Keg/Tap/Beer Line Sanitation/Maintenance

[Bear]

Best practice for line cleaning is every 2 weeks with a standard line cleaner like BLC. then a quarterly acid line cleaning to remove beer stone and water stone. That being said, most recommendations for a home draft system is between every keg, still with a quarterly acid line cleaning. But like it was mentioned earlier, might just be more cost effective to replace your 3/16" beer lines every other keg or so. here's a link to the Brewers Association's Draft Beer Quality Manual, chapter 8 covers line cleaning. tons of other useful info in there too!

https://www.brewersassociation.org/educ ... t-quality/

[TappedOut]

I have a "marks keg washer 2" it was easy and I didn't have to build anything. But after using it for a couple years I'd likely build something more sturdy with a pond pump and possibly a heater or my rims tube/HLT attached.

One advantage of the tub method in the brulosophy link I posted is that you could get a bucket heater from Theisens and put it in for heat.

[Matt F]

I have a "marks keg washer 2" it was easy and I didn't have to build anything. But after using it for a couple years I'd likely build something more sturdy with a pond pump and possibly a heater or my rims tube/HLT attached.

One advantage of the tub method in the brulosophy link I posted is that you could get a bucket heater from Theisens and put it in for heat.

How warm do those buckets get? I use a homemade washer with a submersible pump in a 5 gallon bucket that washes kegs (including dip tubes), carboys, flushes tap lines and it would be nice to keep the water warmer. Cost of the washer was $20 for the pump and less than $10 for PVC pipe, and miscellaneous fittings. I thought about using it with my electric HLT the next time to maintain heat. I have a turkey basket that might work to suspend the pump over the element.

[czubak]

If you already own a sous vide cooker, that can maintain your temps if you want warm. Heck I use it for my strike water

[TappedOut]

I have a "marks keg washer 2" it was easy and I didn't have to build anything. But after using it for a couple years I'd likely build something more sturdy with a pond pump and possibly a heater or my rims tube/HLT attached.

One advantage of the tub method in the brulosophy link I posted is that you could get a bucket heater from Theisens and put it in for heat.

How warm do those buckets get? I use a homemade washer with a submersible pump in a 5 gallon bucket that washes kegs (including dip tubes), carboys, flushes tap lines and it would be nice to keep the water warmer. Cost of the washer was $20 for the pump and less than $10 for PVC pipe, and miscellaneous fittings. I thought about using it with my electric HLT the next time to maintain heat. I have a turkey basket that might work to suspend the pump over the element.

The bucket heater is pretty much a 1kW element on the end of a stick, w/ a guard around it. It gets as hot as 1kW can put out. I picked one up to play w/. If I can find it (we just moved and brewing equip is a disaster area), you're welcome to borrow it to play around w/.

[UndeadFred]

Get a bucket, and a 15A (or 20A if you can, but if so use the 20A plug!) 120V "trailer" water heater element.... You can boil in HDPE. The reason it's no longer allowed at those temperatures for "food grade" usage is that many commercial people attempted to operate these under pressure.. Don't do this...

Drill the hole low in the bucket with a Harbor Freight step drill, use a 1" SS nut bought off of e-bay or Amazon to hold it and the electrical box you also step drilled, and make sure you plug into a GFCI outlet with a decent cord or a piece of Romex and a suitable plug on it.

These are really cheap ways of making a portable water heater for 1/2 the price of the inferior bucket heaters from Theisens (of which I own two of, I raise chickens)...

I can neither confirm nor deny the use of those as a HLT at some point in my brewing adventure. The British actually sell setups like this commercially....

Fred

[Matt F]

All this talk of cleaning lit a fire under my butt. I ran out of beer and got a new drip tray to install so may as well do a full disassemble and clean. I even took apart the taps to their bits and pieces, removed the shanks, and soaked everything stainless in PBW. Came out super clean. Some of my beverage lines had sat for over a month with old beer in them. I know, slacker. It is the anti-microbial stuff and they were clean with just a water rinse. I am still doing a BLC cleaning too, but I was amazed the lines flushed clean with no effort. I like this tubing and should be able to run it for years. My old PVC stuff was shot in no time. Easy to replace, but long term, if you have a line you can actually clean, you save time and money. And when it comes to how the beer tastes, well I am confident it is usually pretty good.

[bf514921]

Ran out of beer?

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[Matt F]

All I have is a little bit of sour I am drinking. I use a separate cobra tap for my sours. American stout will be on soon though with 2.5 gallons of the 7.5 gallon batch done up for Christmas. 10 gallons of imperial stout is bubbling away for a barrel and next week I am doing a Hoppy Wheat/Pale Ale with half the batch getting grapefruit and/or orange zest. All four taps will be flowing by January. Gave away too much beer this fall with not enough brewing.

[bf514921]

Sounds like fun brewing, I need to drink more so I can make more, not to many people stop out my way

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[Matt F]

I got two mfl male jumper connectors at Menards recently so I could connect two draft lines to my home made keg washer where I usually have cornie QDs for my kegs. I can connect two of my four tap lines to the washer. I used old 1/2" tubing to connect the taps so the line cleaner could run in two lines and out the others back to the keg washing bucket. Worked really well and was about a $2 upgrade to use equipment I already had. The keg is there to cap off the top sprayer in the keg washer. I will add a PVC attachment with a cap so I won't have to do that next time.

[czubak]

There ya go! I will be doing something similar once I buy a pump and make up a keg/carboy washer.

I still say these are the best bang for the buck as far as piecing together a cleaning setup. That is if he ever gets them back in stock.
https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/ ... erpost.htm

[Matt F]

Those are cool. These fit my system perfectly.
http://www.menards.com/main/plumbing/ro ... 9765831733

[Eric B]

http://www.micromatic.com/accessories/f ... hment-4353

Look into these so you can take the faucets off and disassemble and clean them while your cleaning lines.

[czubak]

http://www.micromatic.com/accessories/f ... hment-4353

Look into these so you can take the faucets off and disassemble and clean them while your cleaning lines.

I like those! So just running cleaner through like Matt's pic isn't good enough?


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