The Therminator - love it hate it

Does anyone have a love/hate relationship with their Therminator? I love this thing, but last night when we were chilling it got clogged right away. So we finished cooling enough for one carboy and then disconnected it to flush it out. If you have one of these and you use pellet hops you know that they are a pain to clean and require multiple multiple flushings. I am thorough with this thing because I have read and heard some bad stories about Therminators ruining batches because they are not clean. Anyhow, we also forgot to whirlpool our first kettle which of course caused more hops to run through the Therminator than should have run through. (I brew 3 kettle kegs at the same time so i need this piece of equipment so I can get to sleep at a reasonable hour.)

Anyhow, I'm at the sink flushing out my Therminator and a freaking large BUG washes out of it!!! ONe might think "Well you didn't clean it enough!"... I assure you all that I flushed this thing at least 20 times after i used it last time, each time letting it sit in hot PBW for 15-30 and then flushed it and did that over and over again. Then, before we brewed yesterday I soaked it in PBW and flushed it two more time and then flushed it with clean water. Then, before i turn on the garden hose to chill i run wort straight from the kettle into the therminator and let that hot liquor sit in there to kill things even further before running it all off...

Anyhow - the Therminator works great, but it is a pain in my arse... and I cannot believe that bug was in there. I should have taken a pic.

Anyone got any suggestions on how to make life with this awesome piece of equipment easier and safer?

Thanks

Matt

i've heard of folks baking them in the oven. i use a cfc and it works well, but sometimes pisses me off with how slowly it runs. although there was a bug in your chiller, i bet it was sanitary after the boiling hot wort hit it for a few minutes. g'luck

I bake mine. Stick it in the toaster oven @ 350 for a 1/2 hour while the mash is... mashing. Then by the time I need to use it, it has cooled down enough to pick up with my hands.

You could also bake it whenever you're using the oven for actual food in the event that you're a cheap bastard. Just cover up the holes so bugs don't crawl inside.

I LOVE mine!!

The thing is, you have to use a filter such as this before running it thru the chiller:

http://www.brewershardware.com/FILTER1.html

There is a little more prep to use plate chillers but the water and time saved to cool my wort is well worth the extra time.

I LOVE mine!!

The thing is, you have to use a filter such as this before running it thru the chiller:

http://www.brewershardware.com/FILTER1.html

There is a little more prep to use plate chillers but the water and time saved to cool my wort is well worth the extra time.

You need to keep ALL hop pellet material out of it, otherwise you'll cuss at it like a sailor.

I recirculate the hot wort for a few minutes before turning on the water. I get the exiting wort near 200F. Once it has run for a 2-3 minutes, I turn on the water and keep recirculating until the exiting wort gets down to my desired (pitching) temp, at which point I direct the flow to the fermenter.

Recirc:


After:



... and if anyone is wondering, what's hooked up to the T1 is the sensor for the temperature of the water going in.

MC

yeah... I think we are going to go to the HopRocket as an inline filter. Do any of you guys use that? I realize now that keeping hops out of that thing is key.

Thanks for the input guys. I'll try some of these methods. I don't have a pump so i don't have an easy way to recirculate the wort, but i guess i could run it into a pot and dump it back in the hot wort. Probably our key to a better relationship with this thing is the inline filter to keep the hops out.

@NMG318 - that filter looks cool, but for the price i could get the HopRocket which seems pretty cool and gives us more h'options (that was dumb but i couldn't resist).

Thanks guys. I'm putting the caps on my therminator from now on!!!

Check out the pellet hop gunk thread. I use the 300 micron filter and hVe no probs withy chiller

Mine has never clogged. I don't use an inline filter, but I do put my hops in a bag in the kettle.

No matter what you do to keep hops out of it, though, you're never going to keep from getting cold break inside the chiller. I flush mine after brew day, and I recirculate hot wort through it 15 minutes before the end of the boil to sanitize.


And I too have flushed the heck out of my chiller, and baked it and then flushed it again, etc. and it still has little bits in it that come out every time I flush, ever since my first brew with it. However I have never had an infection issue, so I don't really have a problem with it. If I were just a tiny bit more anal retentive, though, I'd probably have to stop using it.

bierzwinski said:

yeah... I think we are going to go to the HopRocket as an inline filter. Do any of you guys use that? I realize now that keeping hops out of that thing is key.

Thanks for the input guys. I'll try some of these methods. I don't have a pump so i don't have an easy way to recirculate the wort, but i guess i could run it into a pot and dump it back in the hot wort. Probably our key to a better relationship with this thing is the inline filter to keep the hops out.

@NMG318 - that filter looks cool, but for the price i could get the HopRocket which seems pretty cool and gives us more h'options (that was dumb but i couldn't resist).

Thanks guys. I'm putting the caps on my therminator from now on!!!

Click to expand...

I don't have any experience with the hop rocket but I believe it works as a filter and would give you more options. Maybe someone who has both could provide comparison.

I've been back flushing mine repeatedly over the course of several days with hot water and more crud comes out every single time. I'm amazed that there's still stuff hiding in there. It seems to release more each time to drain it at a new angle. But it definitely cools the way that it should. Haven't had any clogging problems with it yet.

NMG318 said:

I don't have any experience with the hop rocket but I believe it works as a filter and would give you more options. Maybe someone who has both could provide comparison.

Click to expand...

I have the hop rocket. It's not made to be a hop filter. It's made to be a hop-back, using whole hops - not pellets.

MC

I use my hop rocket with a hop bag full of rice hulls as a filter before my plate chiller (if I don't use hops). I also use a paint strainer in the kettle for pellet hop. There is hop residue from the kettle pellet hops in the rice hulls, but I've never used the plate chiller without the hop rocket, so I can't comment if it is essential.

NMG318 said:

I LOVE mine!!

The thing is, you have to use a filter such as this before running it thru the chiller:

http://www.brewershardware.com/FILTER1.html

There is a little more prep to use plate chillers but the water and time saved to cool my wort is well worth the extra time.

Click to expand...

I still use an immersion chiller because of these issues. It's fine in the winter when the ground water is cold but it's a real pain in the summer. Can you add hops directly to the kettle with this method? Or do you still use strainer bags? Also, does the pre-filter itself get clogged? If so, how easy is it to clean out in the during use?

JonK331 said:

I still use an immersion chiller because of these issues. It's fine in the winter when the ground water is cold but it's a real pain in the summer. Can you add hops directly to the kettle with this method? Or do you still use strainer bags? Also, does the pre-filter itself get clogged? If so, how easy is it to clean out in the during use?

Click to expand...

You can add pellet hops directly to the BK ( I use a strainer bag for whole hops). My filter has never clogged. The web site I noted above has a video that is worth watching that might answer your questions further.

NMG318 said:

You can add pellet hops directly to the BK ( I use a strainer bag for whole hops). My filter has never clogged. The web site I noted above has a video that is worth watching that might answer your questions further.

Click to expand...

Sweet thanks!

I think the Blichmann website and videos state that you can use the hoprocket with WHOLE HOPs as an inline filter in front of the plate chiller.

Personal preference - I've never really liked the idea of the hop bag in the wort since it seems like it is plastic and it also seems like i won't get full use of the hops. I could be very wrong about this. I guess there are always trade offs.

I'd like to find a good option that won't clog and won't cost me what a hoprocket is going to cost. (i've spent so much money on brewing equipment it is surprising i'm not divorced!!!)

I like the ease of pellet hops in the kettle.

It is plastic? Are you freaking kidding me? Do you know how much of the food you eat has been in plastic containers at some point? Probably close to 100%.

What blichmann is describing is what is known as a hopback. It does filter the beer by using the hops, but that really wasn't the kind of filter being referred to earlier in the thread. I had read somewhere someone had cut up some coffee filters and put them in the hoprocket to use as a kind of filter being referenced before hand.

I use a hop spider, with a 5 gal paint straining bag. It is nothing more than a 4" PVC coupler, with a double hooked coat hanger screwed to the side, and a hose clamp big enough to go around the coupler. Everything total is maybe 6 bucks? I do not have issues with getting it clogged, and there is no issue with the beer. Larger breweries bag up their hops and throw them in the kettle. I'm assuming you have pumps on your system. Camlocks? Once I"m done with my PBW soak, and then clean water flush, I put the cap camlock fittings on it so nothing can get in there.

I really appreciate all the input. I have some good ideas from all of this.

Hate it, despise it, but hope to one day change my mind. Using it on a pumpkin beer was the final straw (I should have known better). I'll probably try it again with low hop beers along with a better vorlauf, and use the immersion for DIPAs and veggie beers.

Too many people don't use them properly and then end up not liking them for various reasons. You need to filter hop and grain debris or you WILL eventually have problems. Do yourself a favor and get a stainless basket from Stainless Brewing and use that for your hops in the boil. I am also thinking about adding a trub fillter from Brewers Hardware as a secondary filter to catch any stray grains or husks that may make it to the boil kettle.

Leave a hose connected from the wort in to the wort out while storing. Nothing will get in there. I do this since I store mine outdoors.

I like the idea of sanitizing my Therminator in the oven. I am concerned that at 350 degrees we are close to or over the melting points of many sodlers.

Ruining the thing in the oven would ruin your day.

http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/solder.htm

Rich

I don't know for sure how the Therminator is fabricated, but I imagine it's the same copper brazing process that the chillers Dudadiesel sells use.

Copper brazing is done at temperatures from 1,100 degrees F to 1,500 degrees...

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

I don't know for sure how the Therminator is fabricated, but I imagine it's the same copper brazing process that the chillers Dudadiesel sells use.

Copper brazing is done at temperatures from 1,100 degrees F to 1,500 degrees...

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Yeah, I see in the instructions where they mention baking.

Rich