How Clean is Your ChillPlate?

Yakima 728
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normonster said:
Well if you'd just leave some sort in there and be patient you'd see plenty. [emoji51]
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Well for the record I have left pbw solution sit in the chiller for hours and I will then get a greenish blue tint to the water coming out from the chemical reaction between the copper and the pbw but thats it...
 
augiedoggy said:
Well for the record I have left pbw solution sit in the chiller for hours and I will then get a greenish blue tint to the water coming out from the chemical reaction between the copper and the pbw but thats it...
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I have accidentally left wort in mine for a month. It was erupting with mold. When cleaned (hot PBW both ways) about a good half pound of goo chunks came flowing out. Won't be doing that again.
 
Get some Sodium Hydroxide. Half the price of PBW and 10X the cleaning power. Yes you should probably wear gloves, but even a fairly stiff solution doesn't start burning my hands until a few minutes and a quick rinse and it's good. On my chiller with PBW, I'd still see hop chunks after several rounds. With Sodium Hydroxide I do 2 rounds just to be redundant and no chunks 2nd round. In my kegs on the washer, PBW would occasionally leave a little dried on beer residue after a half hour on the washer. With sodium hydroxide, they are brilliantly clean every time. I can't tell you enough how great it is at cleaning, especially on the things I can't get at with a brush.
 
The NaOH won't hurt pumps or hoses? Do you just rinse with fresh water afterward?

I had an issue last brew day with some sort of blockage in my chiller. That was bad enough. When it suddenly cleared it occurred to me that some nasty gunk is now circulating in my wort.
 
b-boy said:
The NaOH won't hurt pumps or hoses? Do you just rinse with fresh water afterward?

I had an issue last brew day with some sort of blockage in my chiller. That was bad enough. When it suddenly cleared it occurred to me that some nasty gunk is now circulating in my wort.
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Not at all. I can't find the list of materials right now it's safe with, but I've seen many posts in here from DudaDiesel (where I got my chiller) recommending using lye to clean the chiller. I've been using it for years now and no problems whatsoever.

Duda_Energy said:
Multiple options. One of the best things to do is to add a metal strainer at the bottom of your kettle to remove these particles before the wort enters the chiller, but some recipes require you to leave those in.

Most important thing to do is backflush the wort side with hot water after each use. This will knock most of gunk out before it ever becomes a serious clog. You will also want to sanitize it right before each use, either a lye bath, or pbw, or starsans. For most brewers these two steps alone will be all you ever need to do. We tend to use and prefer lye, but that’s just because we already have several tons on hand for making biodiesel (where the diesel in DudaDiesel comes from). We carry 99+% lye for anyone looking for it: http://www.dudadiesel.com/search.php?query="sodium+hydroxide" PBW and Starsans won’t unclog the unit as well, but they sanitize just as well and are far safer.

If your wort is really hoppy, or you’ve just been using it for years on end, you will notice more permanent clogs which can be seen by the decreased output flowrate of your wort (the unit honeycombs with multiple fluid paths inside, so its near impossible to clog it to the point of it being unusable, but it can clog to where you lose efficiency). In this event you will first want to flush with a lye solution to break apart any oils or organics holding the chunks in, and then for the more serious protein pieces you will want to place your chiller in your oven and set it to self-cleaning mode for 2-3 hours and let everything simply burn out. One last wash with water can then remove the ash left inside.
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Thanks. I generally do a forward/backward PBW and StarSan flush after every brew day. However, I've haven't done a really thorough cleaning since I got it. I think it's effecting my efficiency. Sounds like it's way overdue.
 
b-boy said:
Do you just rinse with fresh water afterward?
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Sorry, didn't address this part. Yes you need to flush it with water. I do a final full force city water pressure flush both ways after the lye washes.
 
The SS is fine, the silicone is fine (assuming you meant silicone and not silicon); the 'plastic' parts are *probably* fine but I would need to know exactly what type of plastic to promise that.
 
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
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What about Barkeepers Friend? That **** can remove pretty much anything off of anything any time ive used it to clean.
 
FuzzeWuzze said:
What about Barkeepers Friend? That **** can remove pretty much anything off of anything any time ive used it to clean.
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I'm no chemist, but barkeeper's friend only active ingredient (*) is oxalic acid. It's recommended to remove rust/rust stains from oxidized carbon.

(*) The non-active ingredients are used as a scouring powder and require hard physical contact to do their work. I think that other products would do better.

It might be worth it to try a dirty/baked on stainless steel pot on the stove with a barkeeper's friend solution, and only use water movement to see if it does anything. My hunch is that it won't do much.

MC
 
Barkeepers' Friend is fine with stainless, but can do slow damage to copper. Basically its on the same level as Star Sans - good for a quick rinse, but make sure you wash it out with water
 
Misplaced_Canuck said:
I'm no chemist, but barkeeper's friend only active ingredient (*) is oxalic acid. It's recommended to remove rust/rust stains from oxidized carbon.

(*) The non-active ingredients are used as a scouring powder and require hard physical contact to do their work. I think that other products would do better.

It might be worth it to try a dirty/baked on stainless steel pot on the stove with a barkeeper's friend solution, and only use water movement to see if it does anything. My hunch is that it won't do much.

MC
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I don't know what's in it, but it's magic. I had pots I was ready to toss. Nothing worked on them. Bar keepers friend cleaned them up with almost no effort.
 

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