Gasketted stainless heat exchanger

[hebbstar]

I not sure if steam has been discussed as a useful cleaning method yet. I put steam through the wort ports for about ten mins at the week end just before I used it. It got very hot and steam came through the out port.

Is that a good enough sanitise prior to use as well as a good wash our post use ?

Cheers

Paul

[Andy]

I know of a commercial brewery who do just that, use steam for sanitising hoses, chiller etc.

[SiHoltye]

Any suggestions on a procedure for minimising these 'biofilm baddies' for the infrequent brewer?

[Aleman]

Any suggestions on a procedure for minimising these 'biofilm baddies' for the infrequent brewer?

PBW Hot Recirc for 15 minutes, change direction of flow, Drain, rinse , Recirc boiling water for 15 minutes, Seal (Not drained) . . . Job Done

[roscoe]

Sounds a good process....

how do you organise a recirc boiling water ?
(some kind of fancy RIMS inline heater perhaps....)
do you have a dedicated 'CIP' small heater/pot, I never did this cos' Boil Kettle is my only current heater, but min boil level takes too long and too costly in PBW etc, however I plan to change BK element from spiral to ULWD that has side benefit of allowing <10L boils rather than 20-25L min.....

It would be much better for me to avoid using BK for pre-boil cos' it 'pre-'blocks the hop filter and generally just makes the brew day more hassley...

Sealed with water... is this best practice if say not brewing for a few months, would starsan/1%naoh/ or at least some kind of disinfectant in water rinse that is compatible with the HE metals/materials ?

Do you pre-filter in any way before your Heat exchanger or just let all break etc pass through ?

[Aleman]

I use my HERMS unit for the hot PBW and 'Boiling' water recirc, with a small (5L) reservoir. This cleans the HERMS coil and the plate chiller.

One thing that is important to remember is that you should not use any acidic based sanitiser (liek starsan) in the plate chiller as the plates are brazed together with copper . . . it dissolves in acid solutions plus as the acidity drops the effectiveness of the sanitiser reduces.

As far as filtering is concerned, I have a Big 8" diameter stainless mesh filter which stops all large particles going through to the PC. Quite a lot of break does make it through the PC.

I've not had any issues just using boiling water in my PC and I have left it for 6-7 months between brews at time. I've also ran hot PBW though the chiller after storage to see if any biofilm has formed (PBW is brilliant for biofilm removal), and it's always clean.

[roscoe]

Sounds like one should stock up, bulk buy style on some more PBW.

The Rims trick sounds neat, but nothing like that is on my shopping list, so I'll just need to think of adding something else to displace more boiling water in my BK to get down to a more manageable 5L cleaning volume. I wonder what I could use ? what is cheap that won't fall apart in an extended boil ..... mmmmm

[SiHoltye]

One thing that is important to remember is that you should not use any acidic based sanitiser (liek starsan) in the plate chiller as the plates are brazed together with copper . . . it dissolves in acid solutions plus as the acidity drops the effectiveness of the sanitiser reduces.

I can't picture the construct in my mind, is what you say 100% true? Does the product contact with copper as it passes through a copper brazed heat exchanger? I'm not doubting, I just want to be sure.

[Aleman]

The solution goes blue when it goes through the PC so I can only assume that it's coming into contact with the copper

[barneey]

More of a turquoise aqua teal colour me thinks

[SiHoltye]

OK. I have experienced that colour thing too when using peracetic and saniclean.

If beerstone build up is ongoing without an acid treatment in the cleaning routine, and given as discussed you can't use acids on copper without partially dissolving it and neutralising the acids sanitising effect, does this mean that over time beerstone build up will render your heat exchanger unsanitizable?

[Kev888]

If you use sufficient heat (such as by autoclaving or steam) then it will still be sanitised in spite of scale and beerstone, though it may grow slowly less effective at transferring heat.

But in practice it takes a long time for the scale to build up and a very 'occasional' acid clean such as with a citric or phosphoric acid solution will quickly remove it again with really very minimal attack of the copper. I 'think' what is really being warned against here is routinely using acid and/or not rinsing it out, so that contact times shoot up.

I heard that hot PBW is actually capable of removing beerstone too, but I've not yet decided how true that is.

Cheers
kev

[SiHoltye]

I think my heat exchanger cleaning/sanitising treatment will run something like this....

All backwards:
Circulate 70degC PBW at 7.5g/l for 15 minutes.
Tap water rinse.
Final rinse IoStar.
Six monthly recirculation of a ph1.8 phosphoric acid solution for 5 minutes then tap water rinse.

Still nervous about the acid though:|


EDIT

Is it true you need stainless to air dry after acid treatment to passivate?

[roscoe]

kinda driftin off topic, but

... tried the new BK min vol still too big, chemical costs too high or too dilute

thinking of hacking an old domestic kettle or the like to get a 2 - 5L header tank heater for HE cleaning

anyone else got an inexpensive non-stainless solution for cleaning these pesky HE

I use my HERMS unit for the hot PBW and 'Boiling' water recirc, with a small (5L) reservoir. This cleans the HERMS coil and the plate chiller.

One thing that is important to remember is that you should not use any acidic based sanitiser (liek starsan) in the plate chiller as the plates are brazed together with copper . . . it dissolves in acid solutions plus as the acidity drops the effectiveness of the sanitiser reduces.

As far as filtering is concerned, I have a Big 8" diameter stainless mesh filter which stops all large particles going through to the PC. Quite a lot of break does make it through the PC.

I've not had any issues just using boiling water in my PC and I have left it for 6-7 months between brews at time. I've also ran hot PBW though the chiller after storage to see if any biofilm has formed (PBW is brilliant for biofilm removal), and it's always clean.

[Kev888]

I previously used a jug kettle with a (heat-proof) plastic tap from an old boiler. I didn't hack the electrics, just switched it on from time to time for a few moments to top the warmth up which seemed to work okay. Some of my cleaning solutions did seem to start affecting the chrome of the element so probably thats a consideration; the element gave out (electrically) before I had a chance to find out if it was a problem or not though.

Cheers
Kev