How Clean is Your ChillPlate?

CornyKegs 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Wolfbayne

Wolfbayne

Supporting Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
Feb 18, 2012
Messages
182
Reaction score
19
Location
Fort Campbell
Evening HBT,

Been using a chill plate for awhile? Always had the dark cloud in the back of your mind on how clean is clean with all the sealed plates?

After brewing I run mine through the gambit...PBW both forward and reverse....baking it at 300 degrees and higher for 60+ minutes.....running sanitizer... all the normal ways that we have learned over the years with a chill plate cleaning and sanitizing. Tonight my eyes got opened....

SWMBO bought me an early Christmas gift of a steamer cleaner system. Mainly to assist in cleaning my brewing equipment, but I think she has some other ideas to use it for!

I took my chill plate and ran 215 pressurized steam through it for about 5 mins. (This is when my plate got tooooo hot to hold onto.) **If you do this, use an oven mitt or towel to protect your hands!**

Below is what was blown out of my plate after 5 mins. I plan on running it for about 10-20 mins until my mind is settled and then I will go back through the gambit again!

I'm not posting this as an anti-chill plate, just a reminder to clean and then clean again of your brewing components.

Residue.JPG
 
ChocolateMaltyBalls said:
If you can't taste it or see it, is it really a problem?

OP: out of curiosity, what plate chiller do you use?
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly... I have two plate chillers, and I've only used a plate chiller. *knock on wood* I have yet to experience any type of infection. I make damn good beer. :mug:

And I'll bet money it has crap all up in it.

Post the steamer I'm interested in what it is
 
I'll have to get the model number on the steamer, but its a WAGNER. It has the ability to hold 48oz of distilled water and 30mins straight steam use.

I used it as a test to "see" how clean a plate chiller is and was surprised. No off tastes or smell from it, but there were definately particles left in there. I have the duda diesel plate chiller and luv it! This just gives me another avenue to insure cleaning procedures are being above standard.
 
I run sodium hydroxide through my chiller. Using PBW I would still be getting junk coming out after 3, 4, 5 cycles. 1 cycle with sodium hydroxide and every time I doubt myself and do a 2nd round, nothing comes out.

IMO heat is the only way to sanitize a plate chiller just because you can't see what's in there. The slightest bit of goop in there will mean that a chemical sanitizer will not kill everything in that spot.
 
Heat (circulating liquid) will sanitize a plate chiller, as will steam, as the temperature eventually reaches around boiling temp.

Sanitizer MAY work but if you have caked on crud accumulated inside the chiller, the sanitizer may fail to reach the deepest innards of the chiller.

PBW is mostly a surfactant, which means that the crud is dislodged from the innards of the chiller. At that point, they may or may not be small enough to be removed.

Lye (sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or historically potassium hydroxide (KOH)) will break down the membranes of organic compounds, and will in turn liquefy them. This is probably the best "crud remover", however this comes with risks: risk of contacts to skin/eyes, risk of chemical reaction with the material used for the plate chiller, etc.

Personally I do not like the idea of baking the plate chiller in an oven because, while it may sanitize the chiller, it will also harden the crud inside the chiller to the point where it will not dislodge anymore, or at least, not easily.

I've had a plate chiller for over a year now, and I have never used lye, but I have used a hot oxy-clean solution a few times.

I normally back flush the chiller with a large amount of alternating hot & cold water. At usage time, I run hot wort through the chiller prior to turning on the water, in an effort to sanitize it. The chiller will reach an internal temp of 200F.

I've never had off flavors from the chiller - at least that I've been able to detect...

MC
 
Misplaced_Canuck said:
Personally I do not like the idea of baking the plate chiller in an oven because,
while it may sanitize the chiller, it will also harden the crud inside the chiller to the point where it will not dislodge anymore, or at least, not easily.

MC
Click to expand...

We normally recommended baking it after doing a lye wash for exactly the opposite reason. Some things can become more permanently lodged as you stated, while other contaminants will burn out and be easier to flush out. Its usually proteins which run the risk of becoming more lodged; if you melt those out first with lye then baking can knock out anything else.
 
So mods, feel free to delete this if it breaks any forum rules, but hopefully this is appropriate:

Would anyone be interested in a plate chiller which could be disassembled and reassembled for cleaning, even if it cost a good bit more? Over here at Duda Diesel we've been considering coming out with just such a line, but never had because they would cost anywhere from 2-4 times more. Obviously that cost wouldn't be right for everyone, but are there enough big brewers out there with really hoppy brews needing this option?
 
Duda_Energy said:
We normally recommended baking it after doing a lye wash for exactly the opposite reason. Some things can become more permanently lodged as you stated, while other contaminants will burn out and be easier to flush out. Its usually proteins which run the risk of becoming more lodged; if you melt those out first with lye then baking can knock out anything else.
Click to expand...

I don't think that 300 degrees is sufficient to "burn out" anything that's stuck in plate chiller. My oven runs around 900-1000F in its self-cleaning mode, and that's when stuff turns to ash; at 300F is just gets stickier and messier. Just a thought.

MC
 
Duda_Energy said:
Would anyone be interested in a plate chiller which could be disassembled and reassembled for cleaning, even if it cost a good bit more? Over here at Duda Diesel we've been considering coming out with just such a line, but never had because they would cost anywhere from 2-4 times more. Obviously that cost wouldn't be right for everyone, but are there enough big brewers out there with really hoppy brews needing this option?
Click to expand...

I am happy with the results from the plate chiller I already have from you, but I would be interested in something I could periodically disassemble for cleaning / sanitising. Although I'm not sure that I could justify more than 2 times the price for the functionality.

That said, thanks for the tip on using a lye rinse followed by baking in the oven.
 
Duda_Energy said:
So mods, feel free to delete this if it breaks any forum rules, but hopefully this is appropriate:

Would anyone be interested in a plate chiller which could be disassembled and reassembled for cleaning, even if it cost a good bit more? Over here at Duda Diesel we've been considering coming out with just such a line, but never had because they would cost anywhere from 2-4 times more. Obviously that cost wouldn't be right for everyone, but are there enough big brewers out there with really hoppy brews needing this option?
Click to expand...

Absolutely.
 
Duda_Energy said:
Would anyone be interested in a plate chiller which could be disassembled and reassembled for cleaning, even if it cost a good bit more? Over here at Duda Diesel we've been considering coming out with just such a line, but never had because they would cost anywhere from 2-4 times more. Obviously that cost wouldn't be right for everyone, but are there enough big brewers out there with really hoppy brews needing this option?
Click to expand...

I would be willing to spend up to $400.00 on a plate chiller that could be disassembled and cleaned. However, it would have to be built to more than novelty standards.
 
I just got done doing a lye-based soak & rinse with my plate chiller. This was after flushing numerous times after brewing about 20 batches. The lye solution was about 4 tbsp of Red Devil in 2 gallons of warm water. Here's what it came out looking like:

25sliqg.jpg


Plan white kitchen water bowl, nothing else.

MC
 
I guess that I am confused. Just because there is "stuff" in your chiller, that doesn't equate to bacteria. There is "stuff" in your wort. Chemicals/heat kill bacteria. I always run boiling wort through my chiller before turning on the the hose. Sanitized.
 
Exactly correct. The only harm in debris being trapped is for people who siphon starsan through it as the only means of sanitizing. I always advocate a heat sanitation cycle prior to chilling which is standard in the world of immersion chillers already.
 
Bobby_M said:
Exactly correct. The only harm in debris being trapped is for people who siphon starsan through it as the only means of sanitizing. I always advocate a heat sanitation cycle prior to chilling which is standard in the world of immersion chillers already.
Click to expand...

Heat sanitation is fine, but having debris can cause off flavors. While the crud may be dead, it may have created off-flavors while it wasn't dead.

MC
 
>> If you can't taste it or see it, is it really a problem?

+1!!

I have the B3-23A 30 from dudadiesel. After my brew day I give it a backflush/"forward" flush with hot PBW then a standard starsan rinse. On brewday I circulate w/ boiling wort for the last 15 mins of the boil. Never had an infection and I'm pretty sure there's crud in there. Shrug.
 
Duda_Energy said:
So mods, feel free to delete this if it breaks any forum rules, but hopefully this is appropriate:

Would anyone be interested in a plate chiller which could be disassembled and reassembled for cleaning, even if it cost a good bit more? Over here at Duda Diesel we've been considering coming out with just such a line, but never had because they would cost anywhere from 2-4 times more. Obviously that cost wouldn't be right for everyone, but are there enough big brewers out there with really hoppy brews needing this option?
Click to expand...
Check out your "compition" over at Sabco - https://brewmagic.com/product/plate-pro-sanitary-wort-chiller/
I'm sure you guys can come up with a decently priced alternative :D
Misplaced_Canuck said:
...The lye solution was about 4 tbsp of Red Devil in 2 gallons of warm water...
MC
Click to expand...
Is that just under a 1.7% W/W of caustic soda? if so could you up that a fair bit (2x) - my understanding was that a normal caustic wash was around the 3-5% mark
 
So I guess if you can't see it, smell it, or taste it, it could still be a problem. I actually spoiled a batch that I had to dump by not realizing that my chiller was packed with decaying hop material. I also have the dudadiesel B3-23A 30-plate. I don't filter out of my boil kettle, usually pellet hops only. I always use whirlfloc and get a good quasi-whirlpool to settle my break. I took about 2 hours cleaning it out after I finally determined that it was the cause (same odor) using ultimate brewery cleaner (UBC, caustic) very hot, multiple flushes, used lots of force to slam the crud towards the outlet. Lots of gunk came out. Then I baked it and hot flushed again.

I ordered some lye, I'm going to start a lye regimen from now on. After using, I'll do a lye soak to dissolve any deposited materials. Then lots of hot water flushes. I don't have a pump so recirc isn't really an option for me. I bought the unit with 7.7 effective sq. ft. of contact area so that I could simply gravity feed (and it works amazingly well). I want to be assured that this thing won't be the death of a batch. I almost got rid of it and got an IC until someone gave me the lye idea.
 
This is the exact reason I switched to an immersion chiller with a recirculation arm. Cleaning out a plate chiller is more hassle than it's worth.
 
dustinstriplin said:
This is the exact reason I switched to an immersion chiller with a recirculation arm. Cleaning out a plate chiller is more hassle than it's worth.
Click to expand...
depending on how you clean it depnds on how much of a hassle it is. I am now looking to get some Caustic Soda and will start a caustic wash ever xxx brews (depending on the cost maybe even every brew). My current regime is after brewing to disconnect the plate chiller and flush / back flow a few times, and flush out the majority of solid material from the kettle. Then connect it back on and recirc through with a kettle full of hot oxyclean for 30- 60 minutes. Then disconnect and flush / backflush with clean water again for a few times. Then hang up to dry. then the kettle, etc. gets a wipe down and final rinse. It terms of the extra effort I put in all it is is disconnecting the chiller a couple of times to flush it.
 
Duda_Energy said:
So mods, feel free to delete this if it breaks any forum rules, but hopefully this is appropriate:

Would anyone be interested in a plate chiller which could be disassembled and reassembled for cleaning, even if it cost a good bit more? Over here at Duda Diesel we've been considering coming out with just such a line, but never had because they would cost anywhere from 2-4 times more. Obviously that cost wouldn't be right for everyone, but are there enough big brewers out there with really hoppy brews needing this option?
Click to expand...


Absolutely if you can come up with something made if 316 but more economical than the 41 plate Sabco. My SWMBO will not be pleased if you do, but Meh... What are most residential water flows (3 gpm average)? Wort can be throttled down from Chugger or March 815 speed pretty easily, though.
 
FredTheNuke said:
Absolutely if you can come up with something made if 316 but more economical than the 41 plate Sabco. My SWMBO will not be pleased if you do, but Meh... What are most residential water flows (3 gpm average)? Wort can be throttled down from Chugger or March 815 speed pretty easily, though.
Click to expand...

Why 316, 304 should be fine.
Come on Duda, you have to do this now :D
 
mattd2 said:
Then connect it back on and recirc through with a kettle full of hot oxyclean for 30- 60 minutes. Then disconnect and flush / backflush with clean water again for a few times. Then hang up to dry. then the kettle, etc. gets a wipe down and final rinse. It terms of the extra effort I put in all it is is disconnecting the chiller a couple of times to flush it.
Click to expand...

I love oxyclean (I use it nearly everywhere) but I don't think that it's the best thing to use for a plate chiller. It's a good surfactant (loosens crud very well) but it doesn't really reduce the size of the crud. Lye/caustic/soda will turn organic compounds to sludge.

That being said, if lye isn't handy, oxyclean is better than nothing.

My current washing procedure is: hook up water line and backflush with both hot & cold water turned on. Switch to hot water only, and close the water tap (preventing any water from running out). Let sit for an hour or two, and repeat the regimen. So far I've used lye once.

MC
 
Misplaced_Canuck said:
I love oxyclean (I use it nearly everywhere) but I don't think that it's the best thing to use for a plate chiller. It's a good surfactant (loosens crud very well) but it doesn't really reduce the size of the crud. Lye/caustic/soda will turn organic compounds to sludge.

That being said, if lye isn't handy, oxyclean is better than nothing.

My current washing procedure is: hook up water line and backflush with both hot & cold water turned on. Switch to hot water only, and close the water tap (preventing any water from running out). Let sit for an hour or two, and repeat the regimen. So far I've used lye once.

MC
Click to expand...

Agree I will be starting with caustic as soon as I can get some :D
Also I have stater to look at a few changes to my setup so I can flush/backflush without disconnecting the chiller.
 
The paranoia is strong in this thread. All large breweries use plate heat exchangers, the only difference being that the large ones are made with gaskets vs brazed copper on homebrew sized ones. The cleaning process is virtually the same regardless of size.
In order to properly clean any heat exchanger, you need to be able to run hot water and your cleaner of choice (PBW, in all reality, oxiclean is not a substitute here) at 1.5 times the speed you transferred your wort. This means that if you run your pump all the way open during transfer, you need a different, more powerful source to clean it. Even a garden hose hooked up to hot water with a spray nozzle is way more effective than running a pump circulation slowly.

My cleaning process is as follows:
Use hot water with a sprayer pressed against the wort ports to blow as much debris as possible out of the chiller, alternating directions. Aim the output of the chiller into a white bucket to see what is coming out.
Once you are confident that the water coming out is as clean as it can get, set up a loop with your pump and hot (at least 130 degrees) PBW and run for at least 15 minutes. After that, rinse with more hot water. If what comes out is still dirty/green/etc, soak your chiller in PBW for awhile/overnight and rinse out any remaining crud.

Taking a heat exchanger apart is not the funnest thing in the world. A smaller one may be a lot easier to do, but there will still be a high attention to detail necessary to do it right. I can see a lot of people reassembling incorrectly and ruining their beer because of it. It is very rare in a real brewery that the heat exchanger will be taken apart for this exact reason.
 
jaba said:
Taking a heat exchanger apart is not the funnest thing in the world.
Click to expand...

This. This is precisely why we haven't released one yet. Cost aside (they would probably run 3-5 times our current unit prices, not just double), every attempt we've made at making a gasket chiller has resulted in something that never quite seals completely once you take it apart once, and we don't want to put out something we feel is sub-par. This is one of the reasons we sometimes recommend baking the unit at around 350 degrees - that temperature might not be hot enough to 'burn out' any stuck particles, but any germs/ bacteria are dead. As a comparison, hospitals wash their nurses' scrubs at 160-180 degrees to sanitize them.

And if anyone is still worried and wants to do a lye bath, we sell that pretty cheap too :)
 
Duda_Energy said:
This. This is precisely why we haven't released one yet. Cost aside (they would probably run 3-5 times our current unit prices, not just double), every attempt we've made at making a gasket chiller has resulted in something that never quite seals completely once you take it apart once, and we don't want to put out something we feel is sub-par. This is one of the reasons we sometimes recommend baking the unit at around 350 degrees - that temperature might not be hot enough to 'burn out' any stuck particles, but any germs/ bacteria are dead. As a comparison, hospitals wash their nurses' scrubs at 160-180 degrees to sanitize them.

And if anyone is still worried and wants to do a lye bath, we sell that pretty cheap too :)
Click to expand...

I just bought some red hot devil, because my B23-30 was clogging with hop material. (big double IPAs) What's your recommendation on how to do a lye cycle?
 
Duda_Energy said:
This is one of the reasons we sometimes recommend baking the unit at around 350 degrees - that temperature might not be hot enough to 'burn out' any stuck particles, but any germs/ bacteria are dead. As a comparison, hospitals wash their nurses' scrubs at 160-180 degrees to sanitize them.
Click to expand...

True that. But you also don't use nurses' scrubs to drink beer through ;) hehehe

MC
 
jaba said:
The paranoia is strong in this thread. All large breweries use plate heat exchangers, the only difference being that the large ones are made with gaskets vs brazed copper on homebrew sized ones. The cleaning process is virtually the same regardless of size.
In order to properly clean any heat exchanger, you need to be able to run hot water and your cleaner of choice (PBW, in all reality, oxiclean is not a substitute here) at 1.5 times the speed you transferred your wort. This means that if you run your pump all the way open during transfer, you need a different, more powerful source to clean it. Even a garden hose hooked up to hot water with a spray nozzle is way more effective than running a pump circulation slowly.

My cleaning process is as follows:
Use hot water with a sprayer pressed against the wort ports to blow as much debris as possible out of the chiller, alternating directions. Aim the output of the chiller into a white bucket to see what is coming out.
Once you are confident that the water coming out is as clean as it can get, set up a loop with your pump and hot (at least 130 degrees) PBW and run for at least 15 minutes. After that, rinse with more hot water. If what comes out is still dirty/green/etc, soak your chiller in PBW for awhile/overnight and rinse out any remaining crud.

Taking a heat exchanger apart is not the funnest thing in the world. A smaller one may be a lot easier to do, but there will still be a high attention to detail necessary to do it right. I can see a lot of people reassembling incorrectly and ruining their beer because of it. It is very rare in a real brewery that the heat exchanger will be taken apart for this exact reason.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much what I do also. My chiller is quite large, it was used in a dairy, I send boiling water through at the end of the process for about 15 minutes to really sanitize things up.
 
Misplaced_Canuck said:
I couldn't really find solid info on this. I wanted to err on the safe side.

MC
Click to expand...

I'm a little late to this thread, but thought it may be helpful to anyone using Lye for deep cleaning...

FWIW, I asked my friend (a chemist), who recommended a first wash with 1.5% and increasing the strength if necessary.

1.5% Solution : 1g NaOH in 65ml Water
2.0% Solution : 1g NaOH in 50ml Water
2.5% Solution : 1g NaOH in 39ml Water
 
To expand that out to an easy calculation for us poor Americans, half a pound of lye in 4 gallons of water is ~1.48% solution
 
I have been using my 20 plate duda chiller for over 2 years now and never had any evidence of any crude being stuck or coming out during cleaning cycles...

I simply recirculete my mash so my wort is clear going into the BK and I use a stainless hop basket along with a 30" or so long piece of stainless braided hose attacched to my BK diptube... this basically prevents any particles but the very finest from ever making it INTO the plate chiller....
never have any stuck sparge or drain issues either. I use a small 3 gallon per minute DC pump on a speed contyroller when pumping wort through (yes I recirculate boiling wort for 5 mins or longer at the end of each boil)
when cleaningI have 2 of my pumps running in tandom which dramatically increases the flow through the chiller (my flow meter shows this).

I clean all my lines, 3 inline pumps and hoses as well as rims and chiller in place with a pbw mix every couple brews depending on how long things sit without use.

(Again I have never seen any evidence of anything building up or breaking loose in my chiller.)
 
I always flushed my therminator both directions with hot water and compressed air until it ran clean. Worked for me but I did have an air compressor in my brewshop;)
 

Similar threads

H
Sold $100 Blichmann Engineering Therminator & 1/2” ThruMometer
Replies
8
Views
818
JMC
J
R
Question regarding cleaning tap and beer lines
Replies
14
Views
2K
alex pablate
alex pablate
Djangotet
Anvil foundry pump sanitation
Replies
5
Views
1K
Bobby_M
Bobby_M
D
Years long infections
Replies
30
Views
890
depecid
D
luckybeagle
Infected? Or just WY1318 London Ale III doing its thing?
Replies
11
Views
1K
sibelman
sibelman

Latest posts

Back
Top