hoppysailor

Recipes 

We're planning on doing our first kegging this weekend and find ourselves without a dip tube brush. The kegs appear to be fairly clean and still have some sanitizer/cleaner inside. I will be replacing all the seals before using the kegs but really wanted to take a brush to the dip tubes. Does any body have a suggestion on how to clean the dip tubes without a brush? Do you think pushing cleaner out the dip tube with CO2 and then letting it soak for a while would get most of the nasties?

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Mountain View Brewery

McKBrew

Recipes 

Honestly, I've never cleaned the dip tube with a rod. I just remove it an use my kitchen sprayer to run some hot water down it and then spray it out with sanitizer.

Not sure how clean it really is, but no issues yet.

I imagine that there are some gun cleaning kits with rods and brushes that could be used in place of a dip tube brush (not sure what size).

conpewter

Recipes 

Hmm I've also not cleaned my dip tubes, they soak in the oxyclean like the rest of the keg for at least 12 hours, sometimes a week.

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Primary: Nothin
Secondary: Shady Lord RIS, Water to Barleywine, Pumpkin wine, burnt mead
Kegged: Crappy infected mild
Bottles: Apfelwein, 999 Barleywine, Oatmeal Stout, Robust Porter, Robust smoked porter, Simcoe Smash

ShortSnoutBrewing

Recipes 

I with McK on this. Don't own a brush, never will. When I kick a keg I rinse everything out real well and then do an oxy soak for 24hours.

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Arkador

Recipes 

I give a good rinse when it is empty, and fill it with oxiclean, run some through the picnic tap and let it sit until the day I refill, when i rinse it out very well, and sanitize.

hoppysailor

Recipes 

Thanks everyone. Kegging is on for Sunday. We just recently started brewing and have three batches fermenting but haven't tasted anything yet. Hopefully we haven't made the same mistake three times. But as I read here on the forum "there's no such thing as bad beer, just limited editions".

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Mountain View Brewery

hukdizzle

Recipes 

Northern Brewer sells a diptube brush, check it out if you want one. I have never used one and I am not sure if it's really needed.

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Primary 1 - Cream Ale
Primary 2 - Cream Ale
Primary 3 - Empty
Secondary 1 - Empty
Bottled - Apfelwein, Big Roasted Rocket Fuel RIS
Kegged 1 - English Nut Brown Ale
Kegged 2 - American Brown IPA
Kegged 3 - Bavarian Hefeweizen
Kegged 4 - Empty
Kegged 5 - Empty

Trubadour

Recipes 

I have a dip tube brush and only really needed it once - old soda gunk was built up something fierce.

But having said that, if needed, I usually will rinse it out with a high-pressure hose sprayer attachment. Sams sells a variety pack of hose attachments for $11 or so, and one is the high pressure. It's been great for cleaning out the keggle after brewing, run it thru the CFC right after use before anything cakes on, etc...

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Arkador

Recipes 

I could understand wanting a diptube brush if you dryhopped in the keg and didn't do it with a hop bag. If you are serving pretty clear beer, a good Oxiclean soak will definatley take care of you!

BlindLemonLars

Recipes 

I own and use a diptube brush, but agree that a soak in hot Oxyclean will do the trick. If you hold one end to the light and look through the other, you can actually inspect the interior quite well...better than you'd think.