Chilling the plate chiller?

[Cpt_Kirks]

I use a cooler full of ice water to feed my IC via a little submersible pump.

Now, I have a plate chiller that I'm about to start using.

Will I gain anything by submerging the plate chiller in the cooler of ice water, or is that just silly?

 

[ajwillys]

You will gain a little bit but the real workhorse of a plate chiller is the surface area between the plates. Your best bet is just to have the water as cold as possible. Would probably be best to put the IC in the ice and run the water through that before going to the plate chiller.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

You will gain a little bit but the real workhorse of a plate chiller is the surface area between the plates. Your best bet is just to have the water as cold as possible. Would probably be best to put the IC in the ice and run the water through that before going to the plate chiller.

+1. This will have the greatest efficiency.

 

[WortMonger]

I agree as well. Using a coil in the ice water prior to the cooling water going through your plate chiller will have the biggest impact to fast chilling. If it were me though, once at a constant temperature doing it the way mentioned, I would then hook up a recirculation directly pumping the ice water through the plate chiller. The coil can't cool as much as the direct ice water can, but using it as a pre-chiller and not recycling that water at first will get you cold fast. So, pre-chiller coil at first, then straight ice water recirculated via pump through the plate chiller later will get you down to lager pitching temps and below. If you just used the recirculated ice water from the get go, it would all melt and you wouldn't get to the lower temperatures.

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

Yeah, I'm going to be pumping the ice water from the cooler directly into the plate chiller. I do that with my IC now. I use a little 160GPH Harbor Freight submersible pump.

The waste water goes into the garden and flower pots around the patio where I brew.