Recent Wort Chiller Thread

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d40dave

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There was a recent thread not necessarily on wort chillers but the OP said he was able to chill his wort in about 3 minutes. Somebody responded saying that 3 minutes was really fast. The OP sent a link to the wort chiller he used. I wanted to get it and I thought I bookmarked a link to it but now I can't find the bookmark or the original thread. Does anybody know of the thread I'm talking about? Thanks.
 
What size batch?? I can get 9-10 gallons from 195F to 65F in about 6-7 minutes with a single pass through my old plate chiller. That's with a pump for the wort and using water from a well (in NH) where the water is cold year round.

IME, plate chillers are really hard to beat. Between the physical size and how fast they can cool the wort. My old one is approximately 12" x 3" x 3" (plus fittings). About 9-10 square feet of cooling surface area. New one is 2.5x that size (25 square feet of cooling surface area). Looking forward to the first batch chilled with THAT monster. :D
 
What size batch?? I can get 9-10 gallons from 195F to 65F in about 6-7 minutes with a single pass through my old plate chiller. That's with a pump for the wort and using water from a well (in NH) where the water is cold year round.

IME, plate chillers are really hard to beat. Between the physical size and how fast they can cool the wort. My old one is approximately 12" x 3" x 3" (plus fittings). About 9-10 square feet of cooling surface area. New one is 2.5x that size (25 square feet of cooling surface area). Looking forward to the first batch chilled with THAT monster. :D

What is your water temp?
I have a plate chiller here that I haven't messed with much. I just kept using my immersion chiller because the plate chiller just came with a pump that I was buying from a guy on craigslist. You make me wonder, though. maybe I should try it?
 
IIRC in the summer it's no more than 55F. I'd have to see what it is now, but I think it's in the mid-40s.

Plate count and chiller width matter for these things. Without looking/counting, I'd say my new chiller is 80 plates.
 
I've not done 5 gallon batches in ages, so who knows what my chill time is. I reduce the flow rate of the wort leaving the chiller to get it to ~65F into fermenter (ranges from 60-70F depending on the valve setting). I also oxygenate the wort at the same time.

That 'tricoil' chiller is 75 feet of 3/8" tubing. Plus it's a LOT larger than my plate chiller (was mounted to the brew stand, so really out of the way).

From when I did use an IC, you got better results when you kept the thing moving. Or recirculated the wort around it. Leaving it alone gave lower chill rates. I also run my chill water at full blast (from the furnace room, which is in the basement, right next to the garage) which I'm pretty sure is a higher flow rate than their 6gpm listed.

I'm sure people like their IC's... Personally, I'd pass on those and go to either a CFC or plate chiller. The most compact chillers, at performance level, is a plate chiller. With the cost of that tricoil being damned close to what my old plate chiller is currently selling for, I don't see it being worth it. But that's me.
 
I prefer an immersion chiller for the ease of cleaning. I just bought a Tri-Coil 2.0 from CUSS, but have not used it yet. I needed some slight customizations to fit with my heating coil & pick-up tube which CUSS did for no charge.
 
I have found times with my plate chiller to vary depending on groundwater temps. I have seen as fast as 10 minutes to as slow as 20, faster than my old IC, but just more convenient overall for storage and so on. I recapture my chilling water into my rain barrels and use it to water the yard, though, so I don't stress about the water use here in SoCal.
 
30 plate Duda diesel plate chiller here. Never going back

Question for you, or anyone else that uses a plate chiller...how do you effectively drop your wort temp for whirlpooling/steeping? If running it through your plate chiller drops the temp that quickly, how would you stop it at 180F or 160F? Do you just turn your pump on for like 30 seconds and then turn it off?

I have been thinking of upgrading from my immersion chiller.
 
Question for you, or anyone else that uses a plate chiller...how do you effectively drop your wort temp for whirlpooling/steeping? If running it through your plate chiller drops the temp that quickly, how would you stop it at 180F or 160F? Do you just turn your pump on for like 30 seconds and then turn it off?

I have been thinking of upgrading from my immersion chiller.
I do run it only as long as necessary to drop to the initial temp, say 170F. Over a 1/2 hour whirlpool/hop stand, it will continue to drop all by itself but the effect will be more aroma/flavor rather than bittering.
 
Question for you, or anyone else that uses a plate chiller...how do you effectively drop your wort temp for whirlpooling/steeping? If running it through your plate chiller drops the temp that quickly, how would you stop it at 180F or 160F? Do you just turn your pump on for like 30 seconds and then turn it off?

I have been thinking of upgrading from my immersion chiller.
You cool it down where u want it. Turn off the coolant water supply and just recirculate through the plate chiller with your pump
 
this may already be common knowledge, but...

Caveat: make sure you have a good screen for recirculation if there are hops in your brew kettle. In the past I have used bazooka screens, hop spiders, and hop bags to filter media and not clog the plate chiller. Now I use a HopStopper 2.0. It's great, but if I am recirculating, I will scrape the gunk off the screen every 5 minutes or so to keep the flow going when I use lots of hops. My last batch was 8oz in the kettle (the previous was 12oz), so I take care to not let the pump run dry or collapse the screen.
 
You cool it down where u want it. Turn off the coolant water supply and just recirculate through the plate chiller with your pump
Thanks, I get the process I was just wondering how hard it was to dial in the specific temp you want for whirlpooling, given how quickly it drops temp once you start pumping wort through it. Sounds like it isn't much of a problem. I am thinking a stainless CFC is my better option given how many IPAs I brew, what with the massive hop debris and all...
 
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