Cooling my Wort....need advice please

[gromitdj]

Guys, Pol canot use an immersion chiller because he has an electric hot liquor tank. Understand?

No offense, but this isn't the Pol's thread. The OP was asking for a discussion about the pro's and con's of the 3 chillers. I think that's what is going on.

 

[The Pol]

What does my HLT have to do with using an immersion chiller????

 

[sanch]

my chiller is 30' 3/8" copper tube in a ice / salt water bath it cools to 75 to 80 degrees
it also eats 8 lbs of ice in about 15 minutes.Iit is gravity fed, i am thinking of an plate chiller or a counterflow chiller myself the old guy at my LHBS suggested using my current chiller as a pre chiller to the water flowing in to the chiller. good idea sure......... is it necessary ????

 

[ILOVEBEER]

hahaha I don't mind...I am just trying to figure out if I should bother making a CFC with 3/8" tubing inside 5/8" heater hose or buy a plate chiller from dudadiesel.com and work it that way

 

[The Pol]

hahaha I don't mind...I am just trying to figure out if I should bother making a CFC with 3/8" tubing inside 5/8" heater hose or buy a plate chiller from dudadiesel.com and work it that way

The meduim 30 plate chiller has more surface area than the Therminator, and both are MUCH more eff. than a counterflow from what I hear. Surface area is your friend, and plate chillers have a lot.

I am thinking of the 30 plate meduim plate chiller from Duda as well for my closed cooling system.

 

[ILOVEBEER]

Oh cool so you have checked ou their site.....The 30 plate seems to be a good investment?

 

[The Pol]

Oh cool so you have checked ou their site.....The 30 plate seems to be a good investment?

It has more surface area than the Therminator... I sent them an email because in the pull down, it sayes 1" NPT fittings, on the spec sheet it sayes 3/4".

I need to know which it is...

 

[ILOVEBEER]

Cool let me know...You can always get some SS reducers and call it good. Thanks for your help

 

[The Pol]

Cool let me know...You can always get some SS reducers and call it good. Thanks for your help

I have been trying to find just that, from 1" to .5" I cannot find.

 

[The Pol]

Here is the response from Duda...

The pull-down shows all that we have right now. We don't have anything with
NPt fittings as of right now. Maybe in 2 months or so.

 

[ILOVEBEER]

You could always use two reducer bushings to achieve the 1/2" NPT......................1" to 3/4" then 3/4" to 1/2" NPT.

 

[The Pol]

You could always use two reducer bushings to achieve the 1/2" NPT......................1" to 3/4" then 3/4" to 1/2" NPT.

I am talking to a guy that uses the Chillus Convolutus as well. I would LOVE to have the plate chiller, at the moment I have to find a way to reduce the inlet size and I have to figure out how to keep all of the hop and break material out of it...

 

[The Pol]

ILB...

I am going to scratch the plate chiller, and the CC. Here are the numbers that I got with my closed wort cooling system tonight. I used my HLT and my HERMS coil to cool the wort.

5.5 gallons BOILING
4.0 gallons 65F water and 44 pounds of ICE

5 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 50F
KETTLE TEMP 148F

10 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 54F
KETTLE TEMP 99F

15 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 52F
KETTLE TEMP 81F

20 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 50F
KETTLE TEMP 66F

25 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 48F
KETTLE TEMP 57F

30 minutes in:
COOLING WATER TEMP 48F
KETTLE TEMP 57F

 

[rjhockey]

I cheated and it works WELL, basically what I do is when I'm done with my HTL (HERMS) I drain off the rest of the hot water and let it sit for the first 45 minute of the boil I then fill it with ice and water and pump my hot wort through that and on the inlet of my HTL I pump my 68 degree tap water, leaving a hose connected to the outlet. Pretty much a counter flow chiller.

Works really well for me.


EDIT:
Lol, I didn't read your post POL looks like we think alike.

 

[The Pol]

GOT MORE info from Duda Diesel...

Thier mfg. sent them the wrong qtys of plate chillers. ALL THEY HAVE are WELDED port chillers. They have NO NPT plate chillers. They also said that the chillers on thier site are really discounted due to this mistake, they are typicall much more expensive. They are trying to move them out.

 

[ILOVEBEER]

That sucks...

 

[The Pol]

That sucks...

Im golden though, the closed system is going to work well.

 

[ILOVEBEER]

I think for now I am going to make my CFC. I have 25' of 5/8" silicone heater hose (car) and 25' of 3/8" copper tube. If it does not cool it down sufficiently I will look into other stuff.


I almost wish I could have the "chillwizard" from Sabco...my friend has this unit...man oh man it works nicely. It is compact, it allows you to inject O2 into the wort, it has its own pump.....but it has a big ass price tag!!!! 850.00

 

[Sawdustguy]

I think for now I am going to make my CFC. I have 25' of 5/8" silicone heater hose (car) and 25' of 3/8" copper tube. If it does not cool it down sufficiently I will look into other stuff.


I almost wish I could have the "chillwizard" from Sabco...my friend has this unit...man oh man it works nicely. It is compact, it allows you to inject O2 into the wort, it has its own pump.....but it has a big ass price tag!!!! 850.00

Make one man! There is no magic in this build! Just do it........Nike.

 

[passedpawn]

I bought a therminator and have run 3 batches through it, including an IPA tonight. I haven't had any problem at all with hops getting stuck in it. I use the hanging hop bag shown on Wiki.

 

[Sawdustguy]

I bought a therminator and have run 3 batches through it, including an IPA tonight. I haven't had any problem at all with hops getting stuck in it. I use the hanging hop bag shown on Wiki.

+1 Thats how I do it too. Works like a champ with no clogging and faster cooling than my home made CFC.

 

[passedpawn]

When I'm done with a batch, I dump anything left in the boil pot out, then re-fill it with water and a couple scoops of oxyclean... then run the pump again the opposite way through the chiller. I let it go for about 10 minutes, then soak overnight. Next day everything gets drained.

I love that pump more than any other part of my system. Can't believe I didn't get one earlier.

 

[ILOVEBEER]

So in retrospect....the therminator is the way too go? Do you all agree?

 

[Sawdustguy]

I really hate to sway you one way or another. A lot of different brewers do it a lot of different ways successfully. Pol, for example made use of ice and his Herms coil with great success. Some guys have been successful using an immersion chiller, recirculating the wort while agitating it. There are so many ways to do it that work well. All I can tell you is what works for me. From there you have to make the decision.

 

[Sawdustguy]

Just for chitz and giggles......ILOVEBEER check this out. It was made by John Beere.

 

[ILOVEBEER]

That is really nice....I definitley wanted to incorporate it in to RIMS stand. I have seen plate chillers in actions and I think they work awesome....