Brazed plate chillers

[oswiu]

G'day all,
I'm currently putting together some bits and pieces for my 2bbl brewery. Among other things I'm looking for a heat exchanger. The price of brazed plate chillers is certainly attractive.

From this thread it seems as though it's generally feasible to keep from clogging them by doing a good whirlpool. Likewise, cleaning seems to be manageable with a good long circulation of hot PBW and a backflush.

I'm still a bit wary though and am just looking for a bit more reassurance (or dissuasion!) based on others' experiences before I go ahead and shell out for one.

Thanks for any advice you might have!

[DageraadBen]

If you're looking to save money and you're reasonably handy, think about building your own counterflow chiller. I visited a 5 bbl brewery in the UK that was built entirely by the brewer himself on the cheap and he used one. He pumped his hot wort through a copper coil that he had pushed through a flexible hose of a larger diameter. The beer flowed one way through the copper coil and the cooling water flowed the other way through the hose. It's the same principle as a plate heat exchanger, but it costs a fraction as much and the copper coil is much less likely to clog with hops because of the larger diameter of the copper tubing and the absence of pinch points. When I was there, this brewer got his wort down to pitching temperature in good time using relatively warm summertime tap water.

[Junkyard]

I second that notion. I was the person who started the thread you linked. Since then we bought 2 of those chillus convolutus CFC's from more beer (just so our chiller would still look nice, we had thought about making our own...) and linked them together in sequence. With winter tap water we can get our wort down to pitching temp in one pass. That's Better than our plate chiller ever did. No issues with clogging what so ever

[oswiu]

Thanks for the advice gents,
I've started making inquiries about counterflow chillers now.

[BlackLocustHops]

Counterflow chiller

I saw a post on here last year linking a company that had large tube in tube heat exchangers. I have tried to find it but cant. If anyone knows where this is please link. They were stainless in stainless so both side were food grade for reusing you water.