How to clean oil/grease from a chiller

[DerekDH]

Hey all, I've been building a countercurrent chiller and got this 10$ Everbuilt Drill pump figuring it'd be good enough to pump a few gallons of wort but when I tested it, it pumped a few globules of oil/grease that was used as an internal lubricant into my copper piping that is meant to be food grade. Does any one know what I can use to fill/soak/rinse out the copper piping that will remove the oil. Also I have some food grade tubing on either end of the copper and I'd rather not have to take that off. I was thinking soap and water at first but I just don't think that is going to cut it, maybe a solvent like acetone? But idk if that will leave residual that will make off flavors. Sorry for the lack of pictures but it's not letting me uploadanything. Thanks all!

 

[day_trippr]

Is that drill pump supposed to be food safe?

If you had a viable pump I'd say recirculate some hot OxyClean Free through it for 15 minutes or so, rinse the heck out of it, and you should be good to go...

Cheers!

 

[dmcman73]

TSP will cut right through the oil/grease. In fact a lot of brewing equipment manufacturers recommend TSP to wash your new gear to make sure that all manufacturing oils/grease are cleaned off. Follow that up with some hot PBW and recirculate.

Now for the pump you got....that is NOT food grade at all. I really hope you are not planning to use it as a wort pump. Pumping chilling water that will never be consumed would be OK, but not wort.

 

[DerekDH]

Yeah, the pump was an after thought, was initially going to just funnel but the lady at the be shop freaked me out about oxidation, any suggestions on the pump

 

[atoughram]

https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/chugger115poly.htm

 

[day_trippr]

Yeah, the pump was an after thought, was initially going to just funnel but the lady at the be shop freaked me out about oxidation, any suggestions on the pump

And with that statement, "the lady at the be shop" proved herself to be untrustworthy wrt brewing beer.

Yeast need oxygen to reproduce, and raw wort saturated with atmospheric oxygen prior to the pitch is A Good Thing...

Cheers!

 

[dmcman73]

Yeah, the pump was an after thought, was initially going to just funnel but the lady at the be shop freaked me out about oxidation, any suggestions on the pump

Funnel into a fermenter? If that's the case then the lady at the shop has no idea what she is talking about. After you chill your wort you'll want to introduce as much O2 into the wort as you can by either pouring it into your fermenter "roughly" or inject the wort with O2 using a diffuser stone. Yeast needs O2 to start off with.

Oxidation comes in two ways:

1. During / After fermentaion you do not want to introduce O2 to your batch, this can/will cause oxidation.

2. Introducing O2 right after "flame out" which can cause hot side aeration in wort above 160F. Hot Side aeration is actually a topic that goes back and forth on being a "real thing" and "It's a bunch of bologna!".

 

[DerekDH]

I was talking about pouring hot wort after flame out and she was warning me about hot oxidation, good to know that that's in dispute, I still like the idea of just pumping it through though for ease of chilling and cleaning, thanks all for the suggestions, I think I will go with that chugger pump.