I would love to see if anyone has every cross sectioned their plate chiller after many uses. We all know the only reservation brewers have on these is their inability to know if it is really clean.
I pledge $2 to whoever will dissect their plate chiller. 99 more people on board and we should have a show…
Oh heck, I’ll play. $2 for cross-section pics from a well-loved plate chiller.
What’s the difference between this and the film on the outside of an immersion chiller that “sanitizes in the boil” and makes your copper come out shiny? Recirc some hot wort through for a few minutes before you chill and it doesn’t matter what’s in there.
If you really care, make a hop stopper. I have and I never see any particulate come out when I backflush.
I think the difference is that with a plate chiller you have densely packed, angular surfaces that seem more likely to harbor hop/trub debris. That and you can’t see what you’re dealing with. I’m with you though in that if recirculating sanitizing boiling wort doesn’t work, I’m hosed someday. Even with that and the fact that I backflush, flush and backflush again after every batch, I can help but worry a bit about what’s jammed into the nooks and crannies. I get a lot of debris out of the chiller when I backflush.
Do you use your hop stopper with a pump? I have one but haven’t used it thinking I’d clog it up by using my pump.
To the OP, I’ll throw in two bucks if somebody wants to cross section their well used chiller and post the results.
Put in enough to buy me a new one, and I’ll chop my therminator into as many pieces as you want.
I am NOT putting $2 on the table to see Tom chop up his plate chiller. It’s like looking inside a burrito - some things you just don’t do.
But unlike the burrito, you wouldn’t have to put this back together again.
perhaps we can check in with the research department at Blichmannn? Is this the sort of thing that the AHA would be willing to fund research on?
If not, I am in for a buck or two as I want to buy a plate chiller, but get squeemish at the thought of not getting it clean.
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I used to take my friend’s plate chiller to work and put it in a large ultrasonic cleaner. No matter how many cycles were used I could never stop small particles from being backwashed.
True - or eat it. Mmmm copper.
Me too! I have had a Therminator for many, many years.