Plate Chiller

[dougieorr]

I have recently purchased a plate chiller (gravity fed, no pump) & intend using it instead of my immersion chiller.
The plate chiller did not come with any hoses & am struggling to find out how I can connect this to my boiler.
The cold water in & out is OK - just a 3/4" garden hose connection.
The wort out is OK - just a 1/2" hose connect to drain into liquor tank or fermenter.

Wort into plate chiller
My boiler has a 'tapering' tap which makes it difficult to attach anything to it.
Do I replace this tap with a 'regular' which makes it easier attach anything to it - still don't see how to connect to plate chiller ?
Do I remove the tap & somehow find a way of connecting some type of hose directly to the plate chiller - seems unlikely as I need a tap to stop the flow.
I'm sure this is really easy once I find out how this is supposed to be done.

Thanks in advance

Dougie Orr

Thanks for all the advice - all sorted.
I got a 15mm bsp male ball valve tap, female to female coupling & attached to male flexible 50cm compression tube. All seems to work ok.

[Jim]

Hi Dougie, I'm going to move this to 'Brewing Equipment' as people are more likely to see it there.

What type of boiler have you got? If the tap is an odd fitting you might be better off replacing it with a something different that you can attach a line to. John Guest fittings are useful for connecting up as they are push fit and can be connected/disconnected to suit what you are doing. You'll need some kind of food-safe line to connect up your plate chiller to the boiler tap though, not garden hose (though as you say you can use garden hose to connect up the cooling water and drain. I just use plastic syphon tubing to connect between my boiler tap and counterflow chiller, though it does get a bit soft when it's hot (I only have a very short run, so I get away with it).

Incidentally, it's not a good idea to have your email address as your user name - if you'd like it changed, let me know.

[chris246810]

Get a 1/2" ball valve for the boiler and a couple of 1/2" hose tails?

[orlando]

At the risk of teaching grandma etc, a plate chiller is a great piece of kit but is a sanitation nightmare compared to an IC. What will be your cleaning regime?

[Kev888]

It may be that a piece of silicone hose would be stretchy enough to hold onto a gently tapering spout, but not a sharply tapering one. Personally I would replace the tap with one which can offer a decently secure way of attaching the hose; near-boiling wort can be dangerous (as well as very precious!) stuff, should the hose pop off.

Its hard to give specific advice without seeing the tap and knowing the boiler's tap-hole size and so on, but there are some plastic taps that are suitable for boiling temperatures (many aren't, so take care to check). Lever/ball valves are popular too - often in conjunction with a tank connector or similar plumbing fitting to fit to the boiler and a hose-tail for the hose. If it is within your budget, the 3-piece stainless variety are a particularly good type of lever valve, as they can be disassembled for cleaning.

If you haven't already got a decent filter, add the fitting of one to your 'to sort out' list. Its hard to flush particles out of plate chillers so prevention can be much, much better than attempted cure.

[dougieorr]

Just joined Jim's Beer Kit today so bear with me.
Thanks for the advice.
It is a 30 litre Peco Electrim boiler.
I will swap the tapering tap with 1/2" ball valve with a screw fitting on tap the boiler and I have couple of 1/2" strong plumbing hoses to connect to plate

Had not thought about cleaning - will investigate.

Can someone change my username to dougieorr.

[joe1002]

Can someone change my username to dougieorr.

Best bet is to PM (private message) Jim (author on the first reply to you).

[FUBAR]

At the risk of teaching grandma etc, a plate chiller is a great piece of kit but is a sanitation nightmare compared to an IC. What will be your cleaning regime?

It most certainly is, can not better an IC for its easy low maintenance cleaning & sanitizing regime but you have to pay for it in the slower chilling times. Think I now have the best of both worlds with the CF chiller that comes with the GF, super efficent and so, so easy to maintain .

[chris246810]

Advantage of adding a 1/2" valve as tap is you can easily screw in a bazooka filter on the inside of your boiler to stop any solids going into your chiller, to err on the side of caution I would probably also add a y strainer to the chiller inlet.