Plate or counter flow chiller

Williams 728
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ctrl_alt_del3t3 said:
i have a plate chiller and chilzilla , which one is better? I have not used either as of yet
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Plate chillers chill faster and use a lot less water. However, they can easily get clogged up with hop debris or trub if you don’t whirlpool or filter that out before chilling. They are also somewhat harder to clean, since you typically backflush them in addition to a regular cleaning cycle.

Counterflow chillers are easier to clean and can deal easily with any kind of trub or hop material. But they are not as efficient, spend more time chilling and use a lot more water.

Plate: harder to clean, clog more easily, much more efficient
Counterflow: don’t clog, easy to clean, use more water and take longer to chill
 
That's not entirely accurate. A *lot* depends on the design of the counterflow. I've got a ZChiller, after having had a plate chiller. The ZChiller is just as fast and uses roughly the same amount of water, it's just far, far less likely to get clogged and is vastly easier to clean.
 
The_Bishop said:
That's not entirely accurate. A *lot* depends on the design of the counterflow. I've got a ZChiller, after having had a plate chiller. The ZChiller is just as fast and uses roughly the same amount of water, it's just far, far less likely to get clogged and is vastly easier to clean.
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Hmm, odd. I’ve had the MoreBeer convoluted counterflow chiller for years (12ft of twisted copper tubing) and found that chilling a 15 or 20G batch uses near 50G of water from 190ish to 75F. While people I know with plate chillers can do roughly the same with a bit over half as much water. I’ve got a plate chiller now though so I hope to test that out soon.
 
I think the variable here is cooling surface. The unit with the greatest surface area will cool better (faster).

I built a two stage cfc based on Dave Miller's "Brew Like a Pro" book. When my hose water is cool enough, as it is now, I jumper the two stages.

In the summer my hose water runs around 80°F, so I feed it through the first stage, and recirc ice water with a garden pump in the second stage. I can bring 6 gallons of wort to 65°F in under 5 minutes.

Clogging is a non-issue, since the wort only sees a run of 3/8" copper tube. I sanitize with 190°F or so wort recirced back to the boil kettle, and clean up by backflushing with cold hose water.

I've never checked on cooling water volume, just let it waste to the yard. I believe next time I'll collect it to use for cleanup and see how much I use.
 
I've had both. The counterflow worked really well, was fast and seemed immune to blockages under normal use and is great for gravity fed/pump less systems. Water usage wasn't really a concern, but full mains pressure water went into it and came out of it. I found it less reliable because it was home made from copper and I could have done a better job building it. It was quite bulky. I just dumped my wort through it at full speed. I use a plate exclusively now. It can be 'installed', is stainless, it works fine with my fully pumped system, it is quite compact and it just does the job, no better or worse. It seems to use marginally less water as the flow out is restricted somewhat. You really need to size them to handle the required cooling and flow rate if you want to collect at full speed, otherwise you might have to run them a little slow which isn't a problem for me because wort collection (50-60L) is not a bottleneck for me (20 minutes). I've a T valve from my kettle. On brew day I dump some hot caustic into the kettle and recirculate through the plate chiller and pipe work back into the kettle while mashing in. As I'm getting ready to sparge I drain the caustic into a bucket for later use when cleaning up and rinse the kettle with a hose while allowing it to pump to drain to rinse the pipework, filter, pump and plate chiller. When I've run clean water through it for at least 3 minutes I close it all up again, drain it at the lowest point and later on prime and sanitise it with boiling wort. I used to perform a peracetic acid flush instead, using the first wort collected to push out any remnants, but no longer see the point as I just recirculate boiling wort for a few minutes before flame out and then switch straight to collecting to fermenters.

No problems so far cleaning, but can see if you allowed a lot of bits to come through that it would be a nightmare. The hot caustic does a great job pumped for 60+ minutes and I've filtration in the kettle and prior to the pump which I believe is essencial. Once I am done collecting and set to scrub the kettle I'll take the bucket of left over caustic and let it recirculate that while I finish putting stuff away, final step is to back flush it using mains pressure cold water for a few minutes. If it ever got bad I'd cook it in the oven or allow it to pump caustic for a very long time indeed so there is always plan B.

Mine is slightly undersized and drops me from boiling to 28C or so full speed. I have to back it off a touch to get 19-21C. If I perform a recirculation to bring down the temperature in the kettle for late additions I can collect at 18-20C full speed. If not I usually seal the fermenters and put them in my fermentation chamber until later that evening when I pitch and my temperature control is good and rapidly brings it down.
 
All PCs are not created equally, so folks should be careful what conclusions they draw from anecdotes.
Eg: the short Blichmann Therminator is a low-performance PC when compared to the popular DudaDiesel long 30 plate model.

That noted, there's no doubt a well-built CFC will be easier to clean than pretty much any PC, and that pretty much any PC is prone to debris building up and eventually plugging channels.

If speed is the priority then a good PC will most likely have an advantage.
If ease of use is the priority then a good CFC will definitely have the advantage...

Cheers!
 
I have both and have moved to an immersion chiller in a whirlpool set-up. I got tired of the cleaning and was always concerned about what lurked inside those things. Back when I was doing pro brewing we would have occasion to open our plate and frame chiller and ALWAYS found crap in there even with regular OCD-driven cleaning. So now I use my 2 zone plate chiller to super chill my cooling water.
 
Brewpastor said:
I use my 2 zone plate chiller to super chill my cooling water.
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That's something to consider... I currently use a whirlpool and immersion chiller. I usually 2 stage it, boil to 100° on tap water, then switch to recirc ice water in bucket... but recirc ice water through a cheaper plate chiller as a pre-chiller would be something to consider.
 
I have a small chest freezer full of glycol that I use. works well. I use straight well water to knock off the first 100 degrees and then utilize the glycol to knock it down the rest of the way. I get a better drop that way. I love this system. Super easy to clean up.
 
day_trippr said:
All PCs are not created equally, so folks should be careful what conclusions they draw from anecdotes.
Eg: the short Blichmann Therminator is a low-performance PC when compared to the popular DudaDiesel long 30 plate model.

That noted, there's no doubt a well-built CFC will be easier to clean than pretty much any PC, and that pretty much any PC is prone to debris building up and eventually plugging channels.

If speed is the priority then a good PC will most likely have an advantage.
If ease of use is the priority then a good CFC will definitely have the advantage...

Cheers!
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Amen to this, The easily clogged "twisted pathway" of the therminator has give plate chillers a bad rap here.
 
If you backflush a PC as soon as your done, you won't get clogs. This is using a wort pump, of course. They can be boiled to sanitize, soaked in a bucket of starsan, or alcohol.

After cleaning, wrap openings with plastic wrap to keep dust out. A quick clean and sanitize before brewing and you're in there like swimwear.

Also, BLC will clean the shat out of one, too
 
augiedoggy said:
Amen to this, The easily clogged "twisted pathway" of the therminator has give plate chillers a bad rap here.
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I’d disagree and say that lack of education and poor technique have given plate chillers a bad name. You absolutely have to manage hop material in your wort when using a plate chiller or you will have issues, regardless of who makes it, how many plates there are, or how long it is. I have a Therminator that I have used dozens upon dozens of times with zero isssues, including on very hoppy beers.

I think most most Homebrewers new to plate chillers probably don’t understand the lengths you really need to go through to keep them debris-free.
 
To the OP, I have went from ICs, to counterflow chillers (DIY and Chillzilla), to a Therminator, and finally back to ICs using a Jaded Hydra and a whirlpool setup.

The Therminator was the most efficient of all of the solutions I tried, but required the most effort to prevent clogs and then clean up after use. You need to make sure that you are not allowing hop material to make it into the plate chiller, and there are several ways to go about that. If you don’t, you most likely will struggle with clogs or other issues. The counerflow chillers I used were less efficient, but also easier to clean and I didn’t have to worry too much about hop material or filtering.

You just have to decide what you’re willing to live with, ease of use or less performance. Personally, I am glad to do away with both plate and counter flow chillers and go with an IC + Whirlpool. The performance is good enough for me (boiling to pitching temps in around 10min), I have less equipment to deal with cleaning (no strainers, hop baskets, etc) and cleanup of the IC itself is a breeze!
 
Markd27 said:
I’d disagree and say that lack of education and poor technique have given plate chillers a bad name. You absolutely have to manage hop material in your wort when using a plate chiller or you will have issues, regardless of who makes it, how many plates there are, or how long it is. I have a Therminator that I have used dozens upon dozens of times with zero isssues, including on very hoppy beers.

I think most most Homebrewers new to plate chillers probably don’t understand the lengths you really need to go through to keep them debris-free.
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While I agree thats is very true. The therminators short plate and unique does make it more prone to plugging up and less forgiving than all the other options (and less effective at chilling than a longer plate chiller with half as many plates and 180degree bends to collect debrees.) Since its the most advertised chiller its also the most common among homebrewers who shop by brandname recongnition rether than researching what they buy, despite being the most expensive option for what you actually get performance wise. Short chillers are normally cheaper to manufacture judging by the normally much lower price and performance vs longer chillers. the therminator has an advertized unique twisted pathway design which I believe may actually make it more prone to plugging up as well vs straight channels.

I'm not sure what experience you have with plate chillers besides the blichmann but my brewing friend has one and Ive witnessed this clogging first hand as a person who has exclusively used a longer duda 20 plate chiller for over 4 years now with absolutely zero issues (yes I use a hop spider or two as well as a short piece of braided line attached to my diptube.) Ive never whirlpooled or anything else and I chill in a single pass directly to the conical. all I do is run water through my manifold, rims, and plate chiller as well as the pumps along the way when im done brewing and once in a while I run a pbw solution through.. Ive never had any solids come out of my plate chiller in doing so.
 
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My previous MLT was a cooler with high temp hose wedged into the regular drain port. It worked very well and did not leak, but cleaning was a bit of a *****. I would rinse, clean, then run near boiling water through that 6' hose. I'd finish off with sanitizer. Even with all that, a month later I'd go to brew and the hose would have mold in it. The only way to prevent mold was to actively dry the inside of the hose.

At that point I decided that plate chillers and CFC's were out for me. I didn't want to have to find a way to dry the inside of them and have to assume they'd have mold issues just like the drain hose on my MLT. I may very well be wrong, but I can see the outside of a IC, I know when it's clean and it's simple, easy and foolproof (a good thing since I'm a fool).

Unless I get to a point where I'm doing batches too big for an IC, that's the route I'll take going forward.
 
Clearly not a fool. Asking questions, gathering data, weighing pros and cons, then making decisions. I want to be that kind of fool when I grow up. If I ever grow up.

6 feet of hose? Pretty hard to clean, yeah. That's about twice my longest run. Anything under 1/2" id makes it tough, also.

They make pvc toilet flanges with a molded in seal to keep trash out of the pipes during costruction. I used one of these and a piece of pipe to make a free standing soak tank for hoses. After I flush them with garden hose water, I put a piece of coathanger wire through the camlock rings and drop them into a pipeful of sanitizer. They hang vertically so no trapped air. When I think of it, I churn them up and down to get fresh fluid in the tubes. No mold in them pipes.
 
ancientmariner52 said:
Clearly not a fool. Asking questions, gathering data, weighing pros and cons, then making decisions. I want to be that kind of fool when I grow up. If I ever grow up.

6 feet of hose? Pretty hard to clean, yeah. That's about twice my longest run. Anything under 1/2" id makes it tough, also.

They make pvc toilet flanges with a molded in seal to keep trash out of the pipes during costruction. I used one of these and a piece of pipe to make a free standing soak tank for hoses. After I flush them with garden hose water, I put a piece of coathanger wire through the camlock rings and drop them into a pipeful of sanitizer. They hang vertically so no trapped air. When I think of it, I churn them up and down to get fresh fluid in the tubes. No mold in them pipes.
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You leave them in there all the time? No degradation?
 
No, sorry. Just for an hour or so while cleaning everything else. Then water rinse and hang vertically to dry. Repeat before brewing.

Although, silicone and stainless steel? Probably last longer than the sanitizer would.
 
Shwagger said:
You leave them in there all the time? No degradation?
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This depends on the sanitizer used.. Star san will degrade copper like in a plate chiller over time but wont harm stainless. It will degrade silicone by turning it chalky white over time too from what Ive found. bleach will eat stainless (thankfully its not used often for brewing)
 
bleach will eat stainless... Years ago I had to replace the bar sinks and a pair of sinks in the kitchen when I was a maint man for a restaurant because the bottom was full of pin holes from the bleach they would use in it.
 
I’ve been using my thermintor exclusively for strike water chilling for a year now and it still blows out hop debris and cold break every time I use it.
 
schematix said:
I’ve been using my thermintor exclusively for strike water chilling for a year now and it still blows out hop debris and cold break every time I use it.
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Did you didnt attempt prefilter these solids out when you used it for wort?
Because I never have anything come out of my plate chiller but ive used hop spiders for everything since Ive implemented its use.
 
augiedoggy said:
Did you didnt attempt prefilter these solids out when you used it for wort?
Because I never have anything come out of my plate chiller but ive used hop spiders for everything since Ive implemented its use.
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I used a hop spider most, but not all of the times. I didn't know initially how clog prone it was going to be so i just free balled it the beginning. Once i learned the hard way, i hop spidered everything until i realized how bad my hoppy beers were turning out. Then i switched to an IC and life has been better ever since.
 
ancientmariner52 said:
Clearly not a fool. Asking questions, gathering data, weighing pros and cons, then making decisions. I want to be that kind of fool when I grow up. If I ever grow up.

6 feet of hose? Pretty hard to clean, yeah. That's about twice my longest run. Anything under 1/2" id makes it tough, also.

They make pvc toilet flanges with a molded in seal to keep trash out of the pipes during costruction. I used one of these and a piece of pipe to make a free standing soak tank for hoses. After I flush them with garden hose water, I put a piece of coathanger wire through the camlock rings and drop them into a pipeful of sanitizer. They hang vertically so no trapped air. When I think of it, I churn them up and down to get fresh fluid in the tubes. No mold in them pipes.
Click to expand...

Something like that wasn't a very convenient option because getting the hose in/out of the standard cooler drain port was a challenge (very tight fit). I ultimately used a compressor to blow air through it.

I literally just upgraded to a true bulkhead solution with a nice ball valve and quick connect. That way I can use my existing silicone hoses with quick connect. It will facilitate underletting and I can connect directly to the kettle as well. I haven't tried it yet, just put it together last weekend.
 
schematix said:
I used a hop spider most, but not all of the times. I didn't know initially how clog prone it was going to be so i just free balled it the beginning. Once i learned the hard way, i hop spidered everything until i realized how bad my hoppy beers were turning out. Then i switched to an IC and life has been better ever since.
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I suspected I wasnt getting full hop ulilization but after making a scalpin ipa clone which came out great and then comparing the same recipe of a pils a friend brewed without one I dont see the difference. still I use 2 6x14 hop spiders when I brew anything with more than a couple ozs so the additional surface area might make the difference.
Originally I had the small 4x10 basket and that did hinder utilization quite a bit when I made anything with more than an oz.

Still a friend has a CFC he said I could borrow to compare performance since I wouldnt have to use the spider at all if I went that route..
 
What is a better chiller. All copper counterflow
IMG_2713.jpg


or one with rubber hose?

IMG_2714.jpg
 
I have one of the Zchillers. It's as fast as any plate I ever used with none of the clogging and hard to clean problems.
 

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