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**Diamond Knot** · 03-09-2006, 08:46 PM

Damien,

Not knowing your Brewery size or procedures, i would recommend the following as well:

1.) Dump your yeast and start fresh.

2.) Disassemble the Heat Exchanger and clean each leaf in caustic. Oftentimes, especilly of you use whole leaf hops, you can get some chunks wedged up in there. Once a brew film has started growing on the leaves, it doesn't just CIP off. I have had to scrub ours, and we disassemble pretty regularly.

3.) If you filter your beer, check the media and the filter itself. I know several brewer's who have witnessed shorter than usual shelf times due to the filter adding contaminants while filtering out the yeast.

4.) If you use straight side Sankeys, check your keg washing procedures. There are whole discussions on this, but the washer must pulse to clean and sanitize the outside of the spear properly.

Just a few humble thoughts..........

**tarmadilo** · 03-09-2006, 09:09 PM

I've also found running 200+ degree F water through EVERYTHING from the kettle to the fermenters quite effective. You can kill bugs with heat that won't be adequately touched by chemicals...

Good luck!!!

Tim

**Moonlight** · 03-09-2006, 10:54 PM

First-remember your brewhouse need not be sanitized before the heat exchanger. Don't try to provide breeding grounds, but anything before the HX is mostly immaterial.
Double vote on disassembling heat exchanger. If there are hop pieces poached in delicious wort that are wedged in nooks and crannies, chemicals can never sanitize it. (And if you were a wort/beer eating nasty, wouldn't you enjoy a vacation there?)
How clean and porous is your aeration stone, and has wort (now spoiled) backed up into the oxygen hose?
I found butterfly valve seats that were not sound in my brewery, and now check each one as it is up for cleaning. Very shocking to have one nearly crumble upon dissasembly. A little finger inserted inside to feel if the seat is smooth seems to work-otherwise they are a perfect hangout for nasties to "chill" waiting for their next meal. Also visually check for growth around where handle shaft goes thru valve body on both sides as a sign of leakage and a nasty resevoir. Valve seats are the perfect nasty habitat if every obvious other thing is perfectly clean, yet they seem so impervious to nasties without close inspection.
Perhaps the thermostat or thermometer used to gauge sterilization got whacked and isn't reading correctly anymore. Happens way too often.

**RobZamites** · 03-09-2006, 11:34 PM

My two cents:
if you take 10 minutes more in your brewday to be obsessive about sanitizing, and that makes you sleep comfortably at night, DO IT.
I spray the living daylights out of my TC fittings before transferring beer, filtering, anything. I sleep well at night, knowing I did everything possible (for me) to make wort and yeast happy! I soak things in Iodophor, not for the nice deep orange stain, but to know that bugs are dead. It makes me sleep well.
I cycle acid then iodophor through my filter, knowing I've minimized bug counts - hence making me feel good about the brew I'm about to filter. I sleep well.

**MikeJordan** · 03-10-2006, 12:58 PM

I also believe the brewhouse CIP cycles your using most likely will not clear up your sanitation issues. I would think your infection is post heat exchanger in the brewhouse or elsewhere in the cellar (hoses, tanks, etc..) Once you establish your Critical Control Points (CCP) you should be able to pinpoint an area of micro. infection. I'll do my best to answer the questions you have:

In what condition do you leave your brewhouse after cleaning, ie:

Drain valves open or closed?

We leave all drain valves open on the brewhouse vessels. The WK, WH and Heat Exchanger are CIP'ed everynight. The rest of the brewhouse is CIP'ed after the brewing week is over.

Manway doors open or closed?

Manyway doors are closed after tank has been CIP'ed and sanitized. Doors on BH vessels are always closed.

Manway gaskets installed or stored?

Since the tanks are closed the manway gaskets are installed. Note that the manway gaskets for tanks are hand cleaned every use, sanitized and put back onto tank after CIP.

Drain valves attached or removed?

Drain valves are attached during CIP but occassionally removed prior to CIP to inspect or replace valve lining.

Racking valves attached or removed?

Racking valves are removed and scrubbed and then placed back into tank for CIP.

Do you dissemble and soak the perlick valves during each cleaning?

Yes, every time. Soaked in sanitizer before reassembling tank after CIP.

Heat exchanger -- full of liquid or empty? If full, what liquid?

Heat exchanger is left full after daily CIP. During the week hot water is sanitizer after caustic CIP. At the end of week packed with sanitizer.

This system works well. It is also "checked" frequently as every brew length a sterile wort sample is collected for micro plating. CCP's are plated frequently and fermenter are plated.

As previously mentioned the entire brewhouse is CIP'ed at the end of the week. This also includes dissembling wort aeration equipment and cleaning and sanitizing equipment. The aeration filter is SS so it is autoclaved to guarantee sterilization.

As Rob mentioned--soaking tubs are nice for parts. One tub for cleaning, one tub for sanitizing.

When CIP'ing your heat exchanger make sure your flow rate is close to the flow rate you chill your wort. If you think it's plugged or fouled run a CIP in reverse to help loosen any chunks. This might make all the difference or at least make hand cleaning of each plate a little easier.

Good luck and I hope you're successful in ridding the source of infection.

MJ

**Valleybrew** · 03-10-2006, 03:22 PM

Many excellent suggestions, another potential culprit can be beer stone in fermenters and serving tanks, especially in the manway shadows. Beer stone can harbor some real nasty creatures deep in the stone that sanitizer may not penetrate to. A good visual inspection with a heavy hot acid wash will clear it up quite quickly.
Good Luck

**pbutlert** · 03-10-2006, 06:43 PM

Cleaning

I also agree with Moonlight and Mike J(we met at GT and CDA brewing-always nice to have one of the "big boys" on this little forum!). I have seen only one problem area in a brewhouse in my 16 yrs. of experience, many problems elsewhere. Make sure you are getting at least 1 1/2-2x the process flow with cleaners thru your heat x., or else it will require frequent breakdowns. Always take apart everything possible when doing CIP, soaking any part that is not a part of the "pumping" process- always visually inspect any CIP'd equipment. Leave things open to drain overnight, or pack with a sanitizer. We may be "brewmasters", but it has always seemed to me that a "CIP master" is an often overlooked/underrated part of any brewing job. Good Luck!

Paul Thomas
Bitter Root Brewing

**Damien** · 03-19-2006, 03:15 PM

Thank you all!

Folks--

Thank you all so much for your great advise. Of note, our heat exchanger was full of junk, mostly hop leaf debris.

After a thorough cleaning (entire brewhouse) we brewed again and the forced wort sample is still clear after 96 hours. Also sampled with HLP media and clear at 96 hours.

Every other recommendation was implemented as well and we feel alot better.

Thanks again,
Damien

**tarmadilo** · 03-19-2006, 06:42 PM

Also, I'd recommend that the cleaning cycle for your pumps, hoses and heat exchanger be in reverse, that is to backflush your heat exchanger. I've always done it that way, and I find it does a particularly good job of flushing out all the nasties that lodge in there. We'd very occasionally take the HE apart to inspect it, and it was pretty much always clean as a whistle...

Cheers, Tim

**RobZamites** · 03-21-2006, 04:39 PM

I'm with Tim on this one -- it's my practice to alternate forward and reverse (i.e. backflushed) caustic cycles on my HX. Periodically, I'll throw in a hot acid loop in it to minimize beerstone.

Cheers!

**brewman21** · 03-26-2006, 12:35 AM

I'm also with tim and rob on this one.The HX is usually the problem.I always do a 3 step clean in reverse flow with p.b.w then acid rinse, and pack with chlorine dioxide. Make sure hose is higher than top of HX to make sure all areas are being contacted !!!! Good Luck!!!!!!!!!

**BrendanM** · 05-04-2007, 10:29 AM

also, this may be elementary to cleaning the Hx, but there's the "filling the crossovers" - technique, using your pbw/or whatever - run it thru hot, then throttle your output back as low as possible to allow the pump to pack that sucker, shut it down, backflush in the morning. That helped a ton.

I like taking samples whenever I can. I have a very small system (bop kettles) and no lab, so I by name brand water bottles at the gas station - dump, and fill from output hose, and cap. I think that's far more sterile than anything I could get in the brew house.

hope this went well, the thread was very informative.

**Michael Murphy** · 05-04-2007, 10:57 AM

Hot water will kill everything in its path...

except that undersea bacteria that lives near lava flows

**BrendanM** · 05-04-2007, 08:51 PM

Doesn't the hot water bakes on protein globs that will then be very very difficult to remove, other than disassembling and srubbing.

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Infections, Cleaning and Sanitation

Infections, Cleaning and Sanitation

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