Monday, May 04, 2009

Plate Chiller

I recently acquired a plate chiller for my home brewery. Here it is in action.
Edit: For those not sure what is going on here (Bob), beer production involves boiling up malt and hops. At the end of the boil, you want to chill the wort (what it's called before it's fermented) to a suitable temperature for pitching yeast. That's what this device is for. It could also be called a heat exchanger. Hot wort and cold water go in through separate flow paths, make contact along the surfaces of 30 brazed plates, and cold wort and hot water come out. Now I can pitch the yeast and get fermentation underway. I could just let it cool down naturally, but it will take a day or two to reach pitching temperature and increases the risk of a wild yeast or bacteria infection. Happy?

5 comments:

TokyoRacer said...

1) I guess "plate chiller" doesn't mean getting your plates cold enough so your ice cream doesn't melt right away.
2) I don't quite see what all this means in the big beer-making picture.
3) It's a nice clip, but it's not going to replace Susan Boyle in my online viewing affections.
4) If I did that to my bathroom, my wife would kill me.

Samurai Running said...

Interesting stuff Stephen. I used to work as a cellarman at the "Town and Anchor" pub in Fremantle and we made our own beer but wort nuthing like your octopus!

By the way, you're right it is just not worth the risk getting a "wild yeast or bacteria infection" Had a mate that had one of those, a good looking guy but could get laid for trying ;)

TokyoRacer said...

Yes, I'm happy with the explanation and I'm happy that no wild yeast will be getting loose in your bathroom.

Joachim said...

Steve, this is really interesting stuff (in addition to your running activities, of course). Please don't get killed by your wife or the wild yeast or whatever would get in between you and the great beer you're brewing.

Ewen said...

That's one-up on the canned home-brew I used. Makes the plumbing on a twin-turbo GTR look simple.

Last time my bathroom looked like that was when it was a darkroom in 1976.