Plate Chiller advice.

[snail59]

I purchased a 20 plate heat exchanger which I have used twice in different configurations.

First used like this and dropped temp to 35C in 25 Min's.

Yesterday I used it re plumed like this and it dropped temp to 50C in 30 Min's.

Would I be better using a pump and recirculating the wort. Should I put a gate/ball valve on the cooling out flow to slow the flow of coolant. Any advice on getting a better efficiency would be appreciated.

 

[josh132]

if you want a way to cool it down fast (and i mean fast) pump a methanol solution through the chiller (actually dont pump it but let gravity feed it through) use dry ice to cool down the methanol (using methanol as it wont freeze ) the methanol will be at about -70 degrees C (the temp of dry ice well its around that temp) any wort going through a metal chiller at -70 will cool down pretty fast.

Try it. and enjoy the speedy chilling

 

[Aleman]

I would have thought the second configuration would be more effective :hmm: :hmm: You did have the coolant hoses going in the right direction (In at the top and out at the bottom) I had to reconnect my coolant hoses three times on Sunday using my PC . Running my pump at full bore I was getting a 35C exit temperature . . . If I was to slow the pump down I could very easily achieve temperatures lower than that

 

[snail59]

Cool idea Josh :lol:

I had the coolant hoses as in at top out at bottom Tony. I didn't have the gate valve in on first run just controlled the speed of flow using the ball valve tap direct from boiler letting the hot wort run slowly threw. Second run had the gate valve allowing hot wort to run out slowly keeping HX full of wort. Maybe I need to control the cooling fluid exit speed so as to allow more efficient heat exchange. I could have run the water threw too quickly. Think I may need to have a play with flow control :grin: