My Electric Brewery - Part 3, Wort Chiller

[chastuck]

As part of my Electric Brewery build, I have followed the recommendations of “The Electric Brewery” website and purchased the “Chillus Convolutus” counter flow chiller from the US site Morebeer: http://morebeer.com/category/counterflo ... llers.html. This is a robust piece of equipment and very well made. However, the main drawback is that all the connections on it are American NPT and American garden hose threads. So the first thing I had to do was make it compatible with my UK set up. The female beer fittings as supplied are simply soldered on, so after desoldering and cleaning the joints on the chiller, I fitted a pair of John Guest brass ½” BSP – 15mm female stem adapters, part number MW501514N, which are made of DZR brass. To join the adapters to the existing pipes I used 15mm standard Yorkshire Solder Ring Straight Couplers WRAS approved. The existing copper pipe diameter was slightly too small for a snug fit of the coupling, so I used a copper pipe jointer just to flare open the diameter by a millimetre or so. Lead free solder was used throughout. As I wanted to adapt the American garden hose thread to take the standard UK clunk-click hozelock fitting. I bought these quick connecting connectors: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... OU:GB:3160. Although the advert says NPT, they are actually ¾” US garden hose connections, which has a coarser thread. I did tell the seller they are wrongly advertised, but I note they are still referred to as NPT. I bought a Water Hose Coupling 3/4 GHT(M)x3/4 FNPT and a Coupling Swivel 3/4 GHT(F)x3/4 FNPT from http://www.tizaro.com to take the quick connects. I also found I needed a Double Female Water Hose Coupling Swivel, again from Tizaro. To make sure I knew the temperature gradients I purchased an inline MAGRA thermometer to record the cold water input temperature (http://www.ebay.de/itm/MAGRA-Thermomete ... OC:GB:3160) and a standard sort of dial thermometer to read the outgoing beer temperature, which was connected into a ½” stainless steel equal cross. I connected this face-up so that it was easier to read. To fit the inline thermometer to the hose fitting I had to buy an ADAPTOR M/F NPT/BSP 3/4" from here: http://www.airlines-pneumatics.co.uk. Of course the chiller needed to be mounted in some way, using its own pre-welded mounting plate on the top, so I decided to make a caddy from 25mm square tube with the appropriate steel core connectors and base fittings (http://www.tradesystems.co.uk/acatalog/ ... ystem.html). I didn’t like the black finish on the tubing, so used a hammered silver spray paint to give it a better look. The base of the caddy needs to be sufficiently strong and well stabilised to take the weight of the chiller and caddy frame, so I mounted it on a piece of Stainless Steel Sheet Grade 304 Mill Finish 3mm thick 250mm x 250mm, using countersunk 5mm stainless steel bolts. The chiller is fixed to the caddy with 6mm wing nuts. The inline thermometer can be removed by unscrewing the swivel hose connector as it is only hand tight against a rubber gasket. The equal cross connector with the dial thermometer is plumbed to the beer output using a 1/2” BSP cone seat union, again making it very easy to remove. After both thermometers and any rubber gaskets have been removed, the chiller can be removed from the caddy and placed into an oven (after rinsing out the coil) for easy drying and sterilisation. I hope the pictures below explain how it all functions.

 

[bobsbeer]

Looks like a really nice piece of kit. Would a plate chiller sourced from the UK not work? I would have thought about the same price with shipping from the USA and tax etc.

 

[chastuck]

Looks like a really nice piece of kit. Would a plate chiller sourced from the UK not work? I would have thought about the same price with shipping from the USA and tax etc.

Maybe so, but I have picked up several comments of late that plate chillers are difficult to clean and consequently give rise to infection. As you know, a plate chiller is simply a more compact version of a counterflow chiller where plates are used instead of coils. I tend to agree with The Electric Brewery site here that "While a plate chiller is more efficient and uses less water, we feel a convoluted counterflow chiller offers the best compromise: Fast chilling and a simplified clean-in-place (CIP) solution."

 

[bobsbeer]

While a plate chiller is more efficient and uses less water, we feel a convoluted counterflow chiller offers the best compromise: Fast chilling and a simplified clean-in-place (CIP) solution."

Agree with you. I use a CF chiller made from 10mm copper inside a garden hose. Works great. My new brewery will recirculate the boiling wort to sterilise and then turn on the cooling water. Continue recirculating until the wort is down to pitching temp then divert to the fv. That way it should use the hop bed as a filter for the break material.

 

[Fil]

and a pipe chiller is even easier to clean with the additional benefit of visual inspection of the beer transport tubes too.. but i wld say that

 

[darkonnis]

Strangely Fil, so would I :)

 

[Aleman]

Looks like a really nice piece of kit. Would a plate chiller sourced from the UK not work? I would have thought about the same price with shipping from the USA and tax etc.

I have picked up several comments of late that plate chillers are difficult to clean and consequently give rise to infection.

<snip>

I tend to agree with The Electric Brewery site here that "While a plate chiller is more efficient and uses less water, we feel a convoluted counterflow chiller offers the best compromise: Fast chilling and a simplified clean-in-place (CIP) solution."

Lets put this one to bed shall we

Plate chillers are not difficult to clean, and when using CIP are no more difficult to clean than a CFC or a Pipe Chiller. The only difference (with a pipe chiller) is that you can visually inspect the inside of the pipe to ensure cleanliness, so if you are paranoid that you cleaning regime isn't up to scratch then don't use a plate chiller.

What you can't do with a plate chiller is adopt a 'good enough' cleaning and sanitation regime, if you do you are going to get into issues.

My regime is as follows, and had to be changed following the purchase of the BMF Plate Chiller (20 plate 185KW)

1. Immediately after use back flush with cold and hot water. Leave it full with no water running,[/*:m:37pa4ohj]
2. Reverse the connections and then flush it again . . . Drain[/*:m:37pa4ohj]
3. Recirculate hot Oxiclean (or PBW) solution . . . both ways . . . Drain[/*:m:37pa4ohj]
4. Flush with hot water . . . Rest . . . Flush . . . Drain[/*:m:37pa4ohj]
5. Connect to a steam generator, and steam for 15 minutes once the outlet temperature reaches 120C[/*:m:37pa4ohj]
6. Fill with boiling water and cap[/*:m:37pa4ohj]
7. Store until next required[/*:m:37pa4ohj]
8. Before use, un cap and drain[/*:m:37pa4ohj]
9. recirculate hot water, then connect to boiler . . . fill with wort . . . Use[/*:m:37pa4ohj]

Of course this also assumes that your boiler hop filter is also up to snuff as well.

Edit: The other 'issue' that I would raise is that the more threaded joins you have on an inlet and outlet the more potential you have to trap 'nasties'. Also Convoluted copper depending on the convolutions may also have the potential to trap wort in the convolutions depending on the degree of convolution of the copper.

 

[tazuk]

looks one nice chiller there :thumb:

 

[Vossy1]

Nice job C :thumb: Following on from Tonies advice I would say plate chillers are as easy to CIP but they're not as easy to use IMO and the risk of losing one to particulate ingress, if not pre filtering properly, is quite high.
Re the fittings on your CCFC I'd take the threaded fittings of every now and then and check them. This advice is based on my use of stainless threaded fittings on my old cfc, when I came to dismantle it, despite careful cleaning, the threaded area was harbouring black mould. I suspect wort had got down the threads and despite cleaning hadn't all been removed, thus weeping later and getting infected.
I suspect I will move back to a cfc at some point and when I do I'm going to try and find some way of bonding the thread area rather than using tape.

 

[chastuck]

Looks like a really nice piece of kit. Would a plate chiller sourced from the UK not work? I would have thought about the same price with shipping from the USA and tax etc.

I have picked up several comments of late that plate chillers are difficult to clean and consequently give rise to infection.

<snip>

I tend to agree with The Electric Brewery site here that "While a plate chiller is more efficient and uses less water, we feel a convoluted counterflow chiller offers the best compromise: Fast chilling and a simplified clean-in-place (CIP) solution."

Lets put this one to bed shall we

Plate chillers are not difficult to clean, and when using CIP are no more difficult to clean than a CFC or a Pipe Chiller. The only difference (with a pipe chiller) is that you can visually inspect the inside of the pipe to ensure cleanliness, so if you are paranoid that you cleaning regime isn't up to scratch then don't use a plate chiller.

What you can't do with a plate chiller is adopt a 'good enough' cleaning and sanitation regime, if you do you are going to get into issues.

My regime is as follows, and had to be changed following the purchase of the BMF Plate Chiller (20 plate 185KW)

1. Immediately after use back flush with cold and hot water. Leave it full with no water running,[/*:m:kkv7i3id]
2. Reverse the connections and then flush it again . . . Drain[/*:m:kkv7i3id]
3. Recirculate hot Oxiclean (or PBW) solution . . . both ways . . . Drain[/*:m:kkv7i3id]
4. Flush with hot water . . . Rest . . . Flush . . . Drain[/*:m:kkv7i3id]
5. Connect to a steam generator, and steam for 15 minutes once the outlet temperature reaches 120C[/*:m:kkv7i3id]
6. Fill with boiling water and cap[/*:m:kkv7i3id]
7. Store until next required[/*:m:kkv7i3id]
8. Before use, un cap and drain[/*:m:kkv7i3id]
9. recirculate hot water, then connect to boiler . . . fill with wort . . . Use[/*:m:kkv7i3id]

Of course this also assumes that your boiler hop filter is also up to snuff as well.

Edit: The other 'issue' that I would raise is that the more threaded joins you have on an inlet and outlet the more potential you have to trap 'nasties'. Also Convoluted copper depending on the convolutions may also have the potential to trap wort in the convolutions depending on the degree of convolution of the copper.

Not sure you are doing much to support your own argument here - your cleaning regime for your plate chiller seems quite complicated to me!

 

[chastuck]

Nice job C :thumb: ................. despite careful cleaning, the threaded area was harbouring black mould. I suspect wort had got down the threads and despite cleaning hadn't all been removed, thus weeping later and getting infected.
I suspect I will move back to a cfc at some point and when I do I'm going to try and find some way of bonding the thread area rather than using tape.

I take your point about thread inspection. However, when I have unscrewed both thermometers, as explained earlier in my post, the threads are available to look at for gunge. Also my baking the coil part in the oven once stripped down should help keep it sanitary. I might also add that I blow compressed warm air through all my taps and pipework after rinsing, which helps remove any unseen moisture.

 

[Vossy1]

However, when I have unscrewed both thermometers, as explained earlier in my post, the threads are available to look at for gunge.

Chas I did read your post, but read it as there are still some threads attached pre thermometer cone seat union area which you won't be able to look at, unless you're unscrewing the 1/2" equal nipple, and as per my reply they are likely to harbour wort. Naturally with you baking to sanitise it will be sterile but personally I'd not want it there sterile or not, as per my post/experience.

 

[Aleman]

Baking to dry it . . . Hmmm , a bit like steaming it to sanitise then?

If all you are going to do is flush with water, and then bake, how are you going to get the protein deposits off the inside tube? . . .and trust me they do form. Just take a look at a dismantled place chiller after a few uses without a caustic soak.

 

[chastuck]

Baking to dry it . . . Hmmm , a bit like steaming it to sanitise then?

If all you are going to do is flush with water, and then bake, how are you going to get the protein deposits off the inside tube? . . .and trust me they do form. Just take a look at a dismantled place chiller after a few uses without a caustic soak.

Thanks for the advice - that's a good point. I do intend to pump flush with PBW after each brew as well as a hot rinse, so hopefully this will help dispell protein deposits. The tube bore containing the convoluted core is quite wide at just under an inch, so there won't be many hiding places for gunge.

 

[chastuck]

However, when I have unscrewed both thermometers, as explained earlier in my post, the threads are available to look at for gunge.

Chas I did read your post, but read it as there are still some threads attached pre thermometer cone seat union area which you won't be able to look at, unless you're unscrewing the 1/2" equal nipple, and as per my reply they are likely to harbour wort. Naturally with you baking to sanitise it will be sterile but personally I'd not want it there sterile or not, as per my post/experience.

I didn't intend unscrewing the hex nipple, unless an inspection of any exposed threads indicates I might need to look at unseen threads. I don't normally use PTFE tape to secure my threads, preferring to use LOCTITE '55' Pipe Sealing Cord. This winds into the thread valleys quite tightly to seal. Many joints I have made in 316 fittings in the past using PTFE tape have often leaked, in spite of abundant tape winding. I have never had a leak yet when using Loctite 55. I'm convinced that the pipe cord leaves less chance of thread ingress. I guess if you are absolutely sure that you will never need to undo a joint once in place, the only thing to guarantee no thread ingress at all is to use JB Weld.