Corny Kegs possibly ruined?

I sort of fell off the face of the earth with brewing beer about 2-3 years ago. Family and work took over my life and my hobbies were put on the back burner. Finally am getting back into brewing again and am afraid I neglected my equipment for too long.
I have a kegerator that ended up getting shut off with kegged beer and beer lagering in it. To make a long story short I ended up throwing out all beer and trying to clean my cornies. I dumped some PWB into water in the corny and let it sit for probably too long, about a week or two. When I finally went to rinse them out I noticed it might have eaten away at the interior of the keg. The what use to be smooth insides was now rough to the touch up to the water line. Any idea of what happened, are these kegs shot?

DAMN. Doesn't sound good.

Probably not. Long alkaline soaks with tap water can result in mineral deposits on stainless steel. A slightly acidic solution should take the deposits off (if thats what it really is). Just don't let that sit in it for 2 weeks

Unless you used an unreasonable amount of PBW, it shouldn't be damaged.

I bet its hard deposits like what oxiclean does when you leave it too long... Have you scrubbed at all? Might need to do a caustic acid soak or vinegar...

Try some white vinegar and see what that does.

LandoLincoln said:

Try some white vinegar and see what that does.

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or scrub with a plastic scrub pad and Bar Keeper's Friend. Do not use steel wool.

+1 for Bar Keeper's Friend. And a green Scotch-Brite pad.

I made a gadget that helps with scrubbing Cornies. Took a NEW toilet bowl brush (the plastic, omnidirectional kind) and cut the handle off about 4" long or so. That gets shoved up into a length of 1/2" PVC pipe and secured with a couple of small, SS, flathead screws countersunk into the PVC. Add a PVC Tee on the other end for a handle and it's done. Cheap & it works pretty good!

+1 to vinegar wash. I just had this happen with a keggle left soaking too long. I tossed some white vinegar in and almost immediately it made the surface smooth again.

Thanks for the feedback, I am going to try the white vinegar tonight.

Junkster said:

I made a gadget that helps with scrubbing Cornies. Took a NEW toilet bowl brush (the plastic, omnidirectional kind) and cut the handle off about 4" long or so. That gets shoved up into a length of 1/2" PVC pipe and secured with a couple of small, SS, flathead screws countersunk into the PVC. Add a PVC Tee on the other end for a handle and it's done. Cheap & it works pretty good!

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Or you could take TWO toilet bowl brushes, attach them to a T, and then attach that to a metal rod, and then attach the metal rod to a drill.

But I don't know how you'd get that kind of contraption in and out of a corny keg.

If u make a T with 2 brushes leave them loose so centrifigal force makes them hit the side with the use of a drill

Lets back up here a second... Why did you dump out all that beer??

H-ost said:

Lets back up here a second... Why did you dump out all that beer??

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That was my first thought too.