Pages: 1 2
Plate Chillers kick ass
Yeah Andrew, after doing some test runs yesterday i can see what you mean. Right now I have the wort looped from the bk to a march pump to the thermonator and back into the bk setting up a whirlpool. That's alot of places for nasties to hide. before I brew with it I am going to figure out how to clean and sanitize it really well.
ID
Ok the first brewday had mixed results. The Therminator worked flawlessly with no doubt, chilling 11ish Gals of beer in less than 20 mins but be warned plate chillers clog very easily. Was brewing a farmhouse style with coriander and orange peel and it clogged up causing lots of frustration on my part. Forgot to turn the pump off and had some hoses disassembled trying to figure out where the plug was when it let go, it also happened that the hose was pointed directly down the inside of my shoe. I had shut off the cooling water so almost boiling water was pumped straight into my shoe. Not a good day. After spending a week caring for and cleaning the blisters on my left foot I am hoping to brew again this weekend.
And now to my question. Can a plate chiller be used to maintain the temp of a mash? I am thinking of moving up to a bigger mash tun (not insulated) and I was thinking of running the mash through one side and hot water in the other any problems with this idea? Also this would be a way to do stepped mashes to slowly bring up the temp.
Anyway thanks for your help.
ID
Id be worried about clogging it with grain but in theory it should work. Your water temp going through it will play a huge factor. That and monitoring water flow, water temp, wort flow and wort temp really sounds like a pain in the ass. Running it through a standard immersion chiller in your HLT sounds much easier and a lot less water consumption.
I recently got a new 40 plate chiller, pump, and Hop Rocket, and after three "dry" runs I thought I had it balanced and ready to go. I got a 40 plate so I could do 10 gallon batches in the future but it's a bit much for 5 gallon batches. Wide open it takes 3 minutes to chill 5 gallons of wort to 50 degrees. I put a ball valve on the "cold in" on the chiller so I could fine tune it but it is very sensitive and takes a minute to dial it in to 68 degrees. I put a dial thermometer on the "wort out" port and it is quite handy.
I did whirlpool out the hot break but didn't realize how much cold break this thing creates. The Hop Rocket does a nice job of filtering the hot break but how are people handling the cold break?
BTW while cleaning the Hop Rocket the top fitting broke off in my hand. I emailed Blichmann and they said it was a faulty weld and are sending a new one. It's nice to see someone stand behind their product. Great service.
The gauge is 25F to 125F which is great for accuracy (1/2 degree) but not when you want to sanitize with boiling water.
I may switch it out, I'm not sure yet.
Wow, that is some big time chilling equipment. I was going to get the bigger chiller too, but when I saw the 10 plate chiller chilling 13 gallons of wort at Thirsty's brewday without a problem, I knew that was the one for me. They do produce massive cold break, I think what alot of us do is to put the chilled wort back into the pot, submurge the hose in the wort so you don't get any hot side airation, and you can reduce the cold break in your fermenters.
The cold break sticks to the sides of my pot for some reason, looking like little chunks of crisco shortining, it's really amazing how fast these things chill, just angle the hose the same way you started your whirlpool, for about 5 or 10 minutes, then right into the fermenter, pretty damn cool. Right after I back flush, and submurge it in PBW for a few hours, and that's it, ready to go again the next time.
bruguru wrote:
The cold break sticks to the sides of my pot for some reason, looking like little chunks of crisco shortining, it's really amazing how fast these things chill, just angle the hose the same way you started your whirlpool, for about 5 or 10 minutes, then right into the fermenter, pretty damn cool. Right after I back flush, and submurge it in PBW for a few hours, and that's it, ready to go again the next time.
Thanks, I will have to try that next time.
I was debating between pulling my hop socks out of my BK and putting them in a funnel over my fermenter, then straining my wort into my fermenter through them, or whirlpooling into a second, clean BK then transfering to the fermenter.
I put a QD in my BK lid with a curved piece of copper pipe for whirlpooling so the lid stays on and traps in hop aroma and I can move the lid to any pot.
I just use a bazooka tube, does a pretty good job of filtering out even pellet debris. i think i'm going to try a thick piece of stainless steel hose mesh like the one that I have for my mash tun, believe it or not that piece of stainless steel braid is an unbelievable filter, and I've been using the same piece of braid for about 2 and a half years now.
Not that i don't think those hop backs work, or that Blichmann doesn't make a good product, I just don't want another thing to clean, Ha ha.
I tried the bazooka tube covered with a hop sock on my last brew, it clogged so tight that the run off was just a trickle. I also didn't like the way it disrupted my whirlpool. Just me.
I love my mash braided hose; I think mine is around the same age as yours and still in great shape.
Pages: 1 2
Search Home Brewing Knowledge Base
Custom Search
|