Clogging the plate chiller

[Frodv]

does anyone have a suggestion to how I can stop my plate chiller from clogging up every fudging time I brew... I’m sick of it. I’ve tried it all from hop bags to spider to whirlpooling... I have a Swep B20 plate chiller.
https://www.swep.net/products/b20/

 

[brewswithshoes]

Best suggestion i could offer is switch to a counterflow or immersion.

Unfortunately, I lived this same dilemma for awhile as I loved how quick the plate chiller would work when it wasn't gunking up. Unless i'm only using whole cone hops the plate chiller doesn't make an appearance in my brew day.

On a serious note, it would depend on your setup on how you could limit the gunk from entering. I feel like i've tried them all with little success; whirlpooling, hop spiders, hop bags and a stainless scrubbie stuffed in the dip tube. I use an electric setup, so things like the trub trapper, etc. aren't really any option for me. Best one that i tried of those was the all stainless scrubbie stuffed in the kettle side end of my dip tube. Plate chiller never clogged but the scrubbie sure did and strained the pump pretty dry.

Good luck with whatever you find, but if you are a hoppy beer brewer you may chase this issue for a while.

 

[Frodv]

Thanks for the input.
I have been thinking about boiling my hops in a separate pot and strain it straight into the fermenter, and then just boil my wort as I normaly do but without the hops.

Any thoughts?

 

[wilserbrewer]

Do you recirc back to the kettle, or one pass chill straight to the fermenter?

I’ve heard one pass is less
Prone to clogging the chiller...something about the way the cold break I trub proteins behave when redeposited in the hot wort.

How fine a filter were your hop bags?

Not paint strainer bags I hope?

Boiling hops separately seems like a
step back...

 

[ITV]

What works for me is to have a false bottom in the boil kettle to catch the hot break and flush the plate chiller with hot PBW immediately after use. Never had a clogged plate chiller.

 

[IslandLizard]

I've tried about everything, and have found using 2 or 3 large (9x22") fine mesh hop bags weighed down with a handful of glass marbles to be the best solution.

Using a paddle, I 'massage' and drain the bags about every 5 minutes, maybe every 3 minutes right after a new hop addition. That way I get absolutely no hop pulp inside my plate chiller and can whirlpool and recirculate during chilling at full speed on a full 1/2" bore all day along. I usually squeeze the bags out, using silicone gloves, at the very end before transferring to the fermenter.
Usually citrus zest etc. is also added to the bags.

I also mounted a fairly coarse, non-restrictive filter (sort of like a short bazooka tube) inside the kettle to prevent any unintentional larger chunks, Irish Moss, or a stray hop flower getting out as well.

I have noticed excellent hop extraction, as good as using them loose.

 

[day_trippr]

What works for me is to have a false bottom in the boil kettle to catch the hot break and flush the plate chiller with hot PBW immediately after use. Never had a clogged plate chiller.

Is this using a gas fired kettle? Or is it an electric powered kettle?

Cheers!

 

[ITV]

Is this using a gas fired kettle? Or is it an electric powered kettle?

Gas fired kettle (1/2 barrel keg)

 

[day_trippr]

Thanks for the response. So you don't have any issues with scorching under the FB?

Years ago I bought an extra FB with my three 20g Boilermakers with the thought of using one in the BK. Never got around to it, mostly because I totally switched to pellets after having been a whole cone person for years, and then a recent experience setting a 6" diameter ss hop spider on the bottom of my BK leaving matching scorch marks below made me think the FB thing wouldn't work for the same reason...

Cheers!

 

[TheMadKing]

I would look at your lautering process. I use a plate chiller and the only time I ever had issues was from hops. I can't even fathom having a hot break so thick that it would clog it. That means you have a ton of protein or possibly grain matter in your boil and it's better to keep that stuff out in the first place.

So are you volaufing? Are you using Irish moss or whirlfloc? Are you using a ton of adjuncts?

How much trub is left in your kettle after you chill?

 

[Frodv]

I think maybe the biggest problem is that my diptube is to long, in a 170 liter boil kettle I only have about 2 liters left after cooling. And if I use a lot of hops it is no wonder my plate chiller glogges. I don’t use hop bags, spider or whirlpooling....

 

[TheMadKing]

I would look at your lautering process. I use a plate chiller and the only time I ever had issues was from hops. I can't even fathom having a hot break so thick that it would clog it. That means you have a ton of protein or possibly grain matter in your boil and it's better to keep that stuff out in the first place.

So are you volaufing? Are you using Irish moss or whirlfloc? Are you using a ton of adjuncts?

How much trub is left in your kettle after you chill?

After looking more closely I'm convinced that the problem is your chiller.

There is fill material between your plates and there's only a 5mm gap between them. That chiller was never intended to cool wort, plus it's meant to handle 20kW which is crazy high for homebrewing.

Edit: you can have up to 140 plates in that thing depending on how you ordered it and for comparison my shirron has 10 in a comparable amount of space.

Sorry to say but there's just not enough space between your plates to allow for any solid material at all. That chiller is intended for high pressure low viscosity heat exchange in an HVAC system.

 

[Dland]

I use a "duda diesel" 20 plate cooler, and have had the same problem in the past, what I do now:

Use "torpedo" screen on wort pick up tube, with the screen along outer part of BK. That way the whirlpool process puts the trub in the middle and the wort drains from outside. When boil is done, I gravity feed wort into another vessel, in my case, I use my mash tun(freshly cleaned after dumping grain). I put finishing hops (usually leaf) in a hop spider in that vessel and wort flows though that from BK. The gravity feed does not suck kettle trub into screen the way pumping dose. The wort that goes from final vessel, we can call it a hop back at this point, into the plate cooler is essentially free of protein break or hops.

I'll try to take some pictures next time I brew. Or if someone is really interested, and my explanation did not make sense, I could take pictures sooner, let me know.

It is important to keep those plate coolers clean, not just for clogging reasons, but sanitation as well. Immersion coolers have no problems with clogging, and counterflows less of a problem, but neither is as efficient as a plate cooler.

It is also nice not to have kettle trub in your fermentor too.

 

[TheMadKing]

I think maybe the biggest problem is that my diptube is to long, in a 170 liter boil kettle I only have about 2 liters left after cooling. And if I use a lot of hops it is no wonder my plate chiller glogges. I don’t use hop bags, spider or whirlpooling....

You said in your original post that you’ve tried them all and none of them worked...?

 

[Frodv]

You said in your original post that you’ve tried them all and none of them worked...?

Yes, and I don’t do any of it because it does not help

 

[TheMadKing]

I respectfully disagree. If you're running loose hops through your plate chiller you will get a clog 99% of the time no matter what else you're doing. Just because you got a clog while you WERE using a filter, doesn't mean it wasn't helping. It was a step in the right direction, and that's the first thing to eliminate.

I really think you need to look at getting a chiller that's intended for wort though. Those plates are just too close together

 

[ITV]

Thanks for the response. So you don't have any issues with scorching under the FB?

Years ago I bought an extra FB with my three 20g Boilermakers with the thought of using one in the BK. Never got around to it, mostly because I totally switched to pellets after having been a whole cone person for years, and then a recent experience setting a 6" diameter ss hop spider on the bottom of my BK leaving matching scorch marks below made me think the FB thing wouldn't work for the same reason...

Cheers!

Never had problems with scorching under the FB. I also use a 6" diameter SS hop basket which sits on the top of the FB without any problems. I do get a little discoloration but it comes right out with a little bar keepers friend.

After siphoning the wort through the plate chiller and into my fermenter, the FB has a layer of thick "goop" caused from the hot break and the irish moss that would otherwise potentially clog my plate chiller.

 

[IslandLizard]

As @TheMadKing says, plate chillers like yours were not designed for wort or anything containing suspended particles. They're to be used as a heat exchanger for refrigerants, like R-410A, as used in heat pumps/heat transfer systems.

If you ran wort containing hot/cold break, hop pulp, etc. through that, chances are it got plugged up already in the first few minutes, due to the fill material between the plates. Backwashing may flush them out, but it may never remove all of it. It's hard enough to keep a Duda Diesel or Blichmann plate chiller clean, and those are designed for watery and similar low viscosity liquids (such as wort, biodiesel, or glycol).

I'd say look into using a counterflow chiller instead. Chilling speeds and efficiencies are similar to plate chillers without the hassle of plugging up as the (convoluted) wort channel is about 1/4" in diameter.
If you're set on using a plate chiller any wort going through should be pre-filtered rather finely.

 

[augiedoggy]

I'l share what works for me, not all plate chillers are created equal, shorter chillers with more plates clog easier than longer chillers and the therminator has a special design which unfortunately makes it even more prone to clogging than any other normal plate chiller.

I use stainless hop spider/baskets. 2 of the 14" deep ones. I also recirculate my mash so its clear going into the Boil kettle and I use a small 8" section of braided stainless as a last chance filter attached to my boil kettle dip tube. over 5 years brewing this way and zero evidence of any solids in my duda b23 plate chiller. I chill in one pass from bk to conicals and I dont whirlpool in this setup at home. So yeah plate chiller can work great if certain things are done to keep solids out of them.

at the brewery we use hop bags and whirlpool for 20 minutes and then let things settle for at least 10 mins before chilling in one pass to conicals. we use a sabco pro plate chiller. (designed for beer and can be dismantled for manual cleaning.)

 

[processhead]

I think it all starts with minimizing the solids in your boil kettle and then use a fine strainer on the dip tube to keep what ever is left from getting to the plate chiller.

What works for me is similar to what augiedoggy is doing. Recirculating mash keeps most of the mash solids out of the boil kettle, leaving just hop residue and hot break.

A hop spider would probably help to keep hop residue to a minimum but I have not needed to use one yet.

If you don't take steps at every point during the brew process to minimize solids in the kettle, any screen system on the kettle outlet could be overwhelmed and plug.

I fabricated a fine mesh screen about 8 inches x 8 inches on the dip tube that catches everything before it gets out of the kettle.

The key is having enough surface area on the screen so that the solids that remain in the kettle don't totally plug it before you have drained off the boiled wort. A small screen or a scrubby may not get that job done.

Draining down the brew kettle at a slow rate probably helps minimize plugging the screen if you have an inordinate amount of solids in the wort, just as it helps avoid a stuck mash.

 

[IslandLizard]

Draining down the brew kettle at a slow rate probably helps minimize plugging the screen

I noticed that too.
Just draining by gravity, through the plate chiller into the fermenter, would not plug up the various mesh kettle filters I tried.

But as soon as I turned the pump on, even with an almost closed exit port, letting more than a mere drizzle through, the solids tended to suck against the filter tighter, letting less wort through, and making the pump starve (cavitate?).

 

[processhead]

I noticed that too.
Just draining by gravity, through the plate chiller into the fermenter, would not plug up the various mesh kettle filters I tried.

But as soon as I turned the pump on, even with an almost closed exit port, letting more than a mere drizzle through, the solids tended to suck against the filter tighter, letting less wort through, and making the pump cavitate.

I have only drained my BK by gravity, and even then I sometime throttle the valve slightly to keep the flow limited.
Can't remember the last time I had the filter plug.

 

[IslandLizard]

I have only drained my BK by gravity, and even then I sometime throttle the valve slightly to keep the flow limited.
Can't remember the last time I had the filter plug.

The problem with gravity draining is doesn't allow for reducing kettle temperatures and doing whirlpools (or hopstands). Then all the cold break goes into the fermenter. I really like to do the first 2 (not just with IPAs) and prevent most of the cold break going into the fermenter.