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Immersion Chiller Questions
1. Can these induce off flavors in the wort even if they are cleaned/sanitized properly?
2. Should the wort be circulated with spoon or left still while being chilled?
I have a ten gallon chiller that I am using for 5 gallon batches (until I get my 15 gallon SS pot) I chilled my last batch to 80 Deg. in 11 Min. with some light circulation assistance and I am very happy with it. I assume most have gone to plate chillers because they take up less space and are easier to clean so I was curios to your thoughts.
Plate chillers aren't easier to clean. There's tons of nooks and crannies that you can't see and you need to make sure you do a thorough job when cleaning them. An immersion chiller is pretty effiecient and easy to clean; nothing wrong with it at all.
As long as you're making it from copper or stainless steel then it won't impart any off flavors in your beer.
Circulating the wort while chilling with a spoon will greatly reduce the amount of time needed to chill your wort.
From Palmer:
For routine cleaning of copper and other metals, percarbonate-based cleaners like PBW are the best choice. For heavily oxidized conditions, acetic acid is very effective, especially when hot. Acetic acid is available in grocery stores as white distilled vinegar at a standard concentration of 5% acetic acid by volume.
Brewers who use immersion wort chillers are always surprised how bright and shiny the chiller is the first time it comes out of the wort. If the chiller wasn't bright and shiny when it went into the wort, guess where the grime and oxides ended up? Yep, in your beer. The oxides of copper are more readily dissolved by the mildly acidic wort than is the copper itself. By cleaning copper tubing with acetic acid once before the first use and rinsing with water immediately after each use, the copper will remain clean with no oxide or wort deposits that could harbor bacteria. Cleaning copper with vinegar should only occasionally be necessary.
You do not need to clean copper shiny-bright after every use. With time, the copper should take on a dull copper color, not black, not green or blue, just dull, like an old penny. This copper oxide is relatively inert to wort and will mimimize copper dissolving into the wort, more so than shiny-bright copper.
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.
I have never experienced nor heard of a copper IC causing off flavors, so I think the answer to that question is no.
Secondly, I used to just let the chiller sit in the wort and it would chill down while I did other things. But I started to leave my stainless brew spoon in the pot at flameout, and I stir occasionally once the wort has started to cool to 180F ish. It definately speeds things along.
Lastly, I don't think most people have plate chillers. They are definately nice, but take more care to clean and maintain.
I have a stainless immersion chiller. I put it in the boil kettle with 10-15 minutes left in the boil. then when the boil is done, I move the pot over near the sink, hook the hoses up to the chiller and let the cold water go through. I swirl pretty gently at first, until the wort has cooled down, then start stirring like mad to help get the temp down the rest of the way, and aerate the wort. I haven't noticed any off flavors from it. After words, it's the easiest thing to clean, just run some water over it and it's clean.
Plate chillers are easy to clean. Soak in PBW rinse then spray with star san. If you are still worried just don't turn on your hose water for a few minutes. That 200 degree water will kill anything.
Sorry Wort Not Water.
+1 on plate chillers.
bruguru wrote:
Plate chillers are easy to clean. Soak in PBW rinse then spray with star san. If you are still worried just don't turn on your hose water for a few minutes. That 200 degree water will kill anything.
Do you backflush yours?
I used my plate chiller a few times before building a back flush assembly for it. Had some nasty protein and mold junk come out of it the first time I used it. Luckily none of those beers had any issues.
I just bought the 40 plate version off Keg Cowboy. Now I need to figure all the Q.D.'s.
Are most people using the stainless Q.D. at the kettle and the polysulfone at the plate chiller? I would think the burner would eventually melt the polysulfone. Maybe not.
I am also going to either buy or build a hop rocket and want to keep all the hoses universal.
I bought a short stem dial thermometer off Ebay for $20 (25degree-125degree in 1 degree increments) and was planning on doing something like Morebeer does with the stainless NPT "t" at the chiller out port. I would also like to put an oxygen port in, has anyone else found the screw in stone?
Plate chillers are easy to clean. Soak in PBW rinse then spray with star san. If you are still worried just don't turn on your hose water for a few minutes. That 200 degree water will kill anything.
I also just got a plate chiller and had a few questions about how my process should change. I was gonna just flush with star san and then let her rip. Should I plan on running the boiling wort for a while before I turn on the cooling water, just to make sure everything is really sanitary? was going to run star san through my pump, chiller, lines, and whirlpooler before chilling and then drain the system and then start cooling the wort. But if the everything is clean from PBW could I just cycle the 200 degree wort for a while to sanitize, because that would be a lot easier. fewer buckets and such for me to be moving around.
Thanks
ID
I feel that post brew care is easiest. After chilling, I do a backflush to blow just about everything out. That is with the hose having a QD to connect to the wort "in" and "out" ports. After the backflush let it boil in some hot water. Then flush it again in the sink. Finally I submerge it in some starsan and let it sit until next brew.
@thirsty
Do you fill it with starsan and let it sit, or just drop it in a bucket of starsan?
How long do you let it sit like that? Are you still brewing weekly?
Won't the prolonged exposure to the acid of the star san slowly eat all the copper in the chiller? I know that most plate chillers are almost all stainless but the brazing that holds it all together is made of copper. Just a thought
ID
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