The influence of detergent concentration, temperature and flow rate on the time to remove milk deposits from the heated surfaces of a plate heat exchanger was studied. The results indicate that the main reduction in cleaning time was produced by small increases in the passage mean velocity of flow in the range 0.2 to 0.5 m/s. Increasing the temperature to 75 °C also resulted in substantial reductions in cleaning time. Variations in concentration, for which there was an optimum, had the least effect on cleaning time of the parameters investigated