cleaning cooler

[neil smith]

hi all, i have got one of the german stainless plate coolers does anyone here use one, if so how do you clean it out as it gets clogged with small bits of malt and hops that
are hard to shift, i keep flushing one way then the other for ages but bits still keep coming out, i even soaked over night with a very strong solution of caustic soda that went all mucky when tipped out then flushed lots more but still bits keep coming out, any other ideas please.
Cheers Neil

[kandycorn]

Hi Neil

Auto clave in a pressure cooker for about 45 min, if you havnt got one of those boil it in a large saucepan once a day for the next few days, or and i havnt tried this one cook in oven on a high heat ,you do need a pretty fine hop strainer, the other thing you can do is to vorlauf after the boil this encourages the hops to gather around the filter,acting as a strainer.

cheers

[neil smith]

hi, what does the boiling do apart from cook the bits of hop and grain, when i get it properly clean i will make a hop back from an old cider keg and let wort drain through a fine net curtain then pump through plate cooler that should filter out any small bits getting in.
cheers Neil

[kandycorn]

Hi Neil

Sounds like a good idea, the only thing i can say is that after my first pressure cooker boil the water turned a slight green colour, presumably due to gunge cleared, out i then pumped cleaner through it and that appeared clear, the only other thing that has occured to me is to blast the thing through with a jet wash, ill let you know how i get on with that one later, mine packed up last October so off to B&Q. I have noticed that a few brewers are not entirely happy with the plate chiller idea because of the difficulties of cleaning, personally if i have any problems that i think i can attribute to crud build up in the plates that i cant get rid of, i am going down the no chill road.

cheers

[neil smith]

just had a word with a mate who is a plumber and he said he will power flush it for me, they use a strong chemical under pressure that they use for flushing all the crud out of rads, pipes and more importantly heat exchangers in boilers that are the same as a plate cooler, so fingers crossed and will post when done.
cheers Neil

[kandycorn]

Nice one Neil, i can see a few of plumbers slightly over refreshed in the near future

[boingy]

The trick is to stop the crap getting in there in the first place. Get a good hop stopper, recirculate the first few litres out then fit something like this between the boiler and the cooler:

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Plumbin ... 696/p79459

[neil smith]

hi, yes looked at them but far to small for the amount i brew up to 160 litres, but i have just finnished my hop back and will give it a try tomorrow and report results.
cheers Neil

[Kev888]

If you're getting bits in the plate chiller your hop stopper is not good enough; its hard to blast bits out of a plate chiller if they get lodged in and pretty impossible to get them all out, so (as boingy says) you have to stop them getting in to begin with.

Unfortunately fine filters block more easily so they have to be quite big - look around at the big mesh envelopes people like aleman have made with #40 or #36 stainless mesh. That little filter is a good idea, and you can get stainless ones on ebay. The point is that its a safety to protect your chiller - NOT the actual hop stopper - so it shouldn't get clogged.

Don't really know what you can do if your chiller has already been getting so much stuff in as to be blocked, you may never clear it completely. I'd certainly pressure-cook/autoclave it before use - this is a professional way to sterilise things and the heat will penetrate the bits and kill infections, whereas chemicals may not.

Cheers
Kev

[neil smith]

hi, i filled with starsan and let soak after flushing out well both ways, then left after boil for 1/2 hour till all hops settled, then used my new hop back for first time and what a result the fine curtain mesh filtered great and left wort clear so when i flushed chiller out their were no bits, one happy chappy.
cheers Neil