Ok, I've been brewing a good while and have a set system down. On a whim I bought a plate chiller on sale and today was the first use.
Pros: Chilled faster than an immersion chiller overall, it can be mounted and hard plumbed in place for quicker use
Cons:
-twice as many hoses,
-didn't chill in a single pass because I have warm water so all the trub in my kettle was boiling hot, and my wort is stuck in the fermentor at 102F
-it clogged because I used loose pellet hops
-my garden hose connectors leaked but once it was going it was too hot to touch to fix anything
-I had to backflush it with pressurized water for 15 minutes before hop particles stopped coming out
Despite the large list of cons, I think I can overcome all of them and make this a better system than my trusty immersion chiller.
Here's my lessons learned:
-Never use loose hops with a plate chiller, pellet or otherwise. I will always be using a hop spider or sock
-Always recirculate your wort back into the kettle to chill everything below 100F so that it's easier to handle/clean when you're done
-Keep silicon potholder gloves on hand just in case
-Mount it to something and minimize how many hookups you need to make before using it
-Install a ball valve on the outlet side of my pump to optimize my wort flow and make chilling more efficient
-Buy a bigger pump
-Buy dedicated garden hoses so you're sure they have good gaskets and won't leak
Anyone who has anything to add or thinks I was being a dipsh*t please feel free to opine
Pros: Chilled faster than an immersion chiller overall, it can be mounted and hard plumbed in place for quicker use
Cons:
-twice as many hoses,
-didn't chill in a single pass because I have warm water so all the trub in my kettle was boiling hot, and my wort is stuck in the fermentor at 102F
-it clogged because I used loose pellet hops
-my garden hose connectors leaked but once it was going it was too hot to touch to fix anything
-I had to backflush it with pressurized water for 15 minutes before hop particles stopped coming out
Despite the large list of cons, I think I can overcome all of them and make this a better system than my trusty immersion chiller.
Here's my lessons learned:
-Never use loose hops with a plate chiller, pellet or otherwise. I will always be using a hop spider or sock
-Always recirculate your wort back into the kettle to chill everything below 100F so that it's easier to handle/clean when you're done
-Keep silicon potholder gloves on hand just in case
-Mount it to something and minimize how many hookups you need to make before using it
-Install a ball valve on the outlet side of my pump to optimize my wort flow and make chilling more efficient
-Buy a bigger pump
-Buy dedicated garden hoses so you're sure they have good gaskets and won't leak
Anyone who has anything to add or thinks I was being a dipsh*t please feel free to opine