Has anyone ever used draft line solution to clean their therminator? Mine is really dirty, I thought I had been cleaning it sufficiently over the years, boy was I wrong. I soaked it in PBW for almost ten days, flushed it out. I even put it in the over for an hour and flushed it out, still got a lot of debris out of it. So I was just wondering if I could use draft line cleaner? Thanks in advance.
If you're talking about something like Beer Line Cleaner I would say no. BLC's active ingredient is sodium hydroxide, which is used to combat calcium oxalate (beer stone). Your plate chiller is never exposed to beer. Rather, your enemy here is trub/hop particulates. Stick with a thorough and lengthy PBW soak/flush.
While I agree that hop particles are the main problem, surely one side of a plate chiller is exposed to wort (maybe not beer).
One more reason I like my immersion chiller. A little white vinegar and a magic eraser and it's clean
Got a used one, tryed many of the above treatments as well as others and still got crap coming out. Then bought a stainless immersion chiller. No more problem
In the professional brewing world plate chillers come apart so you can clean them. This is not the case with the Blichmann plate chiller and this will shorten the life of the device. I have never trusted homebrewing plate chillers because I have cleaned a professional one a several times and just saw the amount of junk that would not come out of it with hot caustic acid and high pressure pumps once we cracked it open. These are things homebrewers do not have access to utilize. My suggestion is if you cannot clean it may be to for the recycling bin and a new chiller. I also think the prep on plate chiller is a pain in the ass, immersion for 15 gallons of less, is a time and money saver. IMO.
