Sizing up a plater chiller. Need suggestions.

Much to her chagrin, my wife is allowing me to ask for beer equipment for my birthday. Currently have a 9 gallon kettle with sight glass and valve plus a 10 gallon round rubber maid mash tun. I have another 40 quart aluminum pot used for HLT or use in transferring and finally I have a little tan chinese pump that i have been testing for wort transfer. Works pretty well.

The one thing I have been wanting is a brew stand (too expensive unless I DIY it...I vow to build it some day), but also been thinking about a plate chiller. My 25' copper IC isn't really cutting it and instead of purchasing a pond pump and ice everytime, i want a plate chiller. If i got a plate chiller, i'd likely use the pump or gravity feed. The pump isn't crazy fast, but has a good solid ouput. Now I am currently doing 5 gallon batches because I like making varieties and I only have about 6 kegs. I usually have 1 on tap for her and one for me with the option of switching to others.

So having said all of that. I am looking at a Duda Diesel guy. The cheap guy in me wants the B3-30A since it seems to be their standard model and not a high flow one. But should I plan for something bigger/more efficient. My IC takes 20-30 min. I try to stir and shake it every now and then, but i am usually cleaning up when i turn on the water, so I am not always on the ball. Would a plate chiller help me or should I stick with the IC and try to be more attentive? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks and sorry if I rambled, Beer excites me.

ClemsonDV said:

Beer excites me.

Click to expand...

...I know what you mean...

I got the B3-23A 40 plate chiller for my 20 gallon batches. That thing is massive and chills unbelievably. Pumping full bore with the cold water throttled down. The waste water comes out hot as opposed to my roommate's counterflow chiller that seems to come out cold meaning wasted water. Especially for 5 gal batches something much smaller would work well.

However, before you jump into a plate chiller, I'd just caution you make sure you're up for cleaning it. It's definitely more time than an immersion chiller or even a counterflow chiller. The time I save chilling is spent cleaning. I've found that switching the flow direction is crucial to cleaning it effectively. It'll be running clear going through one way, but switch it to go through the other way and it comes out all gunky again. My routine is Flush both directions, PBW both directions, flush both directions, Soduim Hydroxide both directions, flush both directions. PBW alone was leaving hop chunks in there no matter how I filtered/bagged the hops beforehand.

Being that you already have a pump and an immersion chiller, have you considered doing a whirlpool immersion chiller where you're constantly pumping hot wort over the coils? It makes a dramatic improvement in the time it takes to chill.

I love my plate chiller, but there's other ways to chill with less cleaning involved.

How cold is your ground water in the winter and summer?