Clogged plate chiller...

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Runyanka

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My Shirron plate chiller performed great the first 5 batches of 10 gallons. Fast forward onto batch 13, and this thing flows like a slug. I have soaked it in PBW for over 24 hours, flushed, and used, same result. This weekend I decided to put it in the over at 400 degrees for an hour. My house smelled like burnt sugar, I then soaked in PBW again, flushed, and on today's brewday, my flow was slower than ever. I am at the point now where I'm about to scrap this thing and go with a counterflow chiller. Some specs for people:

1) Boil kettle is about 1.5 feet above plate chiller AND CHILLER AND PUMP

2) Only about 12" of tubing between pump and chiller

3) fermenters are lower than both pump, chiller, and boil kettle.

What can I do at this point to clear this thing out to where it flows like it did when it was new. Granted, I'm getting great cooling results, but wasting an @$$ ton of water, eg, 15 gallon batch, 40 minutes from boil kettle to fermentors.
 
That sucks and is worrisome because that is what I use to chill. Have yet to have any issues here so I can't answer you're question but am curious to see if others have any suggestions.
 
The worrisome part for me is after every brewday I flush with hot PBW. When I baked it, black sugars game bubbling out, and it smelled like a candy factory gone wrong. The hard part with these things is you can't see what's clean or not clean inside them. I am especially clean with everything else, but this, the thing I can't see gave me the biggest surprise. Now how to clean it before I beat it flat!
 
Since you've already baked it, I don't know if you'll ever get it clean.
 
Drain cleaner? I'd make a strong lye solution but most people don't have lye (NaOH) sitting around.

I was going to suggest that. Or suggest the OP swap me his PC for my CFC... :D

I believe that model PC is stainless and should be able to handle a lot of different cleaners and high temps. There is surely a cleaner that will eat that burnt wort and rinse out.

From what I've read, it takes a bit of flushing and back flushing to completely clean the wort from a PC. Some people even blow them out with compressed air the help get all of the water out of them.
 
This wont help the OP, (sorry for that) my experience is with a Blingman. I clogged when my hop bag failed and lost hops and coriander into the brew.

I back flushed (this is mid boil of course) and was able to work out the problem. I back flush till clean, and usually do hot PBW as brew day prep as well.

Lye or something else that will break down the burnt sugar is likely the only option. I'm thinking run hot PBW (HOT HOT HOT) for an hour or so?
 
IMHO - You need to put it back in the oven and set it for about 500 degrees. Then leave it there for several hours. What you are trying to do with this process is to turn all of the debris inside of it to ashes. The ash can be washed out easily. Anything else - no so easy.
 
I don't know that nuking it with dry heat is the best choice. If I had a skillet with dried sugar stuck to it, I wouldn't put it in the oven, I would probably put water in it and boil it away to hydrate and soften the matter. Is it plausible to boil the chiller in a pot? Also, look into the method for stripping old cast iron by running a current through it while it is in a bucket of water, usually using a battery charger.
 
Are you also back flushing it or only going in the wort flow direction?? I run flush water through mine in both directions and have never had any clogging issues. I fill it with PBW solution from time to time too.

Something else you could run through it would be a citric acid solution. Mix it up pretty strong (1 cup per gallon of water) and let it sit with that in it for a few hours. Run it out, rinse and see how water flows through it. You could also try running boiling hot water through it.

BTW, I run my wort through the chiller (a Duda Diesel large 40 plate) with a pump. I did gravity feed a few times, but then switched over to a pump and haven't looked back.
 
I think PJ is right. Self clean oven cycle thinking would turn everything not metal to ash. It's got to be hot enough, long enough. A call to Chirron might not be a bad idea.
 
I might try the boil method, that sounds pretty easy. I usually did back flush it after every use, must have not done it enough. Should I try something like CLR or draino ?
 
No, I would not put draino in anything that was going to touch my beer. I say boil it and then run a strong acid cleaner through it. Next time dont bake the sugar in!!
 
No, I would not put draino in anything that was going to touch my beer. I say boil it and then run a strong acid cleaner through it. Next time dont bake the sugar in!!

What's wrong with drano? (Sodium Hydroxide)

Lots of bakers use it to make pretzels for instance. It's just a caustic mineral and in weak dilution is not harmful any more than phosphoric acid is. (used in sodas, and MANY other products, including treating beer water.)
 
Hmm... This is exactly why I can't see myself ever going to one of these.
I'm paranoid about what I can't see in there.
 
i use a plate chiller using a pump to start the siphon then gravity the rest of the way. plate chillers might be the most efficient way to chill any liquid (which is why commercial breweries use them) but you really have to be good about flushing and back flushing after each use, i pump boiling water through mine for 5-10 minutes. the only way i can imagine a severe clogging is not flushing and back flushing. baking it might kick it up a notch i suppose if there was wort inside. the pressure cooker seems like the best idea to me but who has a pressure cooker that big at home who isn't a canner?
 
No matter how well you clean a plate chiller, make sure to rinse it before use. Blow water through it with a hose. Especially if you store it outdoors.

Why? Because flies might go in there and lay their eggs, and then a LOT of maggots are writhing around in there, and when you connect your plate chiller and start pumping boiling wort through it to "sanitize" it, and suddenly a lot of "white rice" appears at the top of your cooling wort, you'll be sorry. And then that vanilla bourbon porter that you had high hopes for will be ruined because even though the wort was pretty hot it didn't kill the acetobacter and whatever other evil resides in a nasty maggot. And now you've probably wasted several precious vanilla beans. And then you have 10g of beer that you toss under a cabinet and wonder daily how good it will be as a sour beer, but you're pretty sure it's a lost cause but you are in a state of denial that you can't shake. That's all theory and textbook, that never happened to me.

:(
 
No matter how well you clean a plate chiller, make sure to rinse it before use. Blow water through it with a hose. Especially if you store it outdoors.

Why? Because flies might go in there and lay their eggs, and then a LOT of maggots are writhing around in there, and when you connect your plate chiller and start pumping boiling wort through it to "sanitize" it, and suddenly a lot of "white rice" appears at the top of your cooling wort, you'll be sorry. And then that vanilla bourbon porter that you had high hopes for will be ruined because even though the wort was pretty hot it didn't kill the acetobacter and whatever other evil resides in a nasty maggot. And now you've probably wasted several precious vanilla beans. And then you have 10g of beer that you toss under a cabinet and wonder daily how good it will be as a sour beer, but you're pretty sure it's a lost cause but you are in a state of denial that you can't shake. That's all theory and textbook, that never happened to me.

:(

Ouch, that's a tough one pal. I think if I saw a single maggot floating in my brew, I'd be dumping it in a heartbeat. Any other insect I could probably handle, but maggots? I'm out. Of course, I am speaking hypothetically, since that's never happened to anyone here. :D

Is there any concern with long soaks in strong acids for a plate chiller that is brazed together with copper? The Therminator manual says not to leave in Star San more than an hour. I'm sure this leans way towards the side of caution, but Star San is pretty mild compared to some of the recommendations here.
 
Its in the oven on the clean cycle as we speak. Hoping tomorrow morning I blow out ashes, instead of burnt sugar and hops :)
 
Is there any concern with long soaks in strong acids for a plate chiller that is brazed together with copper? The Therminator manual says not to leave in Star San more than an hour. I'm sure this leans way towards the side of caution, but Star San is pretty mild compared to some of the recommendations here.

We have left ours soaking in iodophor for a week before with no issues so far. Some of the copper color turned to a stainless steel color after an acid bath once. We dont do that anymore, but were skeptical of the cleanliness of the inside as well. It seems like no matter how long and thouroghly you flush and back flush, after sitting a while more wort seems to come out of that thing.
 
I typically run 1-2 hour cleaning cycle recirculating 180 degree PBW through my boil kettle & plate chiller. Then a 180 degree rinse. At the start of the brew day I run my 170 degree strike water from the HLT through the plate chiller and grab the first few ounces of affluent & toss it. Then spray starsan through it letting it run out the bottom before chilling.

No issues thus far.
 
Well putting it in the oven on the clean cycle seemed to do the trick as far as freeing up whatever was on the inside. When I opened the oven door this morning, there was a bunch of black ash around both the wort inlet and outlet. I blew through it and black ash came out. Air moves much easier though it. On a side note it did turn the plate chiller colors. It is no longer a shiny stainless steel color, more like a petina color. I blew it out with my air compressor and put it in a tub of PBW for the day while I'm at work. Hopefully this did the trick. I'm not to concerned about the looks of it, as long as it works. I'll try and post a photo of it when I get home.
 
Oh, and one more thing, a plate chiller with sugar and hop debris in it, on the clean cycle make your house smell like complete ass. Like burnt plant matter, sugar, and chemical smell. So if your wife gave you the boot to the garage for the brewing smell, I suggest you do this when she is not around!
 
BKF (Bar Keepers Friend) might get the shine back on the outside. Or just use a buffing pad and compound. Just be sure to plug up all the fittings so that nothing flies into them. :eek:
 
BKF (Bar Keepers Friend) might get the shine back on the outside. Or just use a buffing pad and compound. Just be sure to plug up all the fittings so that nothing flies into them. :eek:

Good Idea, I mean I can't be looking all dull during my brewdays. I'll give it a try tonight!
 
Okay so the BKF worked like magic getting the stains, discoloration, and baked on goodness off! It wouldn't work with a soft brush as they recommend, so I went for the scotch bright pad, worked like a charm. Granted, the scotch bright pad will take the shiny reflective finish off, and give you more of a brushed stainless look, and I'm okay with that. If I wanted to I could buff it out, but meh! Golddiggie, thanks again for the advice!
 
After use, I flush my plate chiller with hose water for 20 minutes each direction. Then, a long soak with strong hot oxy water, then another flush.

I do another soak in hot oxy water followed by a clean water flush on brew day.

Also, I recirculate hot wort through it the last 20 minutes of the boil.

AND, the plate chiller is stored in a closed container with my hoses...no flies or dirt daubers allowed.

:ban:
 
Curious for those soaking: are you dropping it in, or do you rotate it to work all the air pockets out?

I've done both... If you pour either PBW solution, or Star San solution into it, you can keep pouring until it comes out without any bubbles mixed in. If you submerge it, then you just need to move it around a bit to get all the air pockets out.
 
I'm coming in late here but baking was not a good idea. Lye will lift protein but it won't remove carbon.

Plate chillers must, whatever else you do, be taken apart from time to time and cleaned manually. This is obviously difficult in ones that cannot be dissasembled. The next best thing to do is circulate hot caustic (lye) in the reverse direction as several have suggested. Lye is available on line form several sources (soap makers use it). It is also a good idea to circulate some nitric/phosphoric acid blend from time to time to prevent formation of beer stone. This does not have to be done that often as wort does not spend nearly as much time in a chiller as it does in a fermenter or keg.

The foregoing suggests that beer line cleaning equipment and chemicals may be suitable for cleaning wort chillers and I do sometimes use those. Most of the time I just use lye. The color of the solution after a few minutes of recirculation tells you that even though you rinsed the thing thoroughly at the completion of the brew session there is still lots of stuff in there.
 
I'm coming in late here but baking was not a good idea. Lye will lift protein but it won't remove carbon.

I work for a draught line service company. +1 on caustic soda, phosphoric acid for cleaning.

However, before this profession I was a chef and have a great deal of experience having to clean commercial kitchen equipment, including some refurbishment, and renovation.
In my experience NaOH will remove carbon, (and oil resins, and paint, and powder-coating, and fingerprints/other skin, and damned near everything) it just requires REALLY LONG contact time or DANGEROUSLY high concentrations of a heated solution.
 
Once the sugars were carbonized lye never worked for me without the addition of grease - elbow grease. There isn't any reaction that I can think of between pure carbon and lye that would explain lye's ability to remove it. Doesn't mean that there isn't one. It is the working ingredient in Easy Off Oven Cleaner, for example (if that is still allowed to be sold in the US). Perhaps if it is carbon over something organic the lye is able to attack the underlying organic material and thus loosen the carbon layer.

But further thinking about what OP did leads me to believe that when he was finished there wasn't any residual carbon - just ash. IOW he took the thing to such high temperature that sugars and proteins were first reduced to carbon and the carbon then 'burned' to CO2 leaving metal salts and hydroxides i.e. ash. Don't like to think about what such temperatures did to the steel but if it is 300 series that is heat tolerant though I don't know to what extent. It is the heat resistant properties of 300 series that makes them the choice for cook ware.

It's a good thing that the safety aspects of caustic were brought up. Even the traditional 1 lb per 5 gallons is dangerous, especially when hot. One of the most stated cautions is that it is anaesthetic so that if some splashes in your eyes you won't feel it as it erodes your corneas. This is untrue. It hurts like hell!
 
It's a good thing that the safety aspects of caustic were brought up. Even the traditional 1 lb per 5 gallons is dangerous, especially when hot. One of the most stated cautions is that it is anaesthetic so that if some splashes in your eyes you won't feel it as it erodes your corneas. This is untrue. It hurts like hell!

In the TV series Breaking Bad, the meth cooks are often shown sloshing around large buckets of NaOH. Sometimes (when the director is awake IMO) they are wearing protective gear, other times they are slinging the stuff into vats without any caution at all. Scared me seeing that, although I know it's just water in reality.
 
In the TV series Breaking Bad, the meth cooks are often shown sloshing around large buckets of NaOH. Sometimes (when the director is awake IMO) they are wearing protective gear, other times they are slinging the stuff into vats without any caution at all. Scared me seeing that, although I know it's just water in reality.

I'm a soapmaker, and use it in not-as-dangerous strengths, but even if a little gets on your skin it hurts like heck. It's definitely caustic, and safety googles should be worn when dealing with lye.
 
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