Plate Chiller's First Lye Cleaning

This is one is a Duda Diesel B3-23A 30 plate wort chiller. Been thru a few dozen 15 gallon brews. Always back and forward flushed with PBW after each brew or 2 (sometimes I do backers). Lots of stuff comes out after each flush - I thought it was friggin clean....

NOT SO!



This was with 170 grams of Sodium Hydroxide into 1 gallon of water. The picture really doesn't do it justice - it was like sweet tea with chunks floating all over the place. I ran the clean for about 20 minutes and then flushed with fresh until all was good and after going forward/reverse no more grain husk pieces came out.



Going to have to do this monthly from now on.... RIMS tube is next on my list of NaOH cleanings...

What I found is a simple forward and then reverse doesn't really do it. You need some water hammer type effect to kick out the crud. I hook mine up to house pressure with a ball valve shutoff. When I throw open the valve, if pushes out some hop gunk at first. Continuing to run it does not. I'll cycle on and off until no more comes out then reverse the flow with the same process. All of this is after a PBW recirculation.

I've never tried the NaOH rinse but now I will have to. Thanks for sharing.


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Something I've been wanting to try. What temp was the lye solution while you were recirculating?

For those afraid of the NaOH - it was VERY easy and I'm glad I finally got around to trying it. Just make sure you handle it with care as it is caustic to bare skin (I wore my brew gloves). So much easier than screwing with PBW and neverending flushes or baking the Hx.

The water was 116F when I added the 170 grams of NaOH from a glass beaker. The water shot up to 130F from this - one heck of a good chemical reaction (reminded me of the old days of Nuclear Chemistry - lots of fun reactions!).

Another note for folks doing this - PLEASE wear goggles - full goggles not just glasses. One drop in your eye = permanent blindness. No second chance...

How do you clean the chiller after the lye wash to ensure safety for beer batches?

A hella lot of water?

The Chugger is fine for this purpose cycling caustics, but I agree if you really want to flush out the PC immediately after use, make up adapters to hook up to your domestic water supply with as few restrictions as possible. The addition of a ball valve is brilliant as you can really hammer the PC versus the typical hose bib multi-turn globe valve.

Start in reverse and give it what for!

Cheers!

I am not surprised by this at all. It doesn't matter how many times i flush my Therminator back and forth, additional material comes out each time. And when i boil it the water is green afterwards. It may be sterile, but there has got to be a ton of crap still in that beast. I've got 50 batches on mine, and I typically recirculate.

I wish there was a home brew grade plate chiller that could be disassembled and put back together.

Please wear eye protection! Base is way more dangerous to the eye than acid.

This is the main reason I've stayed with an immersion chiller. I've thought about a plate chiller and I like gadgets, but I just can't do it.

Why cant you just bake your plate chiller???

Throw it in the oven for a few hours and then just flush the baked particles out?

I'm new to the plate chiller game, but what I've been doing is keeping a cooler full of hot PBW solution ready , then recirculating it through the plate chiller immediately after the wort is drained. I just let it go for. 10-15 mins while I do other cleanup. Then I back flush with hot tap water (which is really hot at my place.)

In the warmer months when I'm using the garden hose, (I recirculate ice water with a pump right now) I imagine I can capture about 3 gal of the hot discharge water and use that to make up my PBW solution.

JonM said:

I'm new to the plate chiller game, but what I've been doing is keeping a cooler full of hot PBW solution ready , then recirculating it through the plate chiller immediately after the wort is drained. I just let it go for. 10-15 mins while I do other cleanup. Then I back flush with hot tap water (which is really hot at my place.) [...] I imagine I can capture about 3 gal of the hot discharge water and use that to make up my PBW solution.

Click to expand...

This is exactly what I do, too.

I set up my plate chiller with the "HOT WATER OUT" hose draped into a Home Depot bucket containing a scoop of OxyClean Free. Right after flameout, I just turn on the faucet and turn on the pump to recirculate the wort and chill it. Once the OxyClean Free bucket fills with hot water, I move the hose to another bucket and collect some "plain" hot water, then finally a third bucket of cooler plain water. Any remaining chill water just runs down the driveway.

Once the wort is chilled, I siphon it to a carboy using an autosiphon. Once that's started, I disconnect the hoses from the kettle and raise the hose, pump, and chiller (in that order) above the level of the kettle to drain any wort from the chiller and hoses (waste not, want not!).

Then I switch the inputs to the chiller to reverse the flow, and run the warm water (third bucket) backwards through the chiller for a couple of minutes to rinse out any residual wort. I then switch the hose over to the piping hot OxyClean Free solution and run that for 5 minutes or so, until the wort finishes siphoning into the carboy. Finally, I switch it to the hot plain water bucket and let that run while I carry the carboy downstairs and put other things away.

That's pretty much it. That's the only cleaning I've ever done with plate chiller. I don't want to bake it in the oven because I have pTouch labels attached to it that would melt right off, not to mention the Teflon tape wrapping the threads of the male quick disconnects I have wrenched onto the ports.

I've given up on PBW for anything other than a washtub I keep for soaking bottles, growlers, etc. Plate chiller, kegs, conical, etc all cleaned with sodium hydroxide. Cheaper than PBW and cleans 100X better.

Edit:
I was getting 100% lye sodium hydroxide in the plumbing section of Menards for $5 a pound. I split a 50 lb bucket with some friends for Dudadiesel for $105 shipped which is $2.10 per pound. PBW at Northern Brewer is $49.99 for 8 lbs at 6.24 per pound.

I have the exact same plate chiller and recently switched to NaOH also. When I use it for brewing I use an SS mesh filter (.5mm) as a prefilter to the chiller which does seem to help.

For my first flush (I always do fresh water right after using). I baked it at 400F for 1 hour, then used 2% NaOH (80g/gal) to flush it. I put a regular .5 micron water filter ahead of the chiller so I don't recirculate crud though it.

I flushed several flakes and have a nice tan colored water so I know I wasn't getting everything out with my old hot OxyClean method.

I plan on using the NaOH for my keg lines also.

Does wonders for keg lines.

Yup - as noted above PBW is good for routine cleaning but a good solid Sodium Hydroxide cleaning is necessary every few brews to really clean out your plate chiller. You will notice the increase in thermal efficiency after an NaOH cleaning - trust me on that one.

Is there a "safer" concentration of lye that can be effective but maybe not quite as hazardous?

Does anyone know if you can pour this down the drain or does it need to be neutralized first?

Sounds like I should get me some goggles and a tub of NaOH. (I have the heavy-duty chem gloves already.)

Follow-up Q:

How do you dispose of the used NaOH solution?

Pour it in your neighbors flower garden...

Actually I just pour it in my yard. It is good for the dirt - raises the pH the same as the 100 lbs of dolomite lime I spread each year.

Fred, do you just get it at any store? I am planning on getting the 100% lye product from walmart.

JonM said:

Follow-up Q:

How do you dispose of the used NaOH solution?

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Down the drain, afterall, one of it's primary household uses is "drain cleaner".

I'm sure the Walmart stuff will work just great. Mine happens to be from the Duda diesel from whom I also bought my plate chiller.

Checked out their website. I bought my PC from them as well. Only difference I can see is that Duda Diesel says there Sodium hydroxide is food grade. Walmart's doesn't say that, so I might just order from them.