Plate Chiller, the draw backs...

[Chiltern Brewer]

I guess that's why the commercial ones can be dismantled for cleaning.

A chiller is the one piece of equipment missing from my setup now, but I can't decide which way to go.

I've stepped up to a 36L / 8 gallon brew length, don't have running water in the brew hut (OK I could run a hose pipe across the garden), and don't want to waste gallons of water. Any ideas?

[Chiltern Brewer]

You certainly made a tidy job of converting it, although I wouldn't expect anything else! Nice and compact too.

Me? I'm still undecided... IC PC

[sparky Paul]

Plate chillers certainly look the neatest option.

Does anyone make/sell a small plate chiller which can be stripped?

[BeerBloke]

I was wondering why my 'spare' plate chiller wasn't performing very well so I stripped it down and found this...



I think it's fair to say it's VERY important to ensure not a single hop leaf makes it into a plate chiller

[mixbrewery]

Phil - is that a SONDEX chiller?
Mine in 10years old and never been stripped.
...and i did notice that the last brew wasn't cooling as well as it should.

Do you need to replace the seals when its reassembled?

[Vossy1]

Alarming pics there BB but as long as your beers aren't getting infected/picking up taints, I suppose it doesn't really matter apart from the extended cooling times

I found that when I moved away from a copper tube manifold that it greatly reduced the amount of hops getting into the pc.
I now use the morebber false bottom and on flushing my pc virtually nothing comes out.
In the past using my copper manifold it wouldn't matter how many times I flushed the pc, if I left the pc for a while and then reflushed, I would always get more hop detritus coming out.
I think the key, IMO&IME, is making sure that the particles that get into the pc are so small, that they can easily get out.

MB & BB, where did you get yopur pc's from?

[delboy]

Would a good dose of oxiclean in boiling water not clean them out.

[Vossy1]

Would a good dose of oxiclean in boiling water not clean them out.

Probably just fill them full of air.

[Andy]

Worrying! And to think I just picked up a new 20 plate chiller complete with 15mm fittings off ebay for £25 posted

I might just re ebay it and stick with my CFC

[Vossy1]

And another

[Graham]

I would, you might see another on there too

Damn! and I thought that a central heating heat exchanger was such I neat idea too. I was going to steal the idea.

[mixbrewery]

Vossy - my chiller came from a previous, failed business venture.
You can see it in situ in the old brewery on my website.
It is made by a company called SONDEX who appear to be Danish.

Just had a look at their website and thought that if anyone has any cooling problems this baby might be in order.
Small heat exchanger

But they do make smaller ones. Shame the UK website does not yet have much info behind it.

[sparky Paul]

Just had a look at their website and thought that if anyone has any cooling problems this baby might be in order.
Small heat exchanger

I've worked on a few plate heat exchangers, but that's a cracker!

I've been scanning for ideas for my first AG project next summer - only in the planning stage just yet, but I reckon I'll be going the CFC route too...

[Chiltern Brewer]

Well, having been sat on the fence for some time about what wort chiller I wanted to get, and now being scared off from using a plate chiller , I did some thorough research (i.e. read most of the old posts on chillers) yesterday... and this afternoon I bought some 10mm x 20m microbore copper tube from my local B&Q with a view to making my own immersion chiller. Being a naturally cautious person I also purchased an external pipe bending spring to help with the tighter curves at the ends of the coil.

My logic was that the total cost of materials would be about the same as to buy the Brupaks IC but mine would be twice the size/length (20m vs 10m) and would therefore be better suited to my 36L batch size?

I think GW made the point on another post about getting the microbore tube from somewhere with a high turnover (i.e. not B&Q ) to avoid hardened tube, but the stuff I've got seems OK. Admittedly there was some older stock there in another size that I wouldn't have touched!

I plan to form the coil around a corny keg (23cm / 9" diameter) as I have read others have done. By boiler is 36cm / 14" in diameter. I have some plastic tubing that will fit over the copper tube's ends, and some 3/4" BSP and HozeLock fittings so I should be able to connect it up to the garden hose. I have an existing 60-70L container for collecting the waste water. As the water butts are all full at the moment, I suspect it will just be used for washing up the brewing equipment and the car.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any words of wisdom from anybody that's made their own IC before, and suggestions (polite ) for a name though I understand that "Big Bertha" is already taken!

[BeerBloke]

Phil - is that a SONDEX chiller?
Mine in 10years old and never been stripped.
...and i did notice that the last brew wasn't cooling as well as it should.

Do you need to replace the seals when its reassembled?

The name SONDEX doesn't ring any bells, it's actually an old dairy one. The 'milk in' and 'milk out' labels seem to give that away.

I didn't replace the seals and it still works ok. I've a bigger one now in the newer brewery so this one is redundant at the moment.

The simple way to use them seems to be siply use an underback of some description with a piece of muslin or voil (aka net curtain) to catch any rougue bits of hop. A good hop bed on the bottom of the copper will keep the trub back.