Plate chillers consist of two sets of interlocking plates. We pass cold water through one set and boiling wort through the other to create a heat exchange.
Advantages of Wort Chiller:
It is easy to sanitize: We can simply add the stainless steel chiller in the wort and disinfect it by boiling along with the wort. So, no extra effort is needed. Plate chillers on the other hand need a thorough cleaning as the wort goes inside the delicate and intricate tubes, pumps, and internal plates of your plate chiller. Repair: If a section of the wort chiller pipe is blocked, one can cut it out and repair it. However, plate chillers are brazed together and hence much more difficult to repair. Wort Chiller can be attached to tap water to create the chilling. However, plate chillers need a magnetic drive high-temperature food grade pump to operate, which adds to the cost and cleaning efforts. Plate chillers need to be monitored continuously for flow rate (both of hot beverage and cold water). If the two flows are not balanced, then the desired cooling will not happen. Wort chillers, on the other hand, do a batch cooling. So one needs to keep it on till the temperature drops to pinching temperature (30 Degrees Celsius).
Essentially, plate chillers are ideal for industrial use if you are planning to chill a large batch (100 Liters or more) and are brewing multiple times a week. For a smaller 20-50 liters batch, one can simply use a wort chiller pipe to achieve the desired results.