what chiller to use

Arbe0

Arbe0

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I am an all grain brewer for about 4 years now. only used a immersion chiller.
Do you think I need a plate chiller? what are the pluses and minuses?
 
I have a good plate chiller and it works great but a plate chiller is only effective if the water going through it is very cold, and it gets clogged with hops very easy. you need to sterilize the inside before every brew...if all those issues are met I can chill 200 down to 60 in 15 minutes
 
so if hops will clog the plate chiller, is it a good idea to get a Hop spider to keep the hops out of the chiller? would that work ok?
I have been looking at 30 plate chillers, I see that some brewers run the water line into an ice bath to help get the temperature down. Wouldn't reducing the wort flow work to get the temperature down to a lower temperature too?
 
I had to put a ball valve on both the "water in" and wort out after the plate chiller, I have to adjust both the whole time to get the temp correct, because it goes up and down. so yes to your question, water high at first then slow down the wort then back off the water and increase the wort flow to get the temp correct.

I have played with all kinds of hops filters and spiders, they all have their pluses and minuses, I'm currently using a trub/hop filer outside my kettle before the plate chiller and adding my hops directly to the wort, so with that method I get better hop flavor but the filter clogs now, especially on IIPA's

this is what I have
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/plate30.htm

oh in the summer I have to use a prechiller, the immersion chiller wraps around a frozen keg before the water in
 

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My simple immersion chiller works just fine. For my process, the complexity of a plate chiller with the possibility of trapping wort in a dead zone and generating all kind of nasties is a bit more than I want to contend with. I can 5.5 gallons of wort below 120 degrees F in less than 15 minutes, down to pitch temperature in 30-45 perhaps with the help of some 2-liter soda bottle ice packs in summer and that's fine for my purposes. There are several much more important things for me to spend my hobby money on than a plate chiller and the pump to drive it!
 
My reply is self centered promotion I make the Exchilerator. The best part of a CFC is that is not twisted(convoluted) with a fairly large diameter it will not plug with trub solids. This very important if you plan on a whirlpool hop additions. Whirlpool through CFC down 170ish stop cooling water continue whirlpool for desired time or lower temps witch ever you prefer. Then pump to fermenter at your pitch temp. As just a chiller I chilled 16.5 gals Sunday in 18 minutes. Chill liquor was 51 degrees at about 1/2 gal a minute.Also the Exchilerator can be used for HERMs systems if you want to do some step mashing.As for cleaning I run 182 HLT water after use then alkaline brewers wash, star san then 182HLT water before use. Go to Exchilerator.com there is a CAD drawing and some U Tube videos that may help you out.

coolitfast
 
I seriously wish I had gone that route to begin with, for less clogging, very frustrating on hour 5 when you have to stop everything to clean out stuck hops
 
ya ..been looking at Counter flow chillers. they seem to be more of what would work with less worries. Not sure about this whole thing, just thinking of how my emersion chiller and lots of ice can bring the temps from 210 F to 70 and below in 20 minutes (ice in a big plastic bucket, hot brew pot ,with chiller in it, all into the plastic bucket and the hose for the chiller in the ice to get cooler water for the chiller.)
gonna think more about spending more money on this idea.

wow, love the counter flow chillers you guys are using. if I get one I hope I can afford one of those.
 
I have a plate chiller now, I just got a pump for it and the first time I got super clogged with hops and such. I didn't account for this and now I'll need a filter of sorts.

I'm still contemplating an immersion chiller for all the reasons in the previously stated article.
 
Contrary to popular belief, using a chiller is not really necessary. It certainly won't hurt to use a chiller.
I do BIAB all the time and have never used a chiller. I just fill one if those round tubs with the rope handles with about 5 gallons of water and put my covered kettle in that. I usually change out the 5 gallons of water three or four times and with in an hour or so I am at pitching temperature of 70 degrees F. My beer always turns out great and I've had no issues with any types of infections. In fact, many people actually do a full fledged no-chill method where they leave the wort to sit overnight either in the kettle or in a plastic sealed container until they are ready to pitch their yeast.
 
Hey everyone, i'ma total newbie in brewing, and my friend too. But i'm searching for a best wort chiller as a gift for his birthday. I found a lot of different information, the most adequate article is https://diligentchef.com/best-wort-chiller/ But i think i need more articles with quality\price comparison. Can somebody share an experienced opinion?
 
I don’t know if your first post here is plugging a web page, or if you really are curious on effective wort chillers. I use an immersion chiller made by Jaded. It’s called Hydra. It will chill a 5 gallon batch to 140° in 45 seconds, and to 68° in 3 1/2 minutes. That’s what I use. Easy to clean, and quick to chill.
 
jeffpn said:
I don’t know if your first post here is plugging a web page, or if you really are curious on effective wort chillers. I use an immersion chiller made by Jaded. It’s called Hydra. It will chill a 5 gallon batch to 140° in 45 seconds, and to 68° in 3 1/2 minutes. That’s what I use. Easy to clean, and quick to chill.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your opinion)) I remember that someone told me about this brand)
 
I believe in keeping things simple. Buy something that does a good job and doesn't add time and complexity to beer making.

I bought a Large Stainless 1/2" Wort Chiller 50 foot / 15 Meters. Cools in 15/20 minutes.
 
Advice: Any coil of pipe with appropriate fittings will work as a wort chiller. But go with stainless steel. Easier to clean and less copper in your beer.
 
I use a home made counterflow chiller. It's about 3.5m (11.5') of 8mm (0.138") copper pipe inside some garden hose and two T pieces. I was going to solder the t pieces to the pipe with end caps but used corks and shrink tube as a stopgap, they haven't leaked so I haven't replaced them.

It's winter here so my tap water is cold but on full flow it now takes my wort from boiling to 21c (70f) as fast as I can syphon it through. I do have to use hop bags and I might want a longer coil in summer but seeing as I already had the copper I'm pretty happy with it. Not too worried about cold break in the fv but I might run through a 200 mesh filter to see if I can see/taste any difference.

Clean/sanitise with sodium percarbonate and hook it up to the shower hose with the head removed. Works well for me but I am still newbish lol.

Brewday1.jpg
 
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