Refreshing to see that someone can be this honest. I am certain this is only a small setback and that you will only go on to bigger and better things. Onward and upward!

The struggle is real. I've got a similar heat exchanger, and it is an absolute pain to keep clean and sanitized. I suspect that one of my batches last season may have picked up some off flavours from the chiller, but not enough to keep the beer off the menu. Since then, I've really focused on my cleaning regimen. As for yeast, I have yet to take a yeast beyond a second or third generation. We are a new brewery/taproom, and I am somewhat inexperienced, having been recruited from a home brewing background. It's expensive pitching fresh yeast every batch, but it seems to help with consistency. Don't let this setback get you down.

Same thing happened to me once, this will be only a small setback, thank you very much for sharing, being honest and transparent. Now I run hot caustic in both directions every single time immediately after I finish transferring, so nothing is left inside the heat exchanger.

Thanks for the honesty, it’s a really good lesson to share with the community. Take it in stride and keep brewing!

Best wishes on the deep cleaning cycle, and good luck moving forward.

I wish you the best! Totally appreciate your honesty and showing us the other side of the business. Keep up the great work!

Sorry to hear of your loss keep the faith

If you’re able to on brew days, run 180 degree plus water through your knockout loop before knockout for about 5 minutes. That will heat sanitize it and kill any sort of infection within the heatex. That’s what the brewery I used to work at did and we never had any issues. Best of luck!

Oh man, that's painful, but the right decision nonetheless. I hope you recover quickly from this. All the best!

so sorry to hear this. I hope you can bounce back quickly!

I applaud your honesty and sheer guts. I do vids too and to be this honest take character. I’m also adding a nano to my family’s bbq and I’ve been watching your videos. And they are really helpful! Thanks!! Wishing you all the best. Merry Christmas to you and yours!! John

That is a real kick in the nads. I hope you can get things cleaned up and have enough capitol to buy a wort chiller

What a set back. You did the right thing though.wishing you the best Christmas that can be expected. 🍻🍻🍻🍻

thanks for letting us see the warts as well, thats where knowledge & growth come from

Good on ya buddy and I feel ya… I’m basically a one man show too and I totally hear ya on the “solo brewer” bias… This whole project can weigh heavy on us…but I’m looking forward to your follow up videos after you’ve refilled your tanks and everything’s back on track. Keep it up and keep in mind…you are not alone being alone! ;-)

Damn that sucks. So sorry to hear. I'm pulling for you.

Don't give up- we can only guess how this feels but it will make you stronger and better in the end.

Sorry to see the dump. It hurts but you did the right thing. Quality > everything. Best wishes for 2024.

I applaud your transparency. For that plate chiller, clean it as best you can inside, then bake it on the oven for a few hours, then run caustic/sanitizer through it again once it's cooled down. Good luck!!

damn man that blows, hope you bounce back strong

A long pump clean of PBW at 170 °f for an hour of the chiller, rinse and fill with sanitizer. Valves can be a problem too. Sucks to have to dump! Working on a 7th gen of US05 =)

Kudos to you for making the tough decision to put your high quality standard ahead of short term profits. It will pay off in the long run so hang in there.

Hey just now catching up on your videos! Happy to see you are back up and running! One question, are there other solutions besides a large plate chiller for cooling your beer? Something like a large counterflow chiller where it may be easier to clean?

At your size, it's a tough loss. It's not just the revenue loss, but the labor, ingredients, and time that went into the beers that were dumped. You're obviously someone with integrity and you made the right decision. Besides flushing and back-flushing the chiller with PBW at 170F, I do know that some brewers put plate chillers like yours in a 400F oven for a couple hours. Nothing survives that.

One of my favorites local breweries is going through the same exact thing--but they don't seem to know it. I don't have the heart to complain to them, I'm hoping they realize it soon.

Ouch! I have had to dump some kegs of homebrew before, not fun, but it is a learning experience. Dust yourself off, cleanup, and get back on the Bull!!

After brewing a 2 barrel batch of Saison, I failed to properly clean and sanitize my cold side hoses and gaskets, and introduced a nasty S.Diastaticus wild yeast strain, which contaminated the brewhouse, ruining another 6 barrels of beer. Had to replace all the hoses, gaskets and seals, clean and sanitize everything, including the floors, walls and overhead, burned all rags, threw away clothing, boots, gloves and goggles; that did it. Finally got Diastaticus out of my life. So, ya, my problem was sanitation as well. Lesson learned.

Ahh man that sucks!!!! Hope you can get some beer back in there quickly so you don’t lose out on too much revenue, cheers 🍻

You need to make a total clean of everything. Change all gaskets and hoses. First a mix of caustic and sodium hypochloride to get rid of all organic residue on all surfaces (Not over 50 degrees celsius or it eats stainless steel) and then acid to kill everything left and neutralize the steel. For the heat exchanger maybe some booster of H2O2 to be sure to get rid of burned sugar residues at the hot end. Have a program of detecting wild yeast in the last flushwater to verify your equipment are clean. There are methods to detect wild yeast in your product while in fermentation. So you stop reuse contaminated yeast. Yeast can be cleaned with phosphoric acid at pH2,1 to kill off bacterias and some wild yeast. Ask help from a good chemical surplyer for brewing industry and a lab for MiBi detection. They will hel fix the problem. Remember if you haven't ditched bad beer you have brewed too little. /Head brewer in Sweden (30 million liters a year)

Dude that sucks. Sorry that happened. :( hopefully it doesnt happen again. Is there a way to propogate fresh yeast from homebrew packs to build up to your pitch rates over a couple of additions of fresh wort?

I sympathize with you, consider buying a counterflow cooler. I have 100l / approx. 25gal pots, last time I was brewing my heat exchanger broke, part of the brew went into the sewer but the rest was saved, but else cool half the night... anyway, I bought a counterflow cooler for a triclamp, cleaning is a beautiful😁

When flushing my plate chiller I run caustic through the normal direction and then reverse the floor and repeat until clean Not sure when you flush yours but I also flush my right after knockout

I use a plate chiller aswell and I clean the crap out of it, I've baked it, flushed both directions and still get a bit of sediment coming out every pass. Man, Maybe a counter flow chiller might be my best bet. I know that's not an option for you though. Cheers

Sad sad sad, sad christmas. I have a heat exchanger like yours and I usually wash it with water, caustic soda, rinse, wash with peracetic acid, rinse and save with 70% alcohol. I hope it helps you in the future. Greetings from Trelew, Chubut Patagonia Argentina.

I’m a fan of sour ales, Rodenbach Grand Cru being my weekly go to. Not sure I would have been able to tell something is not right due to Brettanomyces contamination if the “off notes” were presenting as tart/sour.

Sorry to hear about your situation. Some new procedures are probably taking up your your thoughts these days. Have you heard of Sodium Hydroxide (lye)? I am aware that it is a very good caustic cleaner. I am sure you will bounce back! Hope your business has a good 2024.

Sucks! Merry Christmas, I hope Santa brings you full kegs and no open seats!!

Brett infections are not easy to fix. Are you back flushing the heat exchanger? That'll clean it better.

Man, why not changing the processes that you sterilize your heat exchanger first with boiling wort, then start cooling? Back in the days when we had craft microbrewery in Russia, we had that plate heat exchanger with gaskets and never disassembled it. We cleaned it with hot chlorine+caustic solution then washed and sterilized with steam. We made a nice DIY hot steam generator which helped to sterilize almost everything, starting from that heat exchanger finishing with kegs. Also try to freeze propagated 0 generation yeast samples on glycerine. Then you can thaw and propagate each time a new clean sample. This can really help with solving yeast mutations issues and batch by batch contamination.

don't forget to back flush your heat exchanger whilst cleaning! 😇

Sorry to hear that; I’m guessing most of your customers won’t notice it at the same level you and your mentor, with your expertise and hyperfocus on those off-notes, will pick it up. I watched a YT video of a “how to start a brewery” forum (I think it was from 2019 in Boston, but could be wrong), and they mentioned getting batch insurance, so if something goes wrong and you have to dump, they cover it. No clue on cost, or what it takes to get it, but may be an option on the next couple batches just to help cover yourself in case the heat exchanger isn’t the (only) source of the Brett. The video sounded like it was through their regular insurance and pretty cheap but several years ago so who knows now. Good luck on the cleaning and future batches!

Sorry, that is heartbreaking. You could always have a 'This beer is shit so it's free' party!

Happy to not know what a band-aid tastes like hahaha.

Aww man !! I’m sorry about that bro , sucks !!!!

That sucks, man....sorry it happened to you. Honest question though......what did the old English breweries do to cool their wort (late 1800's to early 1900's), and how did they mitigate these types of infections? Are we really any better off with today's tech? Just wondering?

I'm sorry for your loss, buddy. As someone who is now working on a business plan to build Nigeria's second craft brewery, this makes me cringe. I'd like to contact you as well... is that okay? Thank you, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Just a thought......couldn't a series of shotgun condensers be used instead of a plate chiller? Shotgun condensers are readily able to be cleaned and sterilized, and each section can be cooled to whatever degree of your choosing.

Did you send some samples to a Laboratory? Would be interesting to know what exactly happend.

it's worth to get an stainless steel heat exchanger. the copper one wont support the cleaning thorougly

Sorry for your misfortune brother. I understand why you use a plate exchanger. There are options you could use that are completely cleanable, that aren't plate chillers. They would certainly come at significant expense, but I believe would be cheaper than the plate chiller that can be dismantled. I like the straight pass counter flow wort chiller, as the wort runs are straight and can be brushed clean. A system as large as yours would require larger tubing and more runs. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ndCGaqmImbi6aZs.html Cheers brother, best of luck in solving this problem.

just by dry yeast for every batch, less work and less risk of infection

Pretty crappy to hear! Looking forward to hopefully making it down that way someday to taste the goods! Cheers!

Oh man. Painful. Here’s to a speedy bounce-back.

Heat is your best friend. Easy and cheap.

Why not distill it? Licensing hard for that? Look, even if distilling for food grade doesn't work, having concentrated alcohol is useful for doing things like sanitizing, which you need to do apparently

Very unfortunate. I know that other brewers would just go ahead and sell it because few people will note the difference.

😢

I’ve always been curious….at your scale, is it impossible to make starters? Like overbuild a huge starter, and take some of that for the next pitch. May be a dumb question, sorry.

I feel sorry for you. Those welded heath exchangers are a nogo to me. You can't clean them. Just Get a plate and frame heat exchanger. Lesson learned and move on.