OVHA Chat

Can't wait to brew!!

Your love it...
You'll want to use hop bags now especially if you use leaf or whole hops.
I used my on Saturday and had 5.5 gals of 53 deg Old Ale

Michael,
How many plates is that chiller? Is that one used for boiler heat exchangers?

It's a 20 plate chiller from Duda Diesel for $99.

B3-23A 20 Plate Heat Exchanger
• 12" x 2.9"
• 0.46 m² Total Surface Area
• Stainless Steel Copper Brazed

This one is 12" long instead of the 7" that seems to be more common. After reading their tech info I opted for a longer chiller instead of more plates. They have a wort chilling chart on their site.

john mills wrote:Michael,
How many plates is that chiller? Is that one used for boiler heat exchangers?

I think it's 45 plates put don't remember for sure. I told my wife I wanted one and got it for my birthday 2 years ago. I only asked for the smaller one but she got me the big one (she's a good wife). Now they are going for @$200, I think they were @ $90 - $125 at the time.
I ran it without a pump (just using gravity) for a year and it did a great job. Works even better with the pump. I circulate 180 deg water through it , my RIMS and all my tubing before I brew and this preheats the RIMS and makes sure all are clean.
With 10 minutes left in the boil I go ahead and start circulating the wort from my kettle through the chiller, pump and back to the kettle this will sanitize them before use.

"The Therminator is a stainless steel plate-type wort chiller, a miniature version of the plate chillers that the pros use. It is, unquestionably, the fastest way to chill your wort to yeast pitching temperature. The Therminator can chill 10 gallons of boiling wort to pitching temperature within 5 minutes when using 58°F cooling water at 5 gpm. This super-efficient chiller uses less water than any other chiller on the market, and is especially great for brewers in southern climates! The plates and fittings are all 316 stainless steel; they have been brazed together with pure copper in an oxygen-free furnace. There is no potential for leaking, as in a gasketed unit. The fittings for the water are garden hose threads, and the wort side uses 1/2" male NPT fittings. This chiller has tremendously low restriction, making it ideal for gravity feed (no pumps required)."

My Shirron works o.k., but if I ever decide to upgrade, this might be an affordable option.

http://kegcowboy.com/index.php?dispatch ... uct_id=201

BREWsmith wrote:My Shirron works o.k., but if I ever decide to upgrade, this might be an affordable option.

http://kegcowboy.com/index.php?dispatch ... uct_id=201

I saw those when I was looking. I am not positive but I believe he is buying them from Duda in quantity. It was kinda strange that he was out of some of the sizes the same time Duda was and that his order fill date was going to be 4-5 days after the Duda ship date. The pictures look identical. I would say that you probably can't go wrong with either company. I would venture to say that all these are coming from China (even the blichmann). and just built to the configuration the vendors ask for.

The chiller that we use was a counter flow water heater coil that used hot refrigerant returning from the a-coil to heat the water. We just use cold well water and a pump to circulate the wort. With the new pump (to us with a little tlc) aquired from a junk pile we were able to get down to 70 degrees in about 5 min it works great and the price was right FREE!!!!

msjulian wrote:It's a 20 plate chiller from Duda Diesel for $99.

B3-23A 20 Plate Heat Exchanger
• 12" x 2.9"
• 0.46 m² Total Surface Area
• Stainless Steel Copper Brazed

This one is 12" long instead of the 7" that seems to be more common. After reading their tech info I opted for a longer chiller instead of more plates. They have a wort chilling chart on their site.

wortchart1.jpg

I just ran across this 30 plate chiller, it's compact size so I'm sure it has less cooling than your 12" 20 plate.
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_i ... s_id=12822