SaniClean - Will it remove root beer flavors?
 

My LHBS owner, who has always been quite knowledgeable, told me that he uses SaniClean on his kegs/tap lines after using them for rootbeer and it removes the flavors. I've read multiple places that you pretty much need to have a separate keg and tap lines for root beer because you can never get rid of the flavors.

Any insight?


Thanks!

Probably depends on how much root beer we're talking about and how long it sits in the lines.

Just going to be a 5 gallon keg and probably won't be around too long knowing my family ;). First crack at soda.

I'd go ahead and buy new O-rings for the kegs... The tap lines will be alright, but I've never been able to get rid of the root beer "smell" from the O-rings. They shouldn't be too expensive and it's always nice to have a few laying around.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/kegging/used-keg-seal-kit.html

Also- I see you are drinking a two-hearted clone... Can I get the recipe for that??

I actually just used an extract kit from northern brewer for that one:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/dead-ringer-ipa-extract-kit.html

They had to change the name due to legal reasons, but it's a 2 hearted clone. It is damn near identical. I've tried some other all grain recipes that were supposed to be clones and this one is by far the best. Cheers!

Thanks!

I'd be suspect of the lines if you plan to run lagers or light flavored beer through the lines. We sold primarily lagers, and we would never put our beers in a line that had Root Beer.

At least you don't have a long draw system...that's when it really sucks.

Just got six kegs, two last night, four this morning. Two pepsi, two 7-up, one root beer, one that was so well cleaned I couldn't tell. All of them cleaned up with zero leftover smell with minimal effort.

All got a 24 hour soak with 5 gallons of the hottest water my bath tub would put out and a scoop of OxiClean. Posts, poppits and lid went inside. Stirred extremely vigorously with a 5-gallon helical paint stirrer ($7) attached to a powerful cordless drill, stirred both right when the OxiClean went in and right before dumping it out. I had literally a 6" deep center vortex going on every keg. Dumped after 24 hours, scrubbed insides gently with a Chore Boy scrubber by hand (yes, my arms fit and I can reach the bottoms). Filled one up with the hottest 5-gallons of StarSan I could make, then pushed it from keg-to-keg (liquid to liquid jumper) with the CO2 at 30 PSI.

Literally zero smell, even from the stanky root beer keg. Total time, 2 hours labor.

I agree that there are no issues with stainless...but the vinyl beer hoses do hold the root beer aroma. I would not do it...or be ready to run another line if it happens. Easy enough to do, but if I was running a temporary Root Beer I would probably run a temporary line instead of messing up my installed draught lines. That's just based on my experience.

Whenever we launched non-traditional beer products in draught, the question of leaching beer lines was ALWAYS the first question that came up from distributors.