Whirlpool/Hopstand with Plate Chiller

[Wiener Blut]

I've been brewing with an all in one Brewmonk system since the beginning of the year and use a plate chiller to chill my wort on its way to the fermentor.

Until recently I have just let it cool down to Hopstand temperatures of around 80°C after a 60min boil, taking around 30mins if I recall correctly. While the Hopstand and whirlpooling was working quite well this way, it effectively changed my late boil additions, eg. 15mins became in effect 45min additions which obviously messed up the intended bitterness and aroma contributions.

Last brewday I decided to try to chill it immediately after the boil but this clogged up my bazooka filter and it took ages to enough wort through the chiller to get the whole thing down to 80°C. I never had this problem after whirlpooling at the end of the hop stand.

Nownky question is does anyone have experience with a set up like this? I'm thinking of maybe just cutting the active boil down to 45min and/or shifting the late boil additions even later and continuing to let it drop to 80°C on its own. Does this sound like a viable method? I suppose if I take my bazooka filter off all together I would clog up the chiller.

 

[Galena]

I can't answer for you regarding a plate chiller, but I can tell you that when I do a whirlpool hopstand I chill to 80C with an immersion chiller and it gets it down to temperature usually in less than a minute.

 

[cheeseyfeet]

If you use beersmith for creating your recipes there's an option to compensate for the additional time late hop additions are in contact during the hopstand , not a solution but might be of interest.

 

[smcc]

I have a plate chiller too, but I hardly use it as I typically do large hop stand additions and as you say these small filters wont cope when you try to pump through the chiller and you really dont want hop debris in your plate chiller. i mean you could chill to 75 add the hops in a hop spider and do it that way then start your chilldown. You will lose some utilisation especially if you are adding over 100g but it will keep things from blocking.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I use a laundry bag as a hop bag, might this be an option for you?

The bag is big enough to not restrict the hops, the holes are big enough to allow free flow of wort and small enough to keep the hops in the bag. Only suitable for leaf hops though, I use a fine mesh bag for pellets. The pellet bag can be seen in the front-left corner because this brew used both pellet and leaf hops.

 

[Wiener Blut]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

If you use beersmith for creating your recipes there's an option to compensate for the additional time late hop additions are in contact during the hopstand , not a solution but might be of interest.

Yeah I use Brewfather and it's got something similar. That's definitely helped my keep the bitterness in check, but I suppose aroma wise I have to play around a bit more.

Don't really want to switch to an immersion chiller, as I've got other priorities to spend money on at the moment, and I've generally never had problems with clogging after whirlpooling when all the hops has stuck nicely to the bottom.

I brew mainly with pellets, so might look into a fine mesh bag.