cool quicker than an IC, but takes longer to clean than an ic. Is it worth the time that you save cooling, to just reinvest that time cleaning? Does that even make sense?

My IC would get the wort (10 - 12 gallons) to pitching temps in 15 minutes and required a quick hose down. So 17 minutes tops. If a plate chiller gets my wort to pitching temps in ten minutes, is it gonna take longer than 7 minites to flush out?

If that is really how long it takes with your IC, then no, but I have a hard time believing that short of a time for ten gallons

I would not have invested in a plate chiller had my IC worked that fast. My 5 gallon batches took almost 30 min and my first 10 gallon batch with the IC is why I bought my plate chiller.

I went from a IC to a plate chiller (therminator). It's faster, but i don't really care about that.

I like it because it's compact and I don't have to put it in my boil pot. I have an electric kettle, with a big element in there, and an IC isn't going to work there.