heat exchanger

[revolutioned]

We have been having trouble with our plate heat exchanger. I just wanted to get an idea about what other breweries are doing to keep their heat exchanger clean. We back flush with PBW and Acid 5 then rinse with water. When we go to sanitize before the next use, the water in the exchanger smells really bad and we have to PBW and sanitize it all over again.
I have been looking for chemicals that we can keep in the system that will not react with the steel or the gaskets. So far I have come up with star-xene (chlorine Dioxide). Can someone give me some tips to keep this piece of equipment clean. Thank you for any help you can give.
-Ed

[wailingguitar]

I always had great luck with Birko's CellRmaster or BruReze... would back flush the heat ex with hot water, run the clean cycle with one of those two, back flush rinse, then pack it with either iodophor or peracetic until my next brew day.

[ChesterBrew]

When we go to sanitize before the next use, the water in the exchanger smells really bad and we have to PBW and sanitize it all over again.

Ed, is it a chemical-type bad smell or a sour-type bad smell?

[revolutioned]

Ed, is it a chemical-type bad smell or a sour-type bad smell?

The smell is a rotten sour smell. I was afraid to keep paracetic acid in the exchanger because it may react with the rubber or the metal. I had the same fear with idophor.

[wailingguitar]

... I was afraid to keep paracetic acid in the exchanger because it may react with the rubber or the metal. I had the same fear with idophor.

Every place I have ever worked packed the heat ex with santi, I wouldn't stress on that

[gcbeer]

Piped to Kag Washer

We piped ours to the keg washer. I mix up 10 gallons of PBC (PBW) in the tank and let it circulate while we do other tasks, at least 1 hour usually more. We don't get good results with back-flushing, so it gets hooked up to the inlet and comes out the outlet with the temp set on the keg washer to 150f. It gets a rinse and then acid solution with the same process at 130f for at least 30 minutes. It gets a rinse with 190f water. Then we run oxywave (perocedic acid) for a little while at 150ppm+, roll up the lines and hang them on a rack so the PHE stays full of sanitizer until ready to use. We plate the chiller to see if anything grows if there is a gap in the brewing schedule. It gets a quick runthrough with sanitizer on brewday.

[dick murton]

If it smells bad after caustic, acid and sanitiser, then either the concentrations are not high enough (unlikely I think), or more likely, you simply are not cleaning fast enough, and actually are not cleaning the entire PHE. Depending on the suppliers spec, a typical flow rate for CIP of a PHE is 130% to 150% of forward flow design flow rate. Make sure that the connecting pipes are also being cleaned at high enough flow rates, minimum 1.5 metres / second, though I prefer to be closer to 2 metres / sec. Upt to 2.5 m / sec is OK, but above that is simply wasting energy. And don't forget that that is the flow rate through the largest diameter section of pipe.