Plate heat exchangers and cold break in the FV?

[Vossy1]

Most of what I do has been covered.
Wait longer before dropping trub from conical, usually 4 hours min but 1 hour does the job fine.
Don't worry about a small amount of trub if doing it more quickly, it seems mute to even worry about large amounts tbh.
I don't recirc back to the boiler, you're asking for trouble doing that with a plate chiller, from a filter blockage or pc POV Also if you don't use a secondary pc like A it will take a lot longer to cool. Whirl pooling doesn't work so well with obstructions in the boiler, ie, kettle elements, I've tried
You're getting great results NB, stick with it

 

[Northern Brewer]

I think your right JP, just tried the Sierra Nevada clone last night, its been in the bottle for just over 2 weeks so it has time to improve but it was lush. Will try it out of the cornie at the weekend as my summer bitter cornie should be just about empty and ready to receive the next brew.

I should be thankful I'm getting a good cold break. I guess a conical FV and plate chiller without recirc go together well, and if you haven't got a conical FV and don't like the idea of fermenting on the cold break then use an immersion chiller not a plate.

Whirlpooling, although a good idea, seems to be a bit of a faff for the potential gain over a spoon. Maybe a motor driven revolving paddle would be easier if the brewers stirring arm is er tired due to other activities :whistle: :grin:

I'll still post the results of the cooling calcs if my physics buddies take the bait. They are a bunch of pedants so I am expecting loads of questions :ugeek:

 

[Bru4u]

I'm rebuilding my kettle at the moment, I'm using a full coil of 1/2 copper (25M) but split to a double coil, then welding in another two 3/4 nipples, one at an angle for the discharge, if I just use pellet hops it should work. The wort is cooled by whirlpooling with the immersion cooler in, this should be fast, the whole wort will drop quickly in temp, not just the portion going through a plate cooler. This will almost vastly reduce the volatiles from the late hops being lost. When down to temp remove the coil and continue to whirlpool for 10-15 mins, switch off and let everything settle. Now slowly pump the wort from the lower edge of the kettle, Result is rapidly cooled wort with loads of hop aroma and the break left behind in the kettle.
This won't work with whole hops or elements in the kettle. I use gas and it's two kegs welded together, also because of the keg end shape, a 50mm high ring is placed on the bottom to trap the trub. My concern with the plate chiller was the ability to clean out all debris, but that may be unfounded as there are lots of lads that use them with success.
Bru

 

[pjbiker]

Just my 2 penneth,

I counterflow chill directly into FVs (not conical) and ferment on the cold break. Beer is OK. My FVs are not sealed/airlocked and if I delay kegging/bottling at end of ferment they quickly go sour (lost some brews due to bad planning) . Result is a fair amount of suspended sediment which is fine for kegs but not for bottling. I don't think the presence of the cold break has much effect, without it, yeast would still be suspended.
I know a 5BBL brewer who ferments on the cold break too and doesn't worry about it. His beer is first class so I don't worry about it. I think it's pretty much standard for microbrewers.

I experimented with recirculating chilled wort through the hop bed before transfer to FV and the cold break near clogged everything up, that was a while ago though and evidently quite a few people do that so can't say theres a right or wrong way. Just thought, I could do a controlled experiment with both methods as I use two separate FVs for each brew :geek:

 

[taylorj29]

Apologies if this is a hijack but I think it might be the answer(s) to my thread here.

I chill the hot wort from the boiler back through the copper coil in the HLT, which although isn't particularly fast - 10L in 30mins from 90c to 18c - seems to be more effective than the original way of sitting it in a bath of cold water in the sink. However, I'm getting very cloudy beer after primary and secondary fermentation has finished, despite the initial flow from the boiler to the FV being clear. For example, I have a beer that was racked into the secondary after fermentation had finished and has been there for 2 weeks and it's still very cloudy.

graysalchemy suggested putting the secondary somewhere cool to help compact the yeast, and doing the same for the bottles, which I've done for the last 3 days so maybe it needs more time to work. Therefore I could be jumping the gun here but after reading this thread I have another theory: Could it be that the particles in the beer are cold break and they are staying suspended because I fermented on it and the residual carbonation from the fermentation is suspending it in my lovely beer.

Or am I talking a load of old rubbish?

 

[Vossy1]

Taylor29, best to keep them as separate threads as your info could get lost to others if spread about, I'll replay to your post

 

[critch]

I know a 5BBL brewer who ferments on the cold break too and doesn't worry about it. His beer is first class so I don't worry about it. I think it's pretty much standard for microbrewers.

i know of 40 bbl breweries that do this , i do on my 12.5bbl system. ive never had a problem in the last 1.4 million pints

some of the books ive read said it can even be beneficial to the yeast (from a total surface area viewpoint, although i.m.e. its settled out under the yeast)

90% (at least!) of uk micros dont possess a whirlpool system and do the same on the whole.
if you get good compact bottoms at least you know your protofloc is working at the right rate!