[quote=“Nighthawk”]blizzardofoz63, have your read the MSDS sheet for BLC, LLC and PBW? Those products are extremely dangerous also. But everyone thinks because they are sold at HBS the are OK to use.
NAOH is NAOH, doesn’t matter if you buy it at ACE Hardware or Northern Brewer. [/quote]
I agree completely, however IMHO, the biggest danger with using drain cleaner vs BLC, etc. is the dilution of the NAOH crystals. Straight BLC on your skin won’t cause much damage TOO quickly. Drain cleaner spilled on a wet hand could result in a Fight Club branding.
While we’re talking plate-chillers, is there any good “verification step” that you can perform to check if your cleaning procedure for your plate chiller is/has been sufficient?
I mean, it’s not like we can exactly see inside them to visually inspect for cleanliness… so, does anyone have any neat tricks they use to check?
[quote=“Silentknyght”]While we’re talking plate-chillers, is there any good “verification step” that you can perform to check if your cleaning procedure for your plate chiller is/has been sufficient?
I mean, it’s not like we can exactly see inside them to visually inspect for cleanliness… so, does anyone have any neat tricks they use to check?[/quote]
Bake it in the oven and then watch all the chunks come out.
It’s really impossible to get them perfectly clean, you just need to keep them as clean as possible and then ideally sanitize with heat so whatever is left behind isn’t likely to be alive
[quote=“rebuiltcellars”][quote=“speed”][quote=“Chris-P”]I just gave my new Duda Diesel 30 plate chiller a test-drive yesterday… holy crap! I chilled 6 gallons of boiling water down to 65* in like 4 minutes. Thoroughly impressed.
How fast do you run your water? I have one similar to that and so far only ran water through it to see how it would work. I had to run it real slow to cool it enough, took probably 30 minutes.[/quote]
It’s not just the speed of the water flow, but also the temperature of the water. In the middle of the winter, my tap water is <40F. I need to throttle it way back while draining the kettle full open if I don’t want to chill it too cold.[/quote]
It can also be the orientation. The 23a-30 plate unit you purchased is designed for 10-12 gallon per minute flow rate; IF your water pressure is low your water could be as low as 5 gpm, which could make your wort as low as 1 gpm. At 1 gpm your wort would not be able to adequately fill all of the plates which could cause a vacuum or pooling and reduce the effectiveness of the chiller.
Two things to help fix this: 1) Place your wort flow restricting valve after the chiller as opposed to before it - force the chiller to fill completely. 2) Position the chiller with your water going into the top of the chiller flowing downwards while the wort goes in the bottom and flows up. This way gravity helps you fill the unit.
Or easier yet, just place the chiller below both the kettle and the fermentor. That way it has to be full in order for the wort to flow out. That’s what I do. Kettle is on top of a table, and both the chiller and fermenter are on the ground below it. The hose outlet for the wort goes up and into the fermentor, ensuring the chiller stays full.
Hey guys, not trying to hijack this thread, but I saw this chiller on sale and thought I would post it. Seems like a good price to me. 30 Plate Duda Diesel for $92.50
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