Filthy dirty plate chiller

OkanaganMike

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Pulled out my plate chiller on the weekend to build a stand for it for the brew cart. Took it to the Depot to look for hardware and was explaining how it worked to the guy helping me when I noticed it was crusty inside one of the wort ports. Got it home to take a better look at it and came to the embarrassing realisation that I must have put the damn thing away after brew day and not cleaned it out! :mad: What a rookie move! :oops:

I've had it soaking in pink brewers cleaner (heavy chlorine smell) three times; after each I'd shake it and drain the gunk out of it. Last night I soaked it in a strong OXY-clean bath and dumped this morning with still dark green/brown stuff coming out of it. Soaking again now in Oxy.

Has anyone ever done this and will the damn thing ever come clean?!
 
I just run boiling water through my stuff like that, I even add some pbw before boiling, but you have to do it twice to get real clean then do a clean water test and all is good
 
Thats a good idea OMB. I'm about due to clean the bottom of the keggle so maybe thats what I'll do after I go to town and to get some PBW.
 
PBW even did a great job of cleaning my smoker racks and other parts of it I could soak. Pretty expensive, though!
 
PBW is the ticket...Run it through and let it sit for a while. Then pump it through again. Follow up with boiling water if you want or just hot tap water. Pump through backwards as well and it'll dislodge more stuff.
 
PBW is great stuff , i keep finding new uses for it and now have some in the kitchen , laundry and the brewery .
Housemates were amazed at what it did for the 30 yr old stains in the loo and enamel bathtub .

My local club did a bulk buy / mix up and worked out dirt cheap buying 25 kg sacks of sodium perc and sodium metasilicate (?) As an added bonus we tried our hardest to drink the host dry while we mixed it all up
 
recirculate caustic for 15 minutes,
then rinse,
Recirculate acid for 15 minutes,
then rinse,
sanitize with star san prior to use and or recirculate boiling water.
done
PBW is caustic, but they make stronger stuff.
if your going to use pbw, make it up pretty strong in 150° water.
U can use star san as acid 5 x as strong as usual.
Cheers,
Brian

I almost forgot, eye protection and gloves are a good idea!
 
recirculate caustic for 15 minutes,
then rinse,
Recirculate acid for 15 minutes,
then rinse,
sanitize with star san prior to use and or recirculate boiling water.
done
PBW is caustic, but they make stronger stuff.
if your going to use pbw, make it up pretty strong in 150° water.
U can use star san as acid 5 x as strong as usual.
Cheers,
Brian

I almost forgot, eye protection and gloves are a good idea!

I'm no chemist but doesn't caustic soda attack copper and stainless fairly rapidly ?
 
I'm no chemist but doesn't caustic soda attack copper and stainless fairly rapidly ?

I'm not either, but I haven't seen any negative affect.
I have used five star chemicals and am now using chemicals from Madison Company and what I stated is the process they have us use.
I doubt using over the counter concentrations would be harmful.
Cheers,
Brian
 
According to the Five star site "PBW is an alkaline, non-caustic, environmentally and user friendly cleaner."
 

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