Plate Chiller Questions???

[LukeD23]

I just got a Shirron Plate Chiller for christmas from my lovely wife, I was really pumped at first, but now Im getting nervous. Heres my thoughts....

Sanitation - I don't have pumps, I will be gravity feeding through the chiller and am concerned about getting the thing clean and sanitary after use. Do I need to have pumps so I can blow hop junk and other stuff out of the chiller with PBW after use, or will gravity feeding back through work just as well?

Hops and Trub - How do I keep hops and trub from clogging the plate chiller? I have seen the bazooka screens and they seem like they might work, but the one issue I see with those is that they are long enough to stick right into your trub pile after a whirlpool.

I would love some advice on how to use this thing properly, or if I shuold just use my immersion chiller until I get pumps. Thanks for any help and calming of my mind!

[Travisty]

I don't have any experience with a plate chiller yet (just got one myself) but I think that as long as you get a good whirlpool, let it settle sufficiently before running off, and run off at a slow enough rate, you shouldn't need to worry much about clogging with hops and hot break. If you are worried, you can bag your hops though. You don't need a pump to clean it either, in fact I think that hose pressure will removed junk much better than the pressures that a march pump can provide. As far as sanitation goes, I'm planning on pumping boiling water through mine to heat sanitize, but I've heard you can also put a plate chiller in the oven for an hour or so to sufficiently kill anything that might be living inside the chiller. I'm not sure what the best temp is though. 250º? 300º? 350º?

[jm]

I have an adapter that goes on my kitchen sink that hooks up to the wort in/out on the chiller. I use that to back flush with hot water after a soak in hot PBW loosens up the grim. Then a Star San soak and finally into the oven to dry it out and kill anything that survived.

[LukeD23]

Sounds like a pretty in depth clean....heres a question

Does it actually save time in the end?

With my immersion chiller i was cooled to 65 degrees in about 50 minutes, then a quick rinse of the immersion chiller and soap and Im done. So chill down and clean up took a total of about an hour.

How long does it take over all to do the plate chiller set up, chill down and clean? less than an hour?

[Beertastic]

I also have a shirron. I dry heat sterilize mine in the oven at 340 for 1 hour. After each use I boil a couple of gallons of oxyclean solution in my brewpot, let the plate chiller rest in this hot solution for 15 minutes then pull it out and run the oxyclean through it followed by a fresh water rinse. I have brewed ~40 batches on it doing this and have had no issues relating to the chiller except that between the oven and boiling the writing on the chiller is gone. I was also concerned about the bazooka screen running through the middle of the trub pile as well so i assembled a modified bazooka screen. I took the original straight connector off the back of my weldless fitting and replaced it with a 90 degree stainless elbow and then thread in a barb coupling. The bazooka screen is attached to that and rests right against the bottom rim of the pot. After a whirlpool the hops and break material are all in a nice pile in the middle and clear beer goes through the plate chiller. As far as time goes, the plate chiller doesn't save me much if any. By the time I have sterilized it, set it up, chilled and then cleaned it I probably could have just used an immersion chiller. The benefits I see out of it is that I can have a 5.5 gallon batch chilled in about 6 minutes and have the ability to use a hopback with it. Here is a link that shows times and temps for dry heat sterilization.
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter2-2-3.html

[Cliff]

Sounds like a pretty in depth clean....heres a question
Does it actually save time in the end?

I think the answer (as it is for so many things) is : It depends.

Depends on what the plate HEX user's flow rates are, the temp of the water, the ability of avoiding clogging with cold break, the surface area of the plate HEX, yadda yadda.
And the Immersion HEX has similar issues surface area, flow rate, water temp.

currently my Immercion is a dual coil (20' each) 1/4" copper each coil fed independently. It's pretty fast .
From a full boil at 212Deg F, my HEX reduced the temperature down to 60 Deg F in 23 minutes.
At the 11 minute mark, Temp' was 158 Deg F (70 Deg C the Dimethyl Sulfide compound cut off temp)
At the 15 minute mark, temp’ was 90 Deg F
At the 17 minute mark, temp’ was 80 Deg F
At the 19 minute mark, temp’ was 70 Deg F
At the 23 minute mark, Temp' was 60 Deg F
I have all the minute/temp' data points if you are interested.

Water temperature used for the chiller was a 49 Deg F ( household)
Flow 1 Gallon @ 40 seconds (approx')
Volume to be cooled 6 gallons
Temp of volume 212 Deg F at full boil

[Travisty]

I just used my new plate chiller for the first time yesterday. I brewed a lager. Our ground water temps are around 48 degrees right now and when I slowed the flow of wort down enough I was able to get the wort temp down to about 50 to 52 degrees. Since I had to really slow the wort flow down it took me a little longer to run off then I was planning, but it still only took about 25 minutes or so to chill the entire wort. With my IC it would have taken probably 45 minutes. After back flushing and recirculating hot oxiclean while cleaning out the kettle I probably only saved maybe 10 minutes of time over all. I think I will get faster after I get my routine down better though. I really like the fact that I didn't have to stick the IC in the boil. I've been trying to nail down my evaporation rate and putting the IC in the boil was making it more difficult to measure my final volume.