cleaning immersion chillers

Been reading some of John Palmers work on cleaning. He mentioned some things about cleaning cooper and asked have you ever noticed how clean and shiny your immersion cooler is when you take it out? Into your brew, cooper has been oxidized by the wort which is slightly acidic. From what I read some more, this could be a good thing, but how do you know how much of a good thing? How many of you clean your immersion cooler? I thought you could just rinse it off to get the dust off of it, then dunk in the wort for the remainding 10 minutes of so of the boil to sanitize it, and then hook it up to the water for it to cool. But, maybe I'm wrong.

As soon as I am done with the chiller, i let it soak in a bucket with oxyclean before the wort dries on it. Clean it up nicely, then when I brew, I give it a quick rinse with water and submerse it in the wort to sanitize. The only time I gave it the vinegar treatment was when the wort dried on it once when I was lazy. What a PITA that was!

I clean mine any time it's been hanging for more than a month. If the surface is mottled, it gets cleaned.

I do basically the same thing. When I'm finished with it I immediately put it in a sink of hot tap water until I'm finished getting the primary tucked away. This prevents any of that impossible to clean dried wort from developing. Then I usually just scrub it lightly with a sponge and dry it off before storing. I also give it a quick scrub and a rinse before using it. Not sure if this is the best method but I've never had a problem with infections.

Is it necessary to clean the chiller before it's initial chilling? I made mine out of copper tubing I bought at Lowes but it appears kind of dirty and possibly oily in spots. What's a good way to shine it up before I use it for the first time?

Clean it with dish soap/oxy clean, then give it a nice (distilled!) vinegar bath to clean up the oxidization, rinse well. Don't use abrasive pads of any sort or you will score the copper and don't leave it in the vinegar bath for to long and don't do a vinegar bath to often, vinegar will dissolve copper.

Reidman said:

Is it necessary to clean the chiller before it's initial chilling? I made mine out of copper tubing I bought at Lowes but it appears kind of dirty and possibly oily in spots. What's a good way to shine it up before I use it for the first time?

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If it is dirty and oily, you sure don't want that going into the wort.

I used a solution of vinegar and salt followed by some mild dishwashing detergent.

I give it a good spray with the hose after it comes out of the wort, before it turns into sticky gunk.

As long as it looks clean, I simply hose it off again before it goes into the kettle.

Cool. Thanks guys. Yeah I definitely don't want to put this into the wort before cleaning it really good.

How long in the vinegar bath roughly..?

Also, can I dilute the vinegar because to immerse the whole thing would be costly in vinegar.

cweston said:

I give it a good spray with the hose after it comes out of the wort, before it turns into sticky gunk.

As long as it looks clean, I simply hose it off again before it goes into the kettle.

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That's pretty much the method I use as well. A quick rinse with tap water after I am done using it to get off all the break, hops, etc that cling to it and that's it. I throw it in during the last 10 minutes of the boil to sanitize it.

My favorite trick is collecting the hot output water from the chiller in a rubbermaid tub or a spare bucket. This is where I dunk the chiller after I'm done using it. That way I can put off cleaning it until I'm ready.

I pull mine out of the wort and put it into my HLT. When chilling I'll fill the HLT up with the hot water coming out of the chiller until it's full and dump some PBW into it. Boil finishes, chiller gets soaked in the hlt with the pbw and anything else that needs cleaning. Quick washup, hang it on the fence and hose it off. Store it in the kettle til the next brew day. Easy as pie.

Reidman said:

Cool. Thanks guys. Yeah I definitely don't want to put this into the wort before cleaning it really good.

How long in the vinegar bath roughly..?

Also, can I dilute the vinegar because to immerse the whole thing would be costly in vinegar.

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I would just mix up some solution and scrub it down.

The dark mottled look on the copper, if it gets in the wort, I don't think is actually harmful although it could lend off-flavors. However, if you get green patina on the copper (like what covers the Statue of Liberty) you must get that stuff off. That can be toxic if injested.

I just built my chiller two days ago with 30 feet of old 3/8" copper tubing my dad had hanging in the garage for like 20 years. I had a bucket of Star san solution already to go so I popped the chiller in that for like 10 minutes and it came out Bright and shinny clean. I am using it this weekend as I am planning an anchor steam brew on Saturday and was just going to rinse it off after the brew. I figure I would use the star-san every couple brews to keep it looking good and clean.

I rinse before and after and mine is as shiny today as it was a few brews ago.

there is a plethora of ways to clean before hand and after. in my brewhouse i have a sink that i fill with starsan solution. this is where is place my imc before and after use.

some just put their imc in the wort 15 minutes before flameout. while this may sanatize it also cleans .... and all that oxidation is now in your brew.

star san does a lovely job of keeping my imc shinny