Sanitize Wort Chiller?

[kjjohns5]

Hey guys! Had a conversation with a friend this morning, and he asked me how I plan on sanitizing my wort chiller. I told him that I'd just boil it for 15 minutes in the wort before turning off the heat and cranking up the water. Then he said, "no, I mean after that. Won't some of those enzymes and sugars from your wort be on your chiller? And if you reuse that chiller in another batch, aren't you introducing a different beer to sugars and enzymes from a completely different batch?"

I was speechless in that I never actually thought about it. I assume that they wont cause much of an issue in another batch, but thought I'd pose this question to you guys anyway. I plan on keeping 5 gallons of sanitized water around (star san) anyway, do I just place my coil in there for a couple minutes? Is the copper safe in that solution? Or should I just not worry about it at all?

Thanks guys.

 

[RegionalChaos]

Rinse it off when your done..

 

[goose1873]

I rinse mine but then just toss it in @15min left boil...it is pretty clean (sugars) from the rinse and any enzymes will be denatured by the boil...no worries. Sarstan if you want but not necessary...

 

[KYB]

Rinse it off when your done..

That's what I do.

 

[Edcculus]

I rinse mine after chilling because I don't want a sticky chiller sitting in the closet. As for sanitizing after chilling, I see no point. Your friends theory doesn't really make sense.

 

[philrose]

You can also preboil it in acidulated water prior to putting it in the wort, that way it will be nice and shiny too.

 

[ChshreCat]

Everything should be washed, or at least rinsed after use.

Even if you didn't, I wouldn't sweat it. I don't think I'd blink about using one chiller on two different batches of beer, one right to another, if I were brewing two at once. Not like you're be transferring much from one to another with what clings on a chiller

 

[kjjohns5]

Cool, I'll just rinse it off then. Thanks again!

 

[Addicted]

I've never put mine in the boil to sanitize,the one time i did it slowed the boil right down to nothing.I just put it in my bucket of Star san a few minutes before I'm about to use it.Plus the star San's acid cleans it real well,It's nice and shiny all the time.After the boil i just rinse it with hot water.

 

[kjjohns5]

Ah cool, I didn't think the star san would affect the copper until my friend asked me if it did, then I second guessed my assumption, lol.

 

[PeterAC]

Backflushing plate chiller for a few minutes with a powder brewery washing solution makes sense to me.

http://www.brazetek.com/applications/102-wort-plate-chiller

 

[Dougie63]

Copper surfaces usually kill microbes as well, google it there are many reports out there on this, I would still submerge in starsan though

 

[freshhoarse]

I've never put mine in the boil to sanitize,the one time i did it slowed the boil right down to nothing.I just put it in my bucket of Star san a few minutes before I'm about to use it.Plus the star San's acid cleans it real well,It's nice and shiny all the time.After the boil i just rinse it with hot water.

Ditto

 

[rcrabb22]

I've never put mine in the boil to sanitize,the one time i did it slowed the boil right down to nothing.I just put it in my bucket of Star san a few minutes before I'm about to use it.Plus the star San's acid cleans it real well,It's nice and shiny all the time.After the boil i just rinse it with hot water.

Mine too but so what? I used to crank the burner up a little a minute or so before dropping it in and was back to a boil in less than a minute.

Now, I use a stainless steel IC and put it in the kettle while I sparge so it's in there for the whole boil. It displaces a little less than 1/3 gal in volume per the sight gauge and one less thing to worry about later on.

And yes I have measured cooling time between my copper and SS ICs see no appreciable time difference to chill my wort.

 

[LordUlrich]

The issue your friend brings up is one of cleaning not sanitizing. I leave my IC in my kettle all the time, and clean it with PBW. Sanitizing (killing the bugs) takes place in the boil.

 

[AnOldUR]

My 50' x 3/8" diameter IC fits in the dishwasher. I stick it in there on the antibacterial cycle (no soap) with anything else I plan to use post boil. When done I put it back in and run a pot and pans wash cycle (this time with soap) to clean it and any thing else from the brew day.

 

[mystersmyth]

Yeah, if you do decide to sanitize your copper immersion chiller, here's a little more info from a section of Palmer's How to Brew:

"The best sanitizer for counterflow wort chillers is Star San. It is acidic and can be used to clean copper as well as sanitize. Sanitizing with Star San only takes minutes and should not be left in the chiller more than an hour, because it will start dissolving the copper.
Cleaning and sanitizing copper with bleach solutions is not recommended. The chlorine and hypochlorites in bleach cause oxidation and blackening of copper and brass. If the oxides come in contact with the mildly acidic wort, the oxides will quickly dissolve, possibly exposing yeast to unhealthy levels of copper during fermentation."

 

[beertastic]

I've never put mine in the boil to sanitize,the one time i did it slowed the boil right down to nothing.I just put it in my bucket of Star san a few minutes before I'm about to use it.Plus the star San's acid cleans it real well,It's nice and shiny all the time.After the boil i just rinse it with hot water.

Yeah on a (electric) stove plopping 25-50 feet of copper into a boiling kettle will halt that boil. What I would do is put on some oven mitts and slooowly lower that IC into the boil. I mean over the course of 3 mins or so, so make sure you are wearing oven mitts. Now I got a burner, so I just drop it in.

As for cleaning the chiller, I just start the siphon into my fermentor and while it is transferring I take out the chiller and rinse it thoroughly in the sink. Don't let the chiller dry or you'll have a sticky mess/hop residue to deal with. "Scrubbing" a coil isn't really an easy thing to do.

 

[snccoulter]

Copper surfaces usually kill microbes as well, google it there are many reports out there on this, I would still submerge in starsan though

The military has contracted with a company that pits copper thread in socks to help ward off fungal infections.

 

[exileonmainst]

i used an IC for the first time on my last batch. i put it in 10 min prior to flame out and i hated that process, for a few reasons:

1) it's in the way. if i'm adding hops, whirlfloc, or whirlpooling at flame out, i can't stir the wort very easily. and using a hop spider as well just puts another thing in the way.

2) it makes the IC hot as hell. when i start running cold water through it, now the water has to cool the copper down before the copper can start cooling the wort. seems counter productive.

3) if you're sanitizing in the wort, then aren't any germs, gunk, etc. just going into your wort and therefore your beer? im sure its an imperceptible amount taste-wise, but still.

im gonna just use star san next time. screw this.

 

[Rev2010]

Here's what I do. I have my IC sitting in a bucket so with about 15 minutes left in the boil I pull it out, put it in the shower and give it a quick rinse off (just for any dust) . Then I plop it into my bucket of sanitizer (which I now have after sanitizing my fermenter). Let it sit a few minutes; often at this point I'm going back outside and doing a late hop addition or whatnot. Come back in, pull out the IC and take it outside and hook it up to my garden tap and keep it sitting on a round cookie tray that I put a little sanitizer on top of. At flameout I put in the IC and turn it on.

When I'm done and the fermenter is put in place I come back out to collect my stuff. I put the IC in the shower again and rinse it off with the handheld shower head. I then put it back into the sanitizer bucket, but not to sanitize, just to be sure it's 100% rinsed off. Then I pull it out, rinse it off again, and put it away.

Been working this way for nearly four years now. Never been a problem ever and I've never once cleaned it with a cleaner. Looks, feels, and smells perfectly clean.


Rev.

 

[blackbeer]

mine goes right from the boiler to a bucket of hot water and gets sloshed viciously. if i have a bucket of pbw mixed up it goes in there for a bit and then gets rinsed again. mine is nice and clean when done. bright and shiny.

 

[grrickar]

I've never put mine in the boil to sanitize,the one time i did it slowed the boil right down to nothing.I just put it in my bucket of Star san a few minutes before I'm about to use it.Plus the star San's acid cleans it real well,It's nice and shiny all the time.After the boil i just rinse it with hot water.

I pump up the heat and get a hard boil going before dumping mine in. It kills the boil but only maybe for 2 min if that.

 

[hezagenius]

I steam mine in a separate SS pot and just move it right next to the BK a few minutes prior to chilling. I drop it in to chill and then put it back in the SS pot afterwards so I can carry it around without it dripping everywhere.

 

[MaxStout]

I dunk mine in the Starsan bucket for a few minutes first. That cleans off the tarnish (I don't want a bunch of copper oxides in my wort). Then in the last 10 minutes of the boil I drop it in. It kills the boil for maybe 2 minutes, but no big deal.

 

[Helloworld]

I fill up my BK with water and PBW and let the chiller sit in that for a while after use. It keeps that copper nice and shiny.