German Brewing

Unfortunately the therminator is braised together with copper as were all the other plate chillers of this style that I could find. There are all stainless counter flow chillers out there though.

My google-fu has failed me. I will be going right by there tomorrow on my way home. Thanks!

My current chiller is a counterflow unit I built with rigid copper pipe (it mounts to the wall and is quite large). Replacing the copper with stainless would be quite expensive. So I'll probably be buying something new.

Check out this 29,5 meter SS spiral chiller http://www.lindhcraftbeer.com/2016/12/c ... piral-29m/


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That thing is awesome.

Mine was build in my fatherland, Bavaria, from a company called Lupi

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Warmetauscherf ... 34.c0.m322

Considering one can upgrade it by purchasing more plates, as well as fully disassemble it, and that the cost was not much higher than an equivalent soldered copper chiller, I thought the purchase sensible.

I don't know whether they export to the US but I am sure there must be similar manufacturers in your parts. Mine is 300Kw at a cost of £250.-

IMG_1162.JPG (2.09 MiB) Viewed 6798 times

Here it is next to my stainless steel, self-priming, bi-directional pump

The entire circuit is cleaned and flushed before use. So there is water + a bit of SMB waiting in there. Naturally, one needs to discard the first runnings.

The boil kettle is fully insulated with armaflex. So the wort is pumped into a non-insulated whirlpool vessel and re-circulated (VFD controlled at 900 RPM) until the temperature of the water leaving the HE is more or less equal to the water from the mains (there is an in-line probe fitted on the HE outlet). At that moment the circuit is switched from recirculation in the whirlpool via a 3-way valve to go via a reasonably sized chiller (Maxi 310) to the fermenter where the wort is pitch-ready at 5C. The whole process takes about 20-30 minutes max for 50l.

Water bubbles in the HE never really bothered me much. Since the first runnings are discarded any air or oxidised wort should be expelled as well. The pump speed is carefully controlled to ensure smooth and cavitation free transfers with minimal shearing.

It took me a while to build this.

Whether an immersion coil is best for you is something only you can answer. My setup went through many iterations. I'd imagine it'll be the same for you. As long as one ends up with wort at pitch ready temperatures in a reasonable time-frame, there is little to worry about.