Plate Chiller with Pump - Do You Recirculate or...?

Just got a plate chiller from Santa, and was wondering how I should set it up.

It seems I could run from the kettle to the pump to the chiller to the fermenter, or I could run from the kettle to the pump to the chiller and back to the kettle until I hit my desired pitching temperature, and THEN run it to the fermenter.

For those of you using a plate chiller AND a pump; which method do YOU use? Are there advantages/disadvantages to each method?

Ideally, a plate chiller is one pass straight to the fermenter. The pump should be as you described it: between the kettle and the chiller. A valve on the output of the pump is a good idea in case you have to slow the wort flow a little. Pumps work best with full flow going into them.

The chilling water does not have to be at full blast. It should flow just fast enough to get the wort down to pitching temperature as quickly as the pump will push it.

I also got one from Santa.

I did do a recirculation to sanitize from BK to pump to chiller back to BK in the last 10 minutes of the boil.

In my opinion, the whole point of the chiller is to go BK to pump to chiller to fermenter to get down to pitching temp in zero time. I ran mine through its paces today for the first time and did almost 20 gallons in just under 10 minutes. That to me is the huge advantage and my water was barely running. AND I was getting temps of around 60ºF with the pump running full bore.

I would think that you're just adding time to your brew day. The transfer of wort is going to take as much time as chilling. Why recirculate and then transfer?

brewfun said:

...The chilling water does not have to be at full blast.

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May I assume you are implying ice-water circulating through the plate chiller here (fixed temp) as opposed to tap (not always fixed temp)?

This was my intent thus far; to use an aquarium pump in a bucket of water and ice to circulate the chilling water. I also was thinking of adding a valve after the aquarium pump to throttle the chilling water (already have a valve on the outlet of my pump).

I suppose my fear is the learning curve in hitting the right pitching temp into the fermenter the first time - I expect to, but I'm also reasonably sure that because of the variables, nailing it the first time is not likely to be the reality.

Running straight to the fermenter means you've got only one shot at nailing the pitching temp. Is there a practical experiment one could perform to quickly learn the capability of such a system without potentially screwing up a batch? Would just plain water work for a trial run?

Not sure if the question is wholly directed at me but I'll contribute a few bits of info.

I'm not using ice water, only tap water. Yes, the temp is variable but it's the easiest set up by far and seeing the results yesterday looks like the most efficient. Getting my wort down to below pitching temp (oops) in that single pass with very little water has certainly convinced me that ice water would be overkill in MY case.

Reducing your variables is always a good thing when running new equipment like this. I did my first trial with this plate chiller deliberately with the wort pump open all the way. Varying the volume of the water I figured was going to be my control on temp of wort.

I also work at a small craft brewery and when we cool in the settings are opposite to what I did at home. Our cooling water is open all the way and the temperature of the wort is controlled by the output pump at the boil kettle. We have a temp gauge after the chiller before the fermenter and small adjustments to the valve coming from the BK will adjust the temperature of the wort quite noticeably.

I recirculate for the last 15 min of boil to sanatize the plate chiller. I also always recirculate through the plate chiller when heating water for MLT/HLT or when cooling as it allows me to monitor the temp with the temp probe in my brew kettle. I can set the alarm on the temp probe and just let it do its thing until the alarm goes off. The advantage of always keeping the plate chiller in the circuit is that I don't have to bother about switching hoses around, just have to direct the output hose to the correct vessel.

Brief explanation of my setup. I have an electric brew kettle + two coolers (MLT and HLT). Water/wort flow is always from kettle > pump > chiller > MLT, HLT, Kettle or Fermenter.

Dave

Phil,  I tried the recirc method but it always stirred up my settled kettle more than I wanted.  And it will add time to your cooling. The only advantage I saw was 'they' say it leaves the cold break in your kettle.  Not what I found to be true. Cold break is everywhere instead.

For clarification; (hey... there's a pun there!) I intend to run the wort through a Hop Rocket stuffed with hops or some kind of filter media, depending on desired flavor/aroma needs, and it will be located after the pump and before the plate chiller. This should act as a nice trap for the hop sludge and break material.

From talking with a few folks about it, the consensus is that the Hop Rocket will/should trap most if not all the hop material and cold break during circulation resulting in clear wort in the kettle by the time it reaches the desired pitching temp.

I've also just learned about another advantage to recirculating while chilling; it drops the whole batch down fast as opposed to dropping only that portion of the wort flowing through the chiller and off to the fermenter. The remaining wort that's in the kettle at near-boiling temps could, in some styles, (pils comes to mind) be subject to unwanted DMS. SMM will continue to convert to DMS at near-boiling temperatures (it's not being boiled off anymore) so bringing the whole batch down quickly is important for this reason.

There are plenty of folks who will argue running through a plate chiller directly to the fermenter is as quick if not quicker than recirculating thus the total time the wort sits at near-boiling temps would be pretty close to that of a recirculating system. I can't dispute this as I have not tried either method yet, but until I am comfortable with all of this new plumbing, I'm going to remove the one variable I'm least sure of; nailing the output temp from the chiller to the fermenter the first time - sounds like quite a trick - probably not gonna happen the first time or two.

I reckon I'll just recirculate for the first few batches to see how well it works, and get some data on my chiller set-up, and I'll consider running directly to the fermenter once I've worked out all the logistical bugs. Thanks for all the replies - always appreciated.

When I set mine up the first time I boiled water, lots of it, all day, and played with all the variables.  My experience is you can get your temp pretty consistent with tuning the wort out valve and watching an inline thermometer.  Cold break in the fermenter does suck, but I have learned to deal with it.  I would be real interested to hear if the Rocket works well.  Please post how it performs. 

We use the pump to recirculate/whirlpool the output of our plate chiller back into the BK using a temp controller to bring the wort down to a very accurate pitching temp before going into the fermenter. We started out using the single pass BK, Chiller, Fermenter setup with a valve in attempt to control the temp into the fermenter. This was very hit or miss as far as pitch temp accuracy. We decided the small time increase to recirculate and regulate was minimal plus our pitch temps are always spot on!

Its only hit and miss if you don't learn your system.  An inline precision  thermometer allows you to get the temp you need once you learn where your out valve needs to be set.

KernelCrush said:

...I would be real interested to hear if the Rocket works well.  Please post how it performs. 

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Well, I used a 5-gallon paint strainer bag (I used to use these when I did Partial-Mash and I had some left) and stuffed it in the Hop Rocket, buttoned it up and let it rip. The pump was pulling nicely, for a couple of minutes, BUT... as soon as the debris started building up on that strainer bag, the force of the pump apparently sucked the bag all the way to the top of the Hop Rocket and plugged it. When I took it all apart during clean-up, I found that strainer bag so compacted up at the top of the Rocket, no wonder the flow stopped.

No worries; as soon as I saw the circulation had stopped, I moved some hoses around and pulled the Hop Rocket out of the circuit and continued circulating and cooling. Even with the short break to swap hoses, I was sill able to cool 6 gallons of boiling wort to 66 F in 13 minutes with an IC - tap water (no ice needed today) was all I needed as it was at 50 F.

Can't wait to try this set-up with my new plate chiller. I'm thinking next time maybe I'll toss a few stainless steel scrubbies in the strainer bag before loading it into the Rocket to see if it helps keep it from compacting.

In the end, though, I can say; having a pump with good fittings, hoses and valves is nice - real nice.

Yes pumps are our good friend.  I was wondering about the compacting.  I tried this before on a homemade version without good results. Tasty McDole has some posts about alternate (upside down and backwards) orientations of the Rocket.  Sounds like he likes it.  Its on his facebook page too.  I wish I had your groundwater temps

At our brewery the hop rocket or filter is between the pump and chiller. Maybe that will help?

pcollins said:

At our brewery the hop rocket or filter is between the pump and chiller. Maybe that will help?

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Yeah, that's the plan once I get the rest of my fittings so I can add my new plate chiller. For now, I'm using my 50-ft copper immersion chiller with a second coil in a bucket of ice water - today I needed no ice (it was cold, for Georgia). I had my Rocket after the pump and was just recirculating back to the boil kettle to see if I could filter most of the hops and break material.

My problem is my Houston water can get up to 85F in the summer so then I chill with tap water to 90-100 in the BK.  Then swap the plate chiller water source to a large ice chest with a sump pump doing a re-circulation (old milk jugs with frozen water for ice source) when pumping to fermenter.  I control temp with the valve on the fermenter and O2 with a stone at the same time.  I can usually get to 68F in August that way.  Winter I can just use all tap water for chilling, but I do like to leave any break I can in the BK.  I just swap my re-circulation hose from the BK return to the fermenter.

You can see how I have mine setup in my crappy video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0jurTWqP0s.  Our club system, which is similar to this, just added a hop rocket between the pump and plate chiller.  We think it enhanced the process but is not all that easy to tell.  Could be brewing spiritualism but looks cool and must have filtered something though looking at the hop mass afterwards, I couldn't tell.

In the summer, I use the small pond pump to pump icewater through the chiller or prechill with my old immersion chiller if I haven't lent it out.  Usually, I fill a couple kegs with water and put them in the beer freezer a few days before I brew so I can have cold water to prechill with or pump thoug the plate chiller.

I always recirculate through the plate chiller and hose water for some time before I use chilled water.  This help knock down the temp on the entire kettle of wort before transferring to the carboy at pitching temp.