clean your elements!

[birch]

Commercial brewery cleaning cycles first use alkaline cleaners to remove organic deposits (mainly yeast crud) but it also helps remove the protein crud on elements, followed by a rinse and then acid to sanitize.

-PBW is the home brewer friendly alkaline cleaner; the right kind of dishwasher tabs can work too but you REALLY need to research them. Bringing the water + PBW up to boiling does a lot of the work for you but won't fully remove the crud -simply rub it with a wash cloth and it will be clean in a jiffy!


If you don't want to scrub just use Citric Acid (available at most home brew shops in a crystaline form over by the wine ingredients) and water and boil it for a few minutes. -The stuff is magical and will clean the element 100% without scrubbing.


I add 1-2 gallons extra into my HLT and then while the boil is happening add PBW to my HLT water and start dismantling my mash fitting and hoses and then I soak them in the HLT water after it gets hot for a while; I then recirc the liquid from the HLT through my pumps and mashtun and then after chilling and transferring the liquid out of my BK and rinsing it, I pump the PBW into the BK and power up it's element for 5ish minutes. -A quick scrub with a rag and the elements are 95% clean.

Every 3rd-5th brew I boil with citric acid. I also rotate my elements between my boil kettle and my HLT which helps too (tri clamp fittings are SO easy to swap).


I've only ever brewed with electric elements; I was in Ireland the last 5 years and almost everyone there boils with electric elements as 240v power everywhere and very expensive propane makes it a no brainer.


Adam

How much citric acid do you use per gallon?

 

[atoughram]

I just dry fired my RIMS element at about 50% duty cycle and all the crud I couldnt get off with a wire wheel just fell off. It's a 2KW 240V Rheem

http://bostonheatingsupply.com/SP10868GL.aspx

 

[Poobah58]

I clean all my elements (4) after each brew. What is the big deal? I mean in takes 5-10 minutes people!!!

 

[blizz81]

For those with TC RIMS tubes, are the TC gaskets reusable? Wouldn't think it'd be a big deal to scrub the element if so.

 

[pickles]

Yes they're reusable. You correct it's not a big deal at all.

 

[eonsend]

I would also like to know how much citric acid to use per gallon of water

 

[emyers]

Quick pointer. I use oxy/tsp90 and the first time i cleaned my kettle i boiled some solution, it cracked my sight gauge. Turns out the oxy/tsp90 mix affects the plastic when boiled. Not sure if its just the oxy or the mix.

 

[kal]

It's the oxiclean. Plastic sight glasses are very fragile.

Kal

 

[BBBF]

Quick pointer. I use oxy/tsp90 and the first time i cleaned my kettle i boiled some solution, it cracked my sight gauge. Turns out the oxy/tsp90 mix affects the plastic when boiled. Not sure if its just the oxy or the mix.

I put my sight gauge on a cam lock for this reason. It works great, except that I usually have the keggle half full before I remember to remove the sight gauge.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/cam-lock-sight-glass-temp-probe-my-solution-search-problem-471683/

 

[FredTheNuke]

And here is what happens when you don't clean your RIMS element..... GFCI is a MUST HAVE for electric brewery's.... That or a couple of not so good friends to use as fuses....

This is after about 10-12 standard 1.056 all barley brews and 3 40% wheat lambic brews (15 gallons per batch).

 

[orangehero]

I would also like to know how much citric acid to use per gallon of water

Anywhere from 5-10% w/v would work well. 378 g per gallon for 10%, half that for 5%. Get it hot...personally I like to get it to a boil and then let it cool back to room temp. Elements come out looking new.

 

[kal]

And here is what happens when you don't clean your RIMS element..... GFCI is a MUST HAVE for electric brewery's.... That or a couple of not so good friends to use as fuses....

This is after about 10-12 standard 1.056 all barley brews and 3 40% wheat lambic brews (15 gallons per batch).

Pictures like this are a great example of why I chose to go HERMS. I don't like the idea of not knowing what's in the RIMS tube, or the idea of having to take it apart after every brew to check, or having to recirc a bunch of cleaner for long durations to make sure things are clean.

Kal

 

[FredTheNuke]

Emptying and cleaning that HERMS coil is a female dog too... I started with HERMS but find RIMS to be easier to control accuracy and ramp temps

 

[kal]

Emptying and cleaning that HERMS coil is a female dog too... I started with HERMS but find RIMS to be easier to control accuracy and ramp temps

After mashing and recirculating through the HERMS coil for 60-120 mins, I run all of my sparge water (usually 10-15 gallons worth) through the HERMS coil slowly over the ~90 min sparge.

Like so:

The result is that the HERMS coil is completely clean on the inside after. No cleaning required.

Kal

 

[mattd2]

After mashing and recirculating through the HERMS coil for 60-120 mins, I run all of my sparge water (usually 10-15 gallons worth) through the HERMS coil slowly over the ~90 min sparge.

Like so:

The result is that the HERMS coil is completely clean on the inside after. No cleaning required.

Kal

What about any protein sediment/precipitation that a slow flow of hot water only won't break off? Have you tried cleaning it with CIP or Pigging to 100% check that your method leaves nothing behind? Not saying you are wrong, and at least with HERMS there is little chance or burning anything that is left behind.

 

[kal]

I've recirc'ed hot water (170F) with PBW and nothing came out.

Probably because my 90-120 min mash at 145-155F followed by an equally long sparge of water at 168-170F doesn't allow time for things to cling/settle.

As you mentioned, even if there was a slight built-up, it wouldn't (or doesn't seem to) affect the resulting beer - at least nothing I've noticed in my lightest of lagers (3% ABV, 2 SRM - basically Coors lite).

Kal

 

[FredTheNuke]

Kal - that's my point. I recirced 190 degree water with PBW for quite a bit of time and thought my plate chiller was clean... Then I discovered Sodium Hydroxide.... lesson learned on that one. thread below -

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/plate-chillers-first-lye-cleaning-475581/

I wonder what your HERMS coil would produce if NaOH cleaned. My RIMS is also flushed with the 10-15 gallons of sparge water until nice clear water if flowing from it. I do understand that RIMS adds that extra element of direct heat to bake stuff on to the element. I haven't gotten around to NaOH'ing my RIMS - that is a task set for later this week.

 

[dcbw]

The difference with a plate chiller is the channels are very narrow and can trap hops and grain bits easily. A HERMS coil is usually 1/2" ID and that's way bigger than hop bits and grain particles, so things are much less likely to get stuck. I'm not surprised there was a ton of junk in the plate chiller due to the internal restriction, but would be surprised if there was anything in a coil because its wide open (relatively speaking).

 

[kal]

The liquid in a HERMS coil also stays hot (145-170F) while a plate chiller can have section that may go down as low as 50F (depending on your ground water temps). Cooler wort tends to leave deposits and other nasties a lot easier.

The other big difference is that a plate chiller has to deal with all of the hop oils too which tend to be very sticky. Some of the hop oils left behind in my boil kettle are downright nasty (especially when I use hop extract for very hoppy double or triple IPAs). A HERMS coil does not have any hops as it's used pre-boil. At the worst case, you may have some mash hops, but typically very little by comparison.

So I don't think the comparison of cleaning a plate chiller (or any chiller) with a HERMS coil is really relevant.

Kal