Counterflow Chiller Questions

[Sublime8365]

So I'm getting tired of how long it takes for me to chill my wort with my immersion chiller so I'm looking at getting/building a counterflow chiller, but I had a few questions first:

-Would I have modify my brew kettle to have a valve? I ask because my kettle has this indention that goes around the kettle towards the bottom, which would make modifying it this way trickier. Can I use a stainless steel racking cane and siphon the wort from the kettle to the chiller? Would this be a huge drawback?

-Do I need special tubing for transferring the hot wort or does the normal tubing hold up to the higher temps?

-I know the main disadvantage of counterflow chillers is the difficulty in sanitizing them. Is there a noticeable difference in the difficulty of cleaning a traditional counterflow chiller vs a plate chiller?

 

[gregkeller]

I'm thinking of doing the same thing for the same reasons.

- pretty sure you need to use silicon tubing for the hot side, which is pretty expensive, i think around $2.50 a foot.

-Not sure about the valve. I'd think a stainless racking cane would work, you'd have a pretty slow flow rate, but that would most likely only make it easier for the wort to get down to pitching temps.
- as for there being a ridge on your pot, what if you put the valve above that, but on the inside put a pick-up tube that was bent enough so the actual pickup was down on the bottom of the kettle. That would probably solve the issue. Seems like the pickup tubes are stainless that can be bent to work well for each persons individual setups.

 

[LandoLincoln]

So I'm getting tired of how long it takes for me to chill my wort with my immersion chiller so I'm looking at getting/building a counterflow chiller, but I had a few questions first:

-Would I have modify my brew kettle to have a valve? I ask because my kettle has this indention that goes around the kettle towards the bottom, which would make modifying it this way trickier. Can I use a stainless steel racking cane and siphon the wort from the kettle to the chiller? Would this be a huge drawback?

-Do I need special tubing for transferring the hot wort or does the normal tubing hold up to the higher temps?

-I know the main disadvantage of counterflow chillers is the difficulty in sanitizing them. Is there a noticeable difference in the difficulty of cleaning a traditional counterflow chiller vs a plate chiller?

It sounds like you won't be using a pump with either setup. Using a plate or homebuilt CFC without a pump is tricky. And in my opinion, using a CFC without a valve installed on your keggle would be darn near impossible.

Buy some high-temp silicon hoses.

Sanitizing plate chillers or the homebuilt CFCs is not hard. Making sure that they're completely clean is.

 

[Homercidal]

Actually, I've been using a homebuilt CFC chiller and gravity since i started brewing years ago. I have never had a problem not having a pump. I think it's about a 25' chiller. 3/8" copper and an old length of garden hose.

Using my tap water in the summer I have to slow the flow rate down on the wort, but in the winter it's pretty much full bore.

I also still don't use the spigot on my kettle either. It's a siphon.

I will agree on the high temp silicone though. I've used the plain vinyl stuff for a while and it's def not what you really ought to do.

I run sanitizer through the CFC and let it sit for the recommended 30 seconds to 1.5 minutes and then start the chill. The first bit of wort gets tossed out, but after a cup or so you can start collecting. I'd prefer to be able to see inside to know what it looks like, but what can you do?

The nice thing about a plate chiller is that you can bake it to sterilize it.

Either chiller would be better with a pump, because without one the wort that is still in the kettle remains at a higher temp for a longer amount of time. If you recirculate that chilled wort, it actually starts chilling the wort in the kettle so the whole volume of wort starts dropping temp below the recommended 140F.

In addition, with a pump, you can leave more of the cold break material in the kettle. With gravity feed, it ends up in the fermenter (though I don't know if that's a real concern or not).

 

[processhead]

+1 with Homer

I have been doing it just like he described, with the exception that I do have a valve and pickup tube on my kettle and I use ordinary vinyl hoses.

I don't think the valve is mission critical, since its only used to keep the wort in my kettle during the boil. Never have had any problems with the vinyl hoses.

I use sanitizing solution on my cfc and also circulate hot wort through it before using it to chill.

 

[Lennie]

How would you start a siphon? A valve is a lot easier. With a pickup tube you don't need to have the valve all the way at the bottom of the pot.

 

[Sublime8365]

thanks for the responses. After doing some research I think I'm just going to put the bulkhead + valve on my brew kettle instead of trying to go the siphon route.

I've seen in this thread and other threads here that ppl do us gravity over buying the pump when they upgrade to a CFC. I'm going to attempt to do the same since the pump essentially doubles the price of my upgrade to counterflow.

Now my question is, would a traditional vs plate chiller make much of a difference if I'm relying on gravity and not using a pump?

Seems to me like a plate chiller would be easier to store and clean, but if it's going to make my life impossible relying on gravity, I need to take that into consideration.

 

[Lennie]

I think a plate chiller may be tougher to clean than a copper coil CFC. I've heard of people getting a lot of gunk caught inside the plate chillers. I think the optimum setup for a plate chiller is in a recirculating whirlpool system that will prevent at least some of the trub from going through the chiller. It also allows you to not have to completely chill in one pass through the chiller. If you go gravity feed you'll need to slow your wort enough to get it completely chilled in the one pass. That or you could catch it and pour it back in the kettle at first I suppose, but that would be labor intensive.

Good luck, I'm considering my options as well. I'm using an IC right now and its working OK but its got its drawbacks as you know.

 

[Sublime8365]

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_33_145&products_id=12822

That is the plate chiller I'm looking at. It says it disassembles and is easy to sanitize, or am I reading that wrong?

Either way, I'm not too worried about cleaning it. I just want to make sure using a plate chiller vs CFC isn't going to make it impossible to use with just gravity.

Eventually I'm going to get a pump, but in the meantime I'm going to put my hops in the boil in a nylon bag to reduce trub and also use my current immersion chiller as a pre-chiller in order to get the water as cold as possible so hopefully not being able to re-circulate isn't so much of an issue.

 

[Lennie]

You don't disassemble a plate chiller, you just backflush. The disassembly quote is concerning the Blichmann QD (I think).

I was looking at plate chillers at Duda Diesel, they are about the cheapest I've seen. I like the female hose connector on the one you are considering though.

Keeping hops out is a good idea, you'll still have trub dropping out as you chill and this is the challenging part as far as cleaning.

Its a tough call, I'm going to spend some more time reading old threads on this site.

 

[outside92129]

A CFC is much eaiser to keep clean, there aren't any nooks and crannies in it, and all the flow is in one direction. The plate chillers have areas with different flow rates (corners), have areas which things can get stuck, etc. They both have their pro and cons.