Subject line pretty much says it all, I’m having issues with my plate chiller clogging as the wort chills. I’ll usually run the pump and chiller starting about 15 minute left in the boil, to make sure to it is sanitized with heat. Once the boil is over I’ll let the kettle settle and start running the water.
the chiller will run for a few minutes and then clog up.
Suggestions?
You can use a filter or a hop back before the chiller to remove trub and hop debris. I was having trouble so I plumbed to bypass the chiller until I’m actually ready to run to the fermenters. Now my procedure is to bring a small amount of water in the HLT to boiling and run through the chiller to sanitize. Then I bypass the chiller for any recirculation until I actually want to chill. It’s easy to add what ever amount of cool water I need to get the HLT to strike temp. Use one of the strike temp calculators, but set the grain amount to zero and you can figure out how much of whatever temp cool water you’re going to need.
I use nylon paint strainer bags to hold my hops. My plate chiller no longer clogs. They are reusable.
Use an immersion chiller. They are easier to clean and sanitize and they never clog!
When you are recirculating for the last 15 minutes or so you are really filling those small crevices up with hop pellet gunk. You should find another way to sanitize the plate chiller and then wait for the pellets to fall down to the bottom of the kettle. Pull clear wort off above the level of the pellet pile at the bottom and you shouldn’t have any problems.
+1 I use a paint strainer hop-spider and have never clogged my chiller.