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My new plate chiller I finally finished welding up. There are tri clover temp probes that go with it to monitor I/O temps.
Close up of the coolant in/ wort out side of things.
The only bummer is it isn't truly sanitary. Although I back-gassed the entire chiller with argon while I was welding, being a socket weld there is no way for me to get a sanitary weld. No matter; with the whole plate chiller design I plan on baking it at 350* before brewing anyway.
Marotte Brewery wrote:Do you have to bake it every time, or just before the first time you use it?
The best way to sanitize a plate chiller (or any all metal chiller) is to just bake the thing each time. 350* for about 10 minutes, even a couple days before you brew. There was a ton of debate when these first came out that there was no way to scrub them and the narrow passages 'could' be prone to collecting debris and they 'could' be a sanitation nightmare. So far, I have not read a thread where anyone has pinpointed infection issues to a plate chiller. Some people even use their oven cleaning cycle to really make sure they are clean inside. (or that nothing is alive at the very least)
This thing has nearly one square meter of heat exchanger area in it. Hopefully it does the job.
It's the same basic chiller, I just ordered it with 1" socket weld fittings is all. I haven't used it yet, but to clean it I'll just pump PBW through it. When I'm about done with my boil I usually just drop some PBW in the remaining hot liquor and use that to clean.
backyard brewer wrote:It's the same basic chiller, I just ordered it with 1" socket weld fittings is all. I haven't used it yet, but to clean it I'll just pump PBW through it. When I'm about done with my boil I usually just drop some PBW in the remaining hot liquor and use that to clean.
In an effort to save water, my hot waste water that exits my chiller goes into my HLT and mashtun (already cleaned) for PBW mixing and rinse water. After rinsing, the rinse water goes into buckets to cool down and use to water plants around the yard.
I really want one of these Derrin. Not because I think it will work any better than what I am doing now (I would have run some experiments to find that out), but because it just looks bitchin'.
I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada down at Trader Vic's
I've never baked mine, but I do rinse it well both directions and circulate PBW for 20+ minutes after I use it. Before use, I pump my wort through it for the last 10 minutes of the boil (similar to an immersion chiller).
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