30 Plate Heat Exchange Cleaning

[bL@De]

Hey there Guys,
Did my first AG Saturday, all went well however thought just before packing everything up I thought I would run some water through the heat exchange to get it all clean.

So far I have run through about 50L of cold water and hops mainly appear to be still coming out, any idea's on how best to get it all clean. When we finished Saturday night we left water in it as suggested but I'm amazed at how much is coming through.

On the upside the new kettle will have a hop screen, didn't even think about it for the current setup.

Any idea's would be great.

Thanks

Cheers
Darren

 

[seravitae]

backflush it, ie put water in through the outlet.

plate exchangers will hold an amazing amount of crap, not a lot you can do except continue to flush it out. Using hot water may help - hot water will dissolve more. Also rinse it through with PBW or an oxy cleaner.

Also are you whirlpooling before you run your wort through the exchanger? Garbage in, garbage out..

 

[Ecosse]

Aye same problem here. I fill a kettle with warm PBW and backflush for an hour (using a strainer to catch the hop matter). It's like the Tardis in there. I also vary the input and output flow for a bit as that seems to dislodge more. At the end I reverse the hoses and then reverse the flow and more spurts out.

Last batch I switched to hop bags and, not surprisingly, noticed a dramatic drop in the crap.

 

[///]

I know alot about heat-ex's and cleaning fortunately, due to a new product I have been working on over the last 10 months.

The guys are right, heat-ex's hold lots of crap. Also by ways of the action, protein deposits build up over time. As time goes on, biofil builds up which further increases the build of proteins and tannins.

Caustic cleaners will help, but can work in reverse burning on the proteins and tannins over time which further attach to biofilm. The best plan of attack in the long run is to use an enzyme based cleaner with a weak (0.25%) caustic solution and recirculate for an hour to affect proper cleaning which attacks biofilm and therefore minimises the attach points of protein, tannin and microbes.

Seems OT? Heat-ex's are the major infection point in breweries by nature of thier being (tight, dark and sugar rich environments) Using a standard hot caustic wash over the last 10 months since we have taken over the brewery still lead to micro biological levers to 10 to the power of 6 (ie. a crap load). 1 remediate with a 50:1 solution of enzyme and 0.25 caustic saw the levels of microbs quartered. With a weekly appllication of 1:500l and 0.25% caustic sees the levels at those of potible water.

Product will be on the market in the next month or 2, will post on the AHB.

Scotty

 

[bL@De]

Cheers guys, seems like I'm on the right track.

I've been running through hot water shaking the heat exchange and seems to have dislodged a fair bit more, will give PBW a try in a bit.

Yes we did do a whirlpool but given from the kettle it goes into a tap so there's nothing preventing any hop matter hitting the heat exchange.

 

[skippy]

i've got a 30 plate HE, and after going through the hassle of cleaning them all the time,I wished i just brought a copper pipe counterflow H/E!

 

[domonsura]

I have been using a 30 plate for quite some time now, I backflush immediately following brew with cold mains pressure, then hot soduim percarbonate solution which gets recirc'd and then left to sit for a couple of hours. Then rinse with potable water & sanitise. I also sanitise with fresh solution prior to use, and recirc hot wort through the exchanger before the cooling water gets turned on.
I do use a hopscreen, but that doesn't prevent every little bit of debris from getting into the h/e - despite this, I have never had an issue. I don't think that cleaning them is that much of a drama to be honest, but it does require that something is done in a timely fashion, rather than leaving them sitting with crap in them.

 

[Sammus]

Weird.. I just pump hot water through mine after each brew and never see any crap come out :\ I'm worried about what might be built up in there now lol...

before I chill l I have my HLT on full biccy, recirculating boiling water through the HE for at least 30mins - I always imagined that would be enough to take care of any nastys - the water never fouls during the recirc, so I always figured running ~10L of boiling water through there post chill was good enough. Never done anything else to it.

 

[///]

Weird.. I just pump hot water through mine after each brew and never see any crap come out :\ I'm worried about what might be built up in there now lol...

Mate, you had better give me a buzz. Once did the same with a hot water flush, it came out of the heat ex orange ...

Will fix you up with the cleaner ...

Scotty

 

[ausdb]

I purchased a secondhand mashmaster plate HX a few months back, before I used it I did alternate cleaning sessions of 2% hot caustic and then hot citric acid at 2% w/w both as backflush and then normal flow pumping it around with my pump. A fair bit of crud and floaty bits came out......

In my kettle I have a piece of 1/2" copper tubing around the outer edge as a wort pickup that is slotted like you would have in a mash tun and also use one of these filters inline from my kettle before the HX (I think Batz uses something similar) so the only thing that gets to build up in the HX is break material

Now after a brew I use a similar process to Domonsura a reverse blast with main pressure water to get whatever particles I can out and then recirculate hot percarbonate via pump and kettle in my kettle to clean and after every few brews recirc citric acid.

One question I have always wondered since going to a plate HX, do you store it dry or wet? (full of sanitiser) I have been filling mine with iodophor and then joining the ends of my silicone tubing with a barbed hose joiner so the HX is always full of iodophor but will admit to not being sure if this is a good or bad idea :unsure:

I used to blast CO through my copper CFWC and store it dry but you can never seem to get all of the liquid out of the plate HX.

Scotty I would be interested in the enzyme stuff when it becomes available.

 

[Sammus]

I purchased a secondhand mashmaster plate HX a few months back, before I used it I did alternate cleaning sessions of 2% hot caustic and then hot citric acid at 2% w/w both as backflush and then normal flow pumping it around with my pump. A fair bit of crud and floaty bits came out......

In my kettle I have a piece of 1/2" copper tubing around the outer edge as a wort pickup that is slotted like you would have in a mash tun and also use one of these filters inline from my kettle before the HX (I think Batz uses something similar) so the only thing that gets to build up in the HX is break material
View attachment 31647
Now after a brew I use a similar process to Domonsura a reverse blast with main pressure water to get whatever particles I can out and then recirculate hot percarbonate via pump and kettle in my kettle to clean and after every few brews recirc citric acid.

One question I have always wondered since going to a plate HX, do you store it dry or wet? (full of sanitiser) I have been filling mine with iodophor and then joining the ends of my silicone tubing with a barbed hose joiner so the HX is always full of iodophor but will admit to not being sure if this is a good or bad idea :unsure:

I used to blast CO through my copper CFWC and store it dry but you can never seem to get all of the liquid out of the plate HX.

Scotty I would be interested in the enzyme stuff when it becomes available.

As I said at the end I pump a heap of boiling water through mine, well as my HLT runs low, seal the pump and chiller in a closed circuit full of said boiling water.

And Scotty, I've got your number here somewhere, I'll give you a buzz soon.

 

[///]

The action of the heat exchange creates build up on the plates, which straight water will struggle to budge.

We flush with hot water between each batch and when done (so sometimes 3 times a day) which all runs clear ... when we run thru the cleaners within 10 seconds the solution goes black and off comes the crud.

Scotty