Blistering cold day here (low of -4, high of 9 -20-something windchill) so I decided to hunker down for the day. I brought in a mountain of firewood, watched some b-ball, and did some projects. One of my projects was to work on my Therminator. My typical routine is after the brew day, I fill my boil kettle with 3-4 gallons of hot water, dump in some cleaner and pump a loop through my pump and chiller. A couple times I did an acid rinse for beer stone, but that’s it. I figured that should take care of whatever was produced from the brew day.
First step is I let it soak in hot cleaner for an hour or so. (local PBW substitute — non-caustic alkaline cleaner). I moved it around good to make sure all the channels got some cleaner. Flushed that out with hot water. Some crud came out. Figured lets get medieval — I put it in the pressure cooker for a half our. Water was copper-ish with some floaties. Figure what the hey, MSU is losing, lets to it again. Water still a little discolored, but better, figured I was good to go, lets make some soup for dinner. Then tonight, decided to do it right and hit it up with caustic cleaner then an acid rinse. I boiled up some water, added caustic and soaked it in there for 15 minutes. When I pulled it out, all kinds of floaties came out. Interesting. Lets put it back in for another 15. Pulled it out, more floaties. Well, lets flush it. What a mess! It filled the sink with swamp crud. I couldn’t believe it. It was absolutely disgusting.
I highly recommend anyone with a Therminator or Shiron plate chiller find some caustic and do this. Be very careful, wear goggles and elbow chemical gloves. That crud can’t be left in there.
The good news is I pulled my pump heads apart that they were clean as a whistle.
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