Couner flow V Plate Chiller

[nigel_c]

Undecided which way to go. I may even stick with my immersion chiller. Any tried and tested results for both. Pro V Con on changing over from immersion? 

[DEMPSEY]

Immersion allows you to leave cold break behind which commercial brewers don't,mostly. Plate needs a good filter fitted before the wort passes into it.

[nigel_c]

That's what I has thinking.

[Hop Bomb]

Using a therminator plate chiller here. Duda diesel one before that. Bag your hops or use a good filter to keep hops out (you'll need to do that anyway though to keep them out of your chugger pump so its no extra expense) If you are recirc/whirlpooling the cold break gets left behind in the BK. You just need to let it all sit for a half hour before transfer to FV so just start cleaning up. No big deal.

Love my plate chiller. Its tidy & its a mini version of what a real brewery uses so whats not to like! Any fears of infection or crud hanging on inside are easily avoided with proper care. If cleaning isnt enough & you are still paranoid you can do what I do & recirc your mash & sparge water through it & your pump. This helps evenly heat the water & it pasteurizes your chiller. You can also recirc boiling wort to but I prefer recircing my mash & sparge water as its less messy/sticky.

[imark]

@HB do you use pellets? If so, what do you use to filter. Had bad experience with all pellet and bazooka in my kettle.

[Hop Bomb]

I use mostly pellets. Sometimes leaf. I got a deadly hop spider made in the states. Its 300 micron stainless mesh with a thick collar on it. It keeps almost all hop pellet gunk inside it but still allows wort to flow through for proper utilization.



Mine is the one on the left. Savage yoke. Just hose it clean after no bother. Ive a 6 inch bazooka tube along the kettle wall for when I use leaf hops & as a fail safe to keep anything out of the pump & chiller.

I opted to buy one of these hop spiders but you could make one if you had the skills & materials handy enough.

[nigel_c]

From the stainless brewing guys in the states? I emailed them about a price on a group buy with them and they never got back to me.

[Hop Bomb]

Yeah same guy. I dount a GB would be a runner considering he cant meet demand for current orders at full price. Mine took a while but worth the wait.

[Rossa]

I seriously looked a plate chiller a few years back as my water pressure is terrible. I decided against it in the end as cleaning it seemed more hassle. Instead I use two immersion coils fed off a water butt pump and creating a whirlpool with my chugger. I use something like Tom has too, ss mesh tube that sits in the kettle. They are great filters.