I love my 40 plate chiller, but I think I might be using it wrong and screwing up my beer. The thought occurred to me when we made an orange wheat again and it didn't have the orange flavor the previous one had, just some orange peel bitterness. We did an FO addition of peel on both of them, the only difference was the IC vs Plate chiller. If you think about it, the IC starts chilling the entire wort almost immediately. The plate chiller leaves the wort, hops and peel in the kettle at near boiling temperature for the duration of the transfer. In my case about 20 minutes. So FO additions or any late hop additions are closer to 20 minute additions. I just did an IPA that didn't have much fresh hop flavor as well and was way over bitter, again with the plate chiller.
So my new technique will recirculate the plate chilled wort until the whole kettle is close to pitching temps and then just pump it into the conical. It actually won't change the time all that much, since I'll be pumping much faster during this process.
Has anyone else experienced this problem? Is there a flaw in my logic that I'm not seeing? I searched this forum and couldn't find anyone else discussing this issue.
So my new technique will recirculate the plate chilled wort until the whole kettle is close to pitching temps and then just pump it into the conical. It actually won't change the time all that much, since I'll be pumping much faster during this process.
Has anyone else experienced this problem? Is there a flaw in my logic that I'm not seeing? I searched this forum and couldn't find anyone else discussing this issue.