How are you guys keeping little hop debris out of your plate chillers?
I only use pellet hops with a Hop Stopper, but I still feel like it would clog a plate chiller. I’m currently running a CFC, so I’m just curious.
Hop backs work great for filters for plate chillers. I’m pluming one in after my pump before the chiller (the standard for pumps atleast). Depending on what one you use you can use rice hull instead of hops to filter the wort when you do non hoppy beers.
I have had all the chillers out there just about, from a homemade IC to a chillzilla to a plate chiller. And the homemade IC is best bang for the buck by far. Much, much easier to clean and sanitize (just drop it in the boil for last 20 minutes, hose off before and after each brew). Costs about $40 to build, takes all of 5 minutes to construct.
Yes, in the summer you will not be able to chill below your water temp, and mine is in the 80’s here in the deep south. I always have just be certain my fermenter is sanitized properly, run off my wort into fermenter and put in whatever temp controlled fermentation controller I am using and chill down to proper pitching temps next morning. A lot less stress, too, at end of long brew day.
fwiw, you are never able to cool below your cooling source temperature
Yes, but you need whole hops for a hop back, no?
Also, rice hulls are not as efficient as hops for a filter medium. So I would be slightly concerned with debris getting in.
A friend of mine in our club built one of these and it works quite well.
I use my RIMS to recirculate ice water through my submersion chiller and whirlpool and I can cool 10 gallons down in about 15 minutes.
Yes you do need to use leaf hops for it. Rice hulls also get bagged when being used as a filter medium to prevent them from flowing out of the hop back. Also you can use more(by weight) rice hulls than hoos to increase the filtering capability of them. It was the most suggested way when I was looking at how to prevent stuff from going into the chiller.