Plate Chiller Question

[JMUBrew]

Was just finally getting around to listening to all of the last sunday show and had a question about the plate chillers that B3 carries. I had heard rumor that they may start carrying a bolted style of plate chiller. Anyone know about this? I have a therminator now, but wouldn't mind actually having a bolted plate chiller.

[Push Eject]

Keep listening... I remember Graham saying the protype was 50 lbs and proven too cost-prohibitive to produce.

Push Eject

[JMUBrew]

D'oh...thats what I get for jumping the gun!

[Thirsty Boy]

I have a plate chiller question too..

How much water do they use?? For a 5 gallon batch down to say 18C (64.5F) and how efficiently do they cool? Are we talking down to pitching temp on one pass through the chiller?? Or do you re-circulate until you hit pitching temp then whirlpool? Never even seen one being used

I think that I am going to get this one because with the horrible drought on in my partof the country at the moment, I feel really bad about running my current crappy homemade chiller for an hour to hit temps. Last 6gallon brew I used over 100litres(27gal) of water to cool.

So probably the lowest use of water is what I am looking for. Is a plate chiller the answer?

[DannyW]

Depends entirely on your water temp. Blichmann has a nice graph that gives you an idea of what you can expect.

With a little planning, you could do some laundry with that nice hot waste water, thus not wasting either the water or the energy!

[keggermeister]

I have beeh using a Therminator for years now, before that i used a 25' immersion chiller. From my experiences yes the plate chiller uses way less water!
I chill 10 gallons of wort in 1 pass with a pump and the water turned up around half way.

Hope i helped you!

i wouldn't give up the plate chiller for any other chiller.

[bub]

If you really want to save water recirc into a bucket of ice using a pump in an immersion chiller.
BUB

[DannyW]

i wouldn't give up the plate chiller for any other chiller.

From keggermeister's profile:

Location: halifax nova scotia canada

I'm not suprised! You must have ground water with ice crystals in it!

In places with warm tap water they are more of a challenge, especially to dial in a particular temp.