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Mead Lovers Digest #0192
Mead Lover's Digest #192 Fri 13 August 1993
Forum for Discussion of Mead Brewing and Consuming
John Dilley, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
another note on immersion chillers (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>
Sterilizing counter-flow chillers (Kinney Baughman)
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Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 09:06:00 +0000
From: "Rick (R.) Cavasin" <cav@bnr.ca>
Subject: another note on immersion chillers
One way to increase the efficiency of an immersion chiller is to
decrease the temperature of the water passing through it:
a) Siphon ice water through it as opposed to running tap water
through it.
b) Add a 'pre-chiller' stage where you put a second coil in
series with the first. The first coil sits in a bucket of
ice water and chills the tap water passing through the chiller
before it reaches the main coil that cools your wort/must.
The hot water generated by the cooling process can be used to
wash dishes, clothes, etc. (for those concerned about wastage).
Alternatively, in winter, just leave the bucket of hot water out
to cool before dumping it (ie. scavenge the heat for your home).
Of course, gently stirring the wort with the chiller helps improve
the cooling efficiency as well.
Cheers, Rick C.
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Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 19:38:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR@conrad.appstate.edu>
Subject: Sterilizing counter-flow chillers
Bob sez:
>In Mead Lover's Digest #190, Mike Lindner discussed some of the pros for using
>a counterflow chiller to cool hot must. It seemed worth mentioning that there
>are some condown 20 s to using using this type of chiller. The main one is
>sanitation. Since the must will pass through the chiller, it's necessary to
>clean and sanitize the inside of the chiller, which appears to be somewhat
>difficult (one of the speakers at the AHA conference mentioned that he had
>switched to an immersion chiller after tracing a persistant infection problem t
o
>his counterflow chiller). An immersion chiller is easy to sanitize - just put
>it in the hot must 10 minutes prior to the end of the heating cycle and let the
>hot liquid kill the nasty bugs.
I often see and hear about the incredible difficulties of keeping
counter-flow wort chillers sterile. Most of the time, though not
this time, these fears come from people who have never used them and
have been listening to other people who have never used them. I've
used a counter flow chiller for over 11 years and have never had a problem.
They do require some special care and feeding but the procedures
for keeping them sterile really aren't that much of a hassel. I'm
not sure why the speaker at the AHA conference had the problem he
did but I'm outlining the sterilization procedure that has worked
flawlessly for me below.
BTW. This issue has been raging over in r.c.b. for the last couple
of days. That it's gone on as long as it has, has as much to do
with the participants as to the issues involved. The interlocutors
are Jack Schmidling and yours truly.
Here comes an edited version of my first post over in r.c.b.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
So you can't see inside 'em. Big deal. If hot water works on the
outside of copper, it follows that it works on the inside as well.
I siphon a couple of gallons of boiling hot water through my chiller
after each round of brewing. To be extra safe, I follow that with some
of my ever present clorox and water solution until it runs cool. Shut
off the flow. Let it sit for 20 minutes while I continue cleaning up,
drain, and store it dry.
Next brew I siphon more clorox solution into the chiller and let it sit
for another 20 minutes while I set everything up. Drain. When I'm
ready to chill I begin by siphoning boiling hot wort through the chiller
until it runs hot out the end. Collect the wort (minus the watery first
runnings), pour back into the boiler, turn on the water and start the
chilling process. There's no way any little critters can survive all
that. Add to that the fact that they use copper to sanitize swimming
pools and you see that there's very little chance for anything to grow
on clean copper.
It's really a pretty simple process and like I said, I've never had a
contaminated batch of beer from my chiller.
If for any reason I have any doubt about the sterility of my chiller,
like when I haven't used it in several months, I siphon a boiling hot
B-Brite and water solution through it and let it sit for a few minutes.
B-Brite will strip the copper and leave it sparkling clean.
- -------------------------------
As I also said in r.c.b., the debate over the relative advantages of
counter-flow over immersion chillers will never end. However, I do
hate to see CF chillers disparaged because of bogus claims about how
difficult it is to keep them sterile. The overwhelming advantage they
have over immersion chillers is the fact that each drop of boiling hot
wort or honey and water solution goes from boiling to pitching temperature
in about 5 or 6 seconds. This gives very little opportunity for bacteria
to take hold, assuming everything is sterile, of course.
My 2 cents worth.
___ ----------------------------------------------------------- ___
| | Kinney Baughman | |
| | baughmankr@conrad.appstate.edu | |
\ / \ /
| "Beer is my business and I'm late for work" |
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End of Mead Lover's Digest
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