Clogged plate chiller...

Yooper said:

I'm a soapmaker, and use it in not-as-dangerous strengths, but even if a little gets on your skin it hurts like heck. It's definitely caustic, and safety googles should be worn when dealing with lye.

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Don't hook a battery straight to a bucket of water! Google home electrolysis setups. They use a battery charger so you can control the current flow.

milesvdustin said:

Don't hook a battery straight to a bucket of water! Google home electrolysis setups. They use a battery charger so you can control the current flow.

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Huh? Are you talking about making your own lye at home by electrolyzing a salt solution? I wouldn't think of doing that as it is so cheap to buy and much less trouble.

If I interpret 'Google' as a verb and do a search on 'home electrolysis' all I get is ads for hair removal machines. It's a little early in the day to be 8 pints in isn't it?

On the first page someone suggested using a battery setup like stripping cast iron. When I googled it the first result was a YouTube video on making an electrolysis tank. It's an electrochemical process of removing rust and other things from a metal part using current and a sacrificial anode. It works quite well.

Gotcha. When you jump back 33 posts please help us old guys by either quoting or referring to the post number.

More pertinent to the subject at hand: that method isn't going to work here as the interior is presumed coated with organic material, not rust. In the electrolytic scheme ferric oxide is reduced to ferrous oxide and iron - the rust is 'removed' by converting it to something else. Also, as a side note, the anode is not sacrificial in this method unless the anode is of the wrong material (e.g. copper) which would erode to deposit on the workpiece thus screwing up the cleaning process.

Yeah I didn't figure it would work on a plate chiller. Just explaining the process after the battery comment.

I have actually built an electrolysis system for removing rust from car parts. They specifically caution against using Stainless as electrode material because the process will release toxic chemicals from the stainless.

Please don't use electrolysis on stainless metal.

No worries! Just add that most versatile of brewers chemicals, a Campden tablet or two and that nasty Cr(VI) will be converted to harmless (or at least much less harmfull) Cr(II).

But, also relevant to some of the earlier suggestions, buffing, sanding, grinding, drilling, welding.... stainless also release chromium. Of course it takes chronic exposure to Cr(VI) to cause a problem (unless you are Erin Brockavitch in which case it is pure gold).