from immersion wort chiller to plate chiller

[markw]

I've been brewing for a while now and happily been using an immersion wort chiller. I use hop bags so there isn't much in the way of hop debris at the end of the boil, but at the end of the chilling process there's quiet an unsightly mass of jelly like trub at the bottom of the kettle. Fortunately this remains in the kettle as I drain into the FV.

Having upsized my brewsize (100l), even with a BFO immersion chiller, it's taking an hour to get the temp down and I'm pondering going the plate chiller route. I'm put off by the palaver of setting up and cleaning the pump and a chiller and filter and having the worry of one of them breaking down, and concerned by how a filter is going to cope with the amount of trub in my kettle.

Any thoughts peeps?

Mark

[Jocky]

Do you agitate the wort during chilling with your immersion chiller? It makes the world of difference.

[markw]

yup, I do that, after I checked it once halfway through and realised I had a lovely cold band of wort, with hot above and below it!

[chefgage]

How about meeting somewhere in the middle and using a counter flow chiller. I have gone from using a IC to a CFC and they are so much easier to use with regards time and the need to move the wort about when using an IC.

[markw]

I also run the tubing with the water into the immersion chiller through a bucket full of water and freezer blocks, and that drops the temp of the water going through the chiller quite noticeably. (TOP TIP!)

[markw]

yes, a counterflow chiller is something I almost bought off ebay a day or so ago. Again the issue of needing to get a pump and whether the trub would block the chiller was a concern.

[simon12]

In my opinion if you can chill it in an hour stick with the immersion setup as there's just nothing to go wrong especially if your not currently using any pumps.

[Kev888]

I would not personally use a plate chiller without a fairly fine kettle filter - the consequences of particles getting lodged in them are too difficult to deal with IMO. Unfortunately, a lot of filters struggle with pure break/trub - most work better filtering hops, and letting those form a filter bed for the trub. You may get away with it if not much trub makes its way to the filter, but ideally I'd suggest a good hop filter and loose whole/leaf/flower hops if you wanted to use a plate chiller.

CFCs are different, they only have one path through them and it tends to be of reasonable diameter, so if stuff does get in it can be flushed out again and be as good as new afterwards. My latest system has no filter (for various reasons), so I moved to a CFC for exactly this reason, made with 10mm microbore. It is not as compact as a plate chiller and can't be autoclaved, but within reason will cope with anything that accidentally tries to go through it so is invaluable for this purpose.

It is possible to use plate chillers and CFCs with gravity, though takes a lot of patience sometimes so wouldn't be my choice and may partly defeat your objective. However, certainly with a CFC pumps make a lot of sense because you can recirculate boiling wort during the boil to disinfect them, if the pump is rated for boiling temperatures. For me, pumping a 100L system would be extremely helpful, if not necessary, in any case. Unfortunately the good ones, which are both properly hygenic and have a healthy head rating (for pumping through restrictions) tend not to be especially cheap.

ICs are hard to beat for ease of use, cleanup time and certainty of disinfecting though, and some people prefer to leave the initial cold break in the kettle too. It may be that waiting a little bit longer for the cooling isn't such a bad option if time isn't massively pressing.