plate heat exchanger

[neil smith]

hi, i will be cooling up to 160 litres so will have to pump up to top of fv,cheers Neil.

[mixbrewery]

You need one of THESE
The paraflow and pump transfers my 50lt batch from the copper straight to the fermenter at 20deg c in 10mins max.
It all depends how cold the the cooling intake water is.

[neil smith]

hi all, just an update to say after much thinking and advice have ordered a 30 plate 125kw one from the malt miller for £90 delivered which is £15 cheaper than buying it direct from germany, just got to see how long it takes to cool 160 litres of wort.
cheers neil

[neil smith]

hi all, just had my plate chiller delivered, nice bit of kit but it has 2x1" tails on one side and 2x1/2" on the other what do i put the cold water in and out of and where does the hot wort go in and the cool wort come out.
cheers Neil

[tazuk]

feed in hot wort one end other end cold like this
small tail wort large tail water

HOT WORT IN HERE 0---------0 COOL WORT OUT HERE
WATER OUT HERE 0---------0 WATER IN HERE

here is my malt miller one

[neil smith]

do you use the large fittings for the wort or cold water,
cheers Neil

[Capper20]

I got one of those chillers from the German ebay site and I use the large connector for the mains water flow and the smaller connectors for the solar pumped wort flow. I've had no worries with a 50L batch but run it off in maybe 30 mins total. That is using the solar pump set to 6V and the kettle tap open only a bit. My hose connectors pop off if too much pressure is used so slower wort and slower water for now.

As tazuk says hot in one side for wort and cold in opposite side for water.

[neil smith]

mine is the german one and on the photo in the add it shows the ports as f1 blue so i asume cold water in, f3 amber warm water out, f4 red hot wort in
and f2 amber warm wort out. does that make sense or will it work just as well the other way round.
cheers Neil

[Capper20]

Sounds about right, when looking at it on its side the port on one side is in and the out is the opposite on the long side. I did a test run when I got mine and photoed it:



Yellow pipe is cold in and green is cold (not hot) out. The wort in was the thick clear pipe and the wort out was the thin clear pipe. Hope this helps.

[neil smith]

that looks like what i thought it should be but better to ask someone that has it working, what size is yours and how much do you cool and how long does it take.
cheers Neil

[critch]

ive got a blichman therminator can do 10 g in 20-25 mins with gravity and mains pressure alone

[neil smith]

hi all, i plumbed it in today with brass snap lock connectors so easy to take apart for cleaning out and sanitising, might give it a trial run sunday with 160 litres of water at near boiling and see how long it takes to get down to about 20c, if it takes too long i can use my stainless 10mm IC coil run through a beer cooler and fingers crossed that should speed it up and save water aswell.
cheers Neil

[neil smith]

hi all, just done a test of my gear, results as follows, from cold water in hlt 210 litres to 85c in 3 hours 50 mins, from 68c to rolling boil in 1 hour, now the good bit from boil down to 22c in 15 mins, thats with pump full bore and cold tap full on so really impressed with the 125kw 30 plate german heat exchanger and used 220 litres of cold water to cool which i refilled the hlt with so can use the water whuch is 58c to clean everything up and the rest will do for brewing with.
cheers Neil.

[neil smith]

sorry forgot to say i only cooled 160 litres as that is my intended brew length.
cheers Neil