How do you clean your wort chiller?

Looking for the easiest way to clean my new wort chiller. Since you put the chiller in the boiling wort 15-20 min. prior to cooling does it really matter that you clean and sanitize before every use, its probably good practice to do so, just looking to see what you guys/gals do.

Cheers, Scott.

Save the hot water that comes out of the chiller then dunk the chiller in it with a little cleaner. Go pitch you yeast. Come back, give the chiller a rinse and put it away.

Easy.

I've found that for immersion chillers that a little vinegar soak will get them look brand-spankin' new; but you shouldn't need to do this very often. Orfy has a good suggestion and should keep your chiller looking nice.

I'm with orfy, I do the same thing. The only part that really needs cleaning is towards the top where some of the hops will stick to the copper and dry. Have to lightly scrub them off. I also use that hot water for cleanup. To cool my wort to about 90 or 100, I only accumulate about 3 gallons of HOT water.

If you have any verdigris on the chiller, it needs to be removed. For whatever reason, vinegar just don't work well on my chiller. If it has been too long between batches, I'll scrub it with a copper polish and rinse it a lot. Not letting hops dry on the coils is important.

As far as sanitizing, that isn't necessary. Just clean. You really don't want a bunch of copper oxide in your wort.

I use oxyclean, any scum or debris just falls away by it's self after 20 minutes or so.

That hot water coming off the wort is like free hot water. I dump the chiller water coming out hot into the primary bucket. Add one step and use that for cleaning/sanitizing pretty much all my equipment used for brewing and racking. Comes in really good for cleaning kegs and all the lines too.

I clean mine after every use. Usually just scrub with a light dish soap and rinse off.

I just spray mine down with hot water using the sprayer on the sink right after I take it out of the wort. It's still wet so nothing has a chance to stick to it and the hot water washes the sugary wort off.

I too just spray mine down to get the loose residue off. It gets sanitized when I put it in the boil.

Thanks guys, Orfys way it is.

I just hose it off and scrub off the hops as soon as it's done in the kettle. When it comes time to brew again, It gets washed again. I've never noticed any nasty buildup on mine.

I do exactly what Brewsmith does. Rinse after brewing and scrub off any hops, then rinse again before putting it in the wort on my next brew.

Garden hose with spray nozzle. Simple. Effective.

At the end of my brew day, I boil a few gallons of tap water for cleaning/sanitation. I run it through my cold-side lines and CFC before cooling/transferring the wort. Then I do the same thing again to clean the wort out of the lines and CFC. Any hot water left gets used for rinsing out the kettles.

If the chiller is new, I would do something more aggressive than vinegar or hot water before using it for the first time. Making tubing requires the use of machine lubricating oils and such. Wipe it down with rubbing alcohol and wash it with dishsoap before you use it for the first time as there's no telling what type of goop was used in the manufacturing process.

Toot said:

Wipe it down with rubbing alcohol and wash it with dishsoap before you use it for the first time as there's no telling what type of goop was used in the manufacturing process.

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Rubbing alcohol is a poor solvent for petroleum based oils (likely used in the drawing/extrusion process for tubing). If there are any traces of oil, use a harsher solvent like lacquer thinner, follow that with alcohol, and then a good soapy water rinse.

You're right, Yuri. Another idea... Orange cleaners work well and aren't toxic.

Not the spray on general purpose cleaners, but the intense "goo gone" types. The ingredient is d-limonene(sp?). That does a good job on petroleums and goes great on an english muffin.

Yeah its a new coil, bent it myself. I aquired 100' of 1/2" copper from work so I bent up a nice 50' coil. This unit is gonna cool that wort in no time. WOO HOO!!! thanks for all the tips guys.

Cheers.

Yuri_Rage said:

At the end of my brew day, I boil a few gallons of tap water for cleaning/sanitation. I run it through my cold-side lines and CFC before cooling/transferring the wort. Then I do the same thing again to clean the wort out of the lines and CFC. Any hot water left gets used for rinsing out the kettles.

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I used to run only boiling water through mine, I decided to add PBW one time and all kinds of crap came out. Now I won't use it without running PBW first, then cool water and then Star San.

When Im finished I boil the PBW again, run it through and rinse. Its kind of a pain but I know the thing is spotless inside.