Shirron plate chillers questions

Does anyone know what the temp drop is on the 10 plate chillers? could they be daisy chained effectively? what do you think of this one? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=250254694908 thanks for your answers

I don't know what the temp drop would be. It depends on how cold your water is. However, I think that that unit, if it is as-advertised, would work perfectly fine. However, again depending on water temps, you might need an inline valve to slow the flow of wort if you aren't getting the chilling performance that you expect.

Either way, it's a great deal. You couldn't build an immersion chiller for that price! I say you should buy it and let us know how it turns out!!!

Do you have a pump? You could recirc the cooled wort back to your kettle until you get to a temperature that you can go to your carboy with.

Using 54*F tap water I get to 65*F easily with a single pass. As to actual flow rate, I dunno. I was pumping the wort, unrestricted, through the chiller and into the carboy. Transfer time for 10 gallons was 8 minutes.

I imagine I will have to choke the outflow down this summer but, I don't expect to need much. Last summer, amidst triple digit temps, we were getting water temps in the 60*s at worst.

beerthirty said:

Does anyone know what the temp drop is on the 10 plate chillers? could they be daisy chained effectively? what do you think of this one?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=250254694908 thanks for your answers

Click to expand...

There's nothing that prevents you from daisy chaining them together. I'm actually thinking about doing exactly that. We have hot ground water here in the summer, so you have to use ice to chill the wort one way or another. I think I'm going to use one with tap water to drop the wort to 90-100º. Then use a 2nd one by pumping ice water through it to drop the wort to pitching temps.

A note on the one you posted: It'll work and it's a good price, but while it's got 10 plates, but they're much smaller than a shirron - probably 1/2 the surface area. You probably need a 20 plate model to have the same surface area. Also, that particular one has 3/4" fittings. Not ideal for home brewing. I have seen others on ebay with 1/2" fittings before.