Plate Chiller Cooling

[barneey]

Just a few questions about these things, I`ve just completed my second brewday using one (German 60 plate chiller) I can cool the wort down to approx 25 c easily enough with just gravity from the boiler.

Its just that the cold water being fed through the chiller doesnt seem that hot coming out, if I restrict the cold flow in the wort temp just rises acordingly.

I`ve double checked the flow on the thing is correct and am currently using it on a flat base with the connections upwards.

It just doesnt seem that efficient.

Any pointers on using one more effectively?

With the time it takes to reduce the temp of the wort, ie hops still in the boiler with hot wort, is there a rule of thumb for adjustment for hops used? or try and make an adjustment in beersmith?

Any help appreciated.
Cheers

[Scooby]

Are you sure you have it plumbed correctly? The water exiting should be equally as hot as the wort your cooling.

With the ground water temp now you should be able to cool far lower than 25C with minimal flow of cooling water.

[orlando]

It is a counterflow product. Wort in is opposite to cold water in. I have a chiller with only something like 12 plates, significantly smaller than yours, and it can pull 50c out of the wort in 10 minutes at the moment so I'm sure you must have it plumbed incorrectly. Do you have a picture of how you have it at the moment?

[unclepumble]

Just a few questions about these things, I`ve just completed my second brewday using one (German 60 plate chiller) I can cool the wort down to approx 25 c easily enough with just gravity from the boiler.

Its just that the cold water being fed through the chiller doesnt seem that hot coming out, if I restrict the cold flow in the wort temp just rises acordingly.

I`ve double checked the flow on the thing is correct and am currently using it on a flat base with the connections upwards.

It just doesnt seem that efficient.

Any pointers on using one more effectively?

With the time it takes to reduce the temp of the wort, ie hops still in the boiler with hot wort, is there a rule of thumb for adjustment for hops used? or try and make an adjustment in beersmith?

Any help appreciated.
Cheers

Best thing you could do is get a Blichman BRUMOMETER (Hop And Grape Sell Them) or make one, preferably 2, one for water one for wort stream, you can really dial in both streams to get the best efficency, if you do, best purchase I ever made to make life easy.

UP

[barneey]

Heres the details & pictures of what I`m doing...

The heat exchanger is one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stainless-Ste ... 4cff3c0440

The model I have has two 1/2 posts & two 3/4 posts.

The first picture is just a print off the diagram from the ebay site, the hand written scribble is mine.

The flow according to the drawing is F1 to F3 & F4 to F2.

I assume the wort goes in the 1/2" posts and the cold water in the 3/4" posts. is this correct???

The second picture is wort in the 1/2" F1, the third picture wort out 1/2" F3, the forth picture cold water in the 3/4" F4, finally the fifth picture 5 Luke warm water out 3/4 F2.

The exchanger is used in the position of the photos ie posts in the upright position.

Can anyone see any faults. Cheers

[boingy]

I'm not sure you have a problem. The faster you push the cold water through, the lower its exit temperature will be but it will still cool the wort. Are you wanting to cool faster? Or to a lower temperature?

I use a similar chiller, fed by gravity and I find I have to slow down the water feed (pumped from the garden pond) otherwise I cool too far. The first time I used it the wort was hitting the FV at about 12C!

I now have a ball valve before the water inlet and I have knocked up a poor man's Thrumometer by sticking one of these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Thermometer-S ... 0945128591

onto a length of copper tube which is attached to the wort outlet. The thermometer is very limited range but works really well. With the chiller being gravity fed, the wort flow slows down as the boiler empties so I need to adjust the cold water flow rate to match. The plate chiller was a great upgrade. Much much faster than the IC I was using so a shorter brew day!

[unclepumble]

try standing the chiller on end, wort in to bottom, water in to top, put a control valve (gate valve) on the water outlet, and the wort inlet and use two temp references either two stick ons as per boingy, two thrumometers or 2 PT100's, and play with the flows until you get the optimum temps you want. I find that once set the two control valves hardly need to be touched each time, as long as you don't alter their settings.

UP

[barneey]

Thanks for the replies, I`ll try a few experiments this afternoon.

Just one thing that I have noticed since posting this thread and looking at the ebay advert again, the coloured drawing on the ebay advert would seem to suggest (with the red arrow) that the liquid to be cooled should be going in the 3/4 post. The cold water (with blue arrow) showing entering through the 1/2" post.

This would mean I have the 1/2" and 3/4" around the wrong way???? More experiments required.

Cheers

[barneey]

Glad to say the problem is now solved!

I followed my hunch of the 1/2" and 3/4" being around the wrong way and it works as it should.

So just incase anyone has a heat exchanger like mine with 1/2 and 3/4 fittings ..... 3/4 is for the wort and the 1/2 is for the cold water cooling supply, if you have one already might be worth checking the plumbing?

I`m going to add my blichmann thromometer and a stopcock to the arrangement as suggested above.



Cheers

[WishboneBrewery]

Thats a good picture to have knocking about the forum for other people

[barney]

I must be lucky with mine,

I run the cold water through first. gravity prime the pump to remove any air locks and let the first run through to FV by gravity. switch on the pump and then adjust the cold water flow. Full volume water and full volume pump is 21.9 degrees today. No fluctuations in temperature whatsoever.
The only way that variance can enter the system is if the plate chiller gets blocked or the pump has an air bubble or is sucking air.

[barneey]

A couple of other things that might help others, the cooler seems to work better in the upright position ie the posts in the air. If you are thinking of cleaning it with the aid of a pressure cooker, it will fit in a "Prestige High Dome 5lt"

Now to go and get a couple of female food safe fittings 3/4, rather than mess around buying new cam locks and hose, might just buy these ones http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/120888819133? ... 97.c0.m619 or get a BES reducer fitting in stainless http://www.bes.co.uk/products/164b.asp

EDIT:- Just had a look (search) on the forum at other members photos of their plate chillers, seems there maybe a few that use the 1/2 for the wort and cold supply for the 3/4, so either my chiller is the exception or others might want to experiment a little

[orlando]

This is mine being used the "wrong" way round pulling 50c of heat out of a 70c wort.




My reasoning for this way round was I thought you would want the greater volume to be the water so hook that up to the 3/4" and the smaller volume you want to cool to the 1/2". It doesn't appear to matter as long as they are counter to each other, given we are both chilling successfully it must be the counter flow that's the key, not which port they are hooked up to. To be further contrary, I now use it on its side and have to throttle back the wort delivery (I use gravity) to stop it chilling too fast. I use an ordinary thermometer to check the wort temp in the FV but would like a fancy through thingymebob, where do you get those?

[barneey]

Interesting, when I was using mine at first "1/2 wort connection" I was finding that the bottom half of the plates were permanently coldish, now with the thing plumbing in the "right" way (for me at least) everything is warm. Might not be so much of a problem with the fewer plate models????? or mine is just unique.

The place where I got mine tho does show the hot in through the larger connection.



I would be interested if anyone else has a 50 or 60 plate model to see how they plumb theirs in?

As for the thingmebob I got mine from http://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/public/det ... HR20064899

Cheers

[orlando]

So it does, and they manufacture the damn things so it must therefore be right. I put 2 reducers on mine so I can use 1/2" hose all round so I can swap and see if it makes a difference but for the life of me I wouldn't want any better performance than I get now. Even when groundwater temps start to rise and I hook this up to the hose (er inside obviously ) with the warmer water I can't see performance improving but I might try just for the hell of it.