Mashmaster Chillout Model No: P20 - anyone used one?

[integersmirk]

I have picked up one of these but am not really too sure how to use it - has anyone else here used one?

I tried to get it to operate with the wort flowing through by siphon but found the only way to get a siphon started was by sucking on the exit pipe. If you have any tips on how to clean start a siphon through it, or whether I need to hook in a pump, that would help a lot.

Also, I am interested in how you sterilise it too... Not sure my method is up to much.

[denimglen]

What Joking said, pretty much. I use a stainless tap and I beleive they only come in female-female config. So I used a nipple to get through then just seals on either side. I've got a 90deg half inch copper that's been croxed as a pick up tube.

All you're missing seeing in this photo is a a silicone O-ring and a brass nut. I use a couple of bricks as a 'heat deflector', I haven't had any trouble with the seals so far (burnt wort makes a great seal by the way) but all my handles have melted to shit.

[integersmirk]

So, to wrap this up here is how I got it to work.

(That Black Mac is waiting for someone to come around who would rather drink that than the homebrew!) As you can see, a tap at the bottom of the barrel was the solution - welded in place thanks to a very friendly engineer. With that in place, nature took it's course and the chiller worked perfectly. The chiller was sanitised in the oven at 150deg for an hour. The wort was strained through SS braid out of the mash tun, and the hops were boiled in a filter bag. No filtering was put in place on the inlet hose.

[Arron]

Hey man. What was the wort temp into the fermenter?

[integersmirk]

Well, here's the thing. 5 seconds after doing my hop addition I was kicking myself for forgetting to put it in a filter bag.

So the process in truth was:
Boiling wort comes out through filter bag into fermenter
Pot gets cleaned
Off boiling wort (filtered) comes out fermenter into pot
Off-off-boiling (filtered) wort goes through chiller.

The arrival temperature was 26deg, and the chilling took about 8min. I would guess the wort was 90deg to start with?

I could have run the outlet from the pot slower, and the cold water temperature faster. Next time I will not have to do the extra filter step, and will be paying closer attention to the outlet temperature.

[integersmirk]

Final update on this one:
For yesterday's batch, it finished boiling at 4.10pm and by 4:22 was in the barrel at 22deg - fully aerated.