Should I buy a plate chiller?

[Pommy]

Ive had enough of my old 3/8" 25' immersion chiller taking up to an hour to cool my wort to pitching temperatures. I think that the main problem is the ground water can be quite warm at times. Looking at keg cowboy's $79 40plate chiller with all the attachments and 6' of high temp tubing I am looking at $114 plus $61 for shipping eek I don't mind spending the money if this would seriously help speed up and improve my brewing process. What do you guys think?

 

[runningweird]

check out dudadiesel -= I bought one of their cosmetic defect plate chillers on the cheap. It's worth getting camlock fittings and tubing. A pump helps as well.

I love my plate chiller

 

[kosmokramer]

check out dudadiesel -= I bought one of their cosmetic defect pumps on the cheap. It's worth getting camlock fittings and tubing. A pump helps as well.

I love my plate chiller

Do u have the link? I just got a blichman chiller and need a pump

 

[ScottSingleton]

+1 for being in love with my plate chiller! with the garden hose hooked up to it I can pump at full-open from the BK into a carboy and end up with 75 degree wort.

The cons though:

1. They're a pain in the ass to clean. definitely rig up a reverse-flow hose so you can backflow water and PBW through it.

2. They clog easily -- if you're into using whole hops you need to ensure every last leaf is somehow filtered out. I do the SS scrubby on my pickup-tube trick but I sometimes still get a plug.

 

[Randall]

I have a plate chiller and live in southern california. If your ground water is warm you might need to pre chill the water before the plate chiller or else you wont hit 68 degrees

 

[Markd27]

I think if you have warm ground water you're gonna be in the same boat even with a plate chiller. On the plus side, if you did get one, you could stick your IC in a bucket of ice water and use it as a pre-chiller.

 

[dbrewski]

Here I go again...for some reason I am always pushing the low tech solution. Look at the various posts on making your own counterflow chiller from copper tubing and a garden hose. Doesn't have the issues with clogging or cleanability, still chills almost as well, I made mine for $55-ish. It is larger and not as cool looking if that is an issue. I too can pump full blast into the fermenter and hit ~70, but I am in Chicago and we have cold water. As someone said, you may need to use your IC as a pre-chiller in a bucket of ice.

The other thing I am looking at now, having both an IC and a CFC, just this week I bent up a tube to create a recirculating IC, a Jamil-chiller. I'm going to try using the pump to recirculate wort back into the pot while running water through the IC. Supposed to speed things up and create a nice whirlpool in the process. His main post on the topic talks about how plate or CFC chillers leave the bulk of the wort hot while chilling just the small amount running through the device, and how recirculating on an IC drops the entire temp of the wort faster, which helps preserve hop volatiles and such. This is an easy adaption to make to your IC if you already have a pump, just bend up some soft copper line so the returning wort gets sent back across the coils.

 

[Gear101]

I have a plate chiller and live in southern california. If your ground water is warm you might need to pre chill the water before the plate chiller or else you wont hit 68 degrees

Plus one

A cooler of ice water goes a long way with both of this.

 

[microbusbrewery]

I have the 40 plate chiller from dudadiesel.com and it works great. My groundwater temps tend to be pretty low (low 50's in winter, low 60's in summer), so sometimes I actually have to wait for the wort to warm up a bit before pitching. Like other posters have said, you can convert your IC into a pre-chiller if you have warmer ground water temps. Plate chillers are also fairly compact which is nice considering how much space my other brewing equip takes up.

I was concerned about trapped debris in the chiller so I added the hop/trub filter from brewershardware.com at the same time I added the plate chiller. It's not cheap but it gives me peace of mind that hop debris isn't collecting inside the chiller. I managed to clog the filter on one brew session (decided to try whirlpooling), but it's easy to take apart and clean whereas the chiller isn't.

 

[JeepDiver]

I think if you have warm ground water you're gonna be in the same boat even with a plate chiller. On the plus side, if you did get one, you could stick your IC in a bucket of ice water and use it as a pre-chiller.

+100. My Last batch a couple of weeks ago, here in Denver, it took me 12 mins to go from boiling to 62 degrees (went lower than I planned). When I lived in Northern VA, during the summer I couldn't get below 80 in an hour.

A plate chiller may help get you a little lower, but if your water temps are high, it won't matter what you have.

 

[oakbarn]

We resisted getting a plate chiller. We had IC with small IC pre chiller. We have a counterflow Chin Chiller. The Counter flow was a pain and also had cleaning issues and did not work as well as we wanted so we went back to the IC chiller and had the long chill time. We finally broke down and bought a Therminator Plate Chiller. OMG !++++++++.

In Dallas Texas area we can pump the wort at full bore and have to turn down the chilling water (regular garden hose right from the tap) to get to 67 degrees. The tap water is around 50 degrees. In the summer, we fill up a trash can and add ice (we freeze in mt 1 gal water jugs that we save from our Lager brews). We pump that water with a utility sump pump. We do pump the wort with a March Pump. We "filter" the Wort with a "Hop Rocket" filled with either leaf hops (Great Aroma) or SS scrubie things. We just hook up the PBW cleaning backwards and sit back with a brew to wipe the sweat off our brow from having to move a hose. It is actually easier to clean than the old IC chiller which is now a piece of art in our brewery. We use the counter flow chiller as a HERMS and it works very well for that. We recently purchased an in line filter tube from Brewer's Hardware for addition "pre filtlering". I would saw get one, but you will be happier if you are able to pump but on his hop rocket demo video, it is just gravity fed.

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

I love my plate chiller!

It does work best if you feed it ice water. I use multiple bags of ice in a water filled, 70qt cooler, and feed the chiller with a little submersible pump.

:rockin:

 

[tojo]

Low tech solution.......

1. #20 bag of ice
2. 5 gallon pail
3. small pond pump (paid $30 for mine at orange hardware box store)

Put pump in pail, fill with enough water to submerge pump, add ice and start pump 15 minutes before end of boil to pre-chill. 5 gallons chilled in no time.

 

[tojo]

Sorry, its a submersible fountain pump...not pond

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100164116/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=pond+pump&storeId=10051

The Beckett 1/64 HP Submersible Fountain Pump is designed for most indoor and outdoor fountains as well as other general pump uses. The pump is designed for continuous use, features wet rotor technology and can pump up to 130 GPH at 1 ft. of lift. The pump includes adjustable flow control and a 6 ft. power cord for convenience.

Maximum flow rate of 130 GPH at a 1 ft. lift
Lift capability of up to 4 ft.
Wet rotor technology
Energy efficient
Designed for most indoor and outdoor fountains and other general water pump uses
Adjustable flow control for convenience
6 ft. power cord
MFG Brand Name : Beckett
MFG Model # : M130HD
MFG Part # : 7091510

 

[runningweird]

Do u have the link? I just got a blichman chiller and need a pump

sorry - i meant cosmetic defect chiller not pump sorry

 

[Lennie]

If you'd stir or whirlpool when you use the IC it'd chill about as fast as a plate chiller without the pain of cleaning. Whats the relative surface area contact of a plate chiller vs an IC anyway? They both work the same, and the chilling water temp gradient is the same. If you have problems with your chilling water not getting the wort cool enough with an IC the same thing will apply to a plate chiller. Plus with the plate chiller unless you recirc you are going to be stuck putting all your trub in the fermentor, not that I think thats a big issue.

Afte reading Jamil's blurb on whirlpooling with an IC at Mrmalty, I changed course and built a little whirlpool recirc system and am sticking with my IC.

 

[Markd27]

We resisted getting a plate chiller. We had IC with small IC pre chiller. We have a counterflow Chin Chiller. The Counter flow was a pain and also had cleaning issues and did not work as well as we wanted so we went back to the IC chiller and had the long chill time. We finally broke down and bought a Therminator Plate Chiller. OMG !++++++++.

In Dallas Texas area we can pump the wort at full bore and have to turn down the chilling water (regular garden hose right from the tap) to get to 67 degrees. The tap water is around 50 degrees. In the summer, we fill up a trash can and add ice (we freeze in mt 1 gal water jugs that we save from our Lager brews). We pump that water with a utility sump pump. We do pump the wort with a March Pump. We "filter" the Wort with a "Hop Rocket" filled with either leaf hops (Great Aroma) or SS scrubie things. We just hook up the PBW cleaning backwards and sit back with a brew to wipe the sweat off our brow from having to move a hose. It is actually easier to clean than the old IC chiller which is now a piece of art in our brewery. We use the counter flow chiller as a HERMS and it works very well for that. We recently purchased an in line filter tube from Brewer's Hardware for addition "pre filtlering". I would saw get one, but you will be happier if you are able to pump but on his hop rocket demo video, it is just gravity fed.

Where in Dallas are you getting 50 degree tap water? Maybe during the winter, but even now with nice weather my ground water is about 76.

I am using a CFC with an IC pre chiller, wish I could think of a more efficient solution for pre chilling the water. Two bags of ice at $3 a pop isn't exactly economical.

 

[bumstigedy]

Ice ice baby... too cool.

 

[Lennie]

Do you use tap till the beer gets as cool as it will go, then switch to the ice for the final drop? That'd seem to be the most economical.

 

[Cpt_Kirks]

Do you use tap till the beer gets as cool as it will go, then switch to the ice for the final drop? That'd seem to be the most economical.

I use ice water the whole time. I throttle the output from the pump to get the output from the plate chiller down to pitching temp, and run it straight into the Better Bottles.

 

[drkaeppel]

Where in Dallas are you getting 50 degree tap water? Maybe during the winter, but even now with nice weather my ground water is about 76.

I am using a CFC with an IC pre chiller, wish I could think of a more efficient solution for pre chilling the water. Two bags of ice at $3 a pop isn't exactly economical.

I second this. Chilling wort during the summer is a pain because the water coming out of the hose is close to 80 degrees.

I am moving up to 10 gallon batches in the near future and will likely go with a 50 plate chiller to chill my wort. Thinking about using my 25' immersion chiller as a pre-chiller. Freezing gallon jugs of water sounds like the most economical method for an ice bath as opposed to buying bags of ice from the store. For me, it will just be a matter of making room in the freezer!

 

[jamoke]

Make your own 11 lb blocks of ice. Cheap and effective.

Use ice blocks in a bucket or cooler with a small submersible pump for your chiller.

Two of these 6 qt Rubbermaid trash cans will make 22 lbs of ice. Enough for a 6 gallon batch. Use three for a 10 gallon batch.

Works in the AZ summer heat.

6 Qt Rubbermaid Trash can on Amazon

 

[stbnj]

A plate chiller will definitely be my next purchase. I can't take waiting 25-30 minutes to get my wort below 80 even in the spring. I may get a cheap sub pump and use ice water to get me through the summer until I can find the money for a chiller and pump.

 

[rcbishop]

+1 on the plate chiller

They work well if you recirculate the boiling wort to sanitize them, then turn on the chill water just a little bit and let it recirculate more. At this point the temp in the kettle drops like a rock, and when it hits 120, the wort is coming out of the hose at pitching temperature -- at least here (in Ohio).

 

[prolific]

Where in Dallas are you getting 50 degree tap water? Maybe during the winter, but even now with nice weather my ground water is about 76.

I am using a CFC with an IC pre chiller, wish I could think of a more efficient solution for pre chilling the water. Two bags of ice at $3 a pop isn't exactly economical.

I'm in Orlando and have ground water in the high 70's. My 25' CFC can't quite do the job by itself. I have an inefficient 15' immersion chiller made out of i think 5/8" copper which I have tried as a pre-chiller, but without good results. I am considering getting a 25' of 3/8 copper and using it as a POST-chiller. Does anyone else have experience with this?

I'm thinking I could have the wort go through the CFC and come out still warm (maybe around 100-110) and then go through the 3/8 IC in a bucket of ice to get the wort down around 60-70. Until now, I usually only get the wort down to around 85 and give up and just pitch and put the fermenting buckets into the temp controlled freezer to get it down to ~68 within a couple hours.

 

[Pommy]

Thanks for all the replies, I've decided to bite the bullet and ordered my 40 plate chiller, ships tomorrow all been well Lots of useful information that I'm sure will help the next person considering going to a plate chiller, and the many more after that.

Cheers,