30 Plate 125 kW Chiller and Solar Pump

[dcq1974]

Hi All
I purchased the above 30 plate chiller from HomeBrew Builder (Mr. Lard) and used it for the first time yesterday (75 litre brew) with a solar pump (so boiler tap feeding solar pump under gravity then pump to plate chiller then out).

Cooling was amazing (wort coming out at 20 degrees C) but as the boiler emptied, the flow was reduced to a trickle as the trub and whole leaf hops bedded down at the hop filter (Alemann/Garth Hop Stopper type).

Can anyone offer any advice using a similar set up? Are these solar pump up to the job? Do I need to try a different configuration? I don't normally have any issues filling Fermentors as the wort is clear however, this was when I cooled with a really slow IC and the wort was already cold.........

Recirculating 75 litres of boiling wort to cool was also impractical as it was taking too long so straight into Fermetors from now on......

HELP!

[barneey]

Yours is not an uncommon occurrence, although I`m surprised you got a "garth" style filter clogged up.

My only suggestions are as follows:-

1) make a filter with a larger surface area.
2) throttle back the pump
3) with a mash paddle "wipe" the hops off the filter every so often
4) buy an external filter that can be taken apart if needed.
5) try a few stainless scrubbies in the "garth" filter to hold the sheets apart.
6) make a stainless braid & mesh bag filter ring (IMHO the best filter except the external option)

[Fil]

+1 to barneeys suggestions, also did you give the brew 20-30 mins to sit and settle before you started the chill?

i found with a few hop filters including a 1.5m ss braid circling the base that without allowing hops to settle and form a basic primary filterbed over the filter i would run into problems.

ps any ol CLEAN copper or Stainless steel bits will work as mesh screen separators..

[dcq1974]

Cheers for the replies Gents...
I also recirculated the boiling wort for the last 15 minutes of the 60 minute boil to sanitise pump and chiller etc...

[barneey]

One other thing I didn't mention that I`m about to try for the first time (few weeks) is a hop spider.

[Fil]

Hop spiders rule



to stop the bag floating on top of the boil i maintained a positive pressure by recirculating the boil thru the bag for the full boil,
the dbl skin of my grain/hop bag did resist the easy flow back into the bulk as u can see its fuller than the pot and i needed to throttle the pump way back to a minimal flow to stop it overflowing, however come the end it drained easily. and no 20-30 min wait to let hops settle straight thru the chiller into the fv

im looking for a single skin bag which will hopefully allow an easier flow thru the bag..