Clean Your Picnic Taps!!!

I have a keg of Hefe that I thought might have an infection. The other two kegs of that batch are fine, but this one is tasting funky.

When I would go to pour, the first pint would taste off, almost like a vinegar flavor. The next pint, poured that night, would be almost normal. Odd, almost like it was the picnic tap and hose.

So, I cleaned the tap and hose. I used to clean them fairly regularly, but have slacked off.

BIG MISTAKE! The inside of the picnic tap had a bio film that was like a piece of tape. GROSS!

Turned out two of my four picnic taps were nasty, I even had to pitch the hose.

Clean those suckers, especially in the summer.

I scrub my picnic tap ever day!

Roger this. Last summer I was noticing some extra stuff getting into my pints and overall the taste was just off. I've got a half-assed kegerator at the moment where I don't quite have any seals so the moisture/condensation just fuels the fire with picnic taps. I was caught on being lazy (I've got the Perlicks) but I also have a SWMBO that has shot down my dreams of using them anywhere but in the un-never-to-be-finished basement. It wasn't a tape of film, this was full-blown white, yellow and green crud.

I don't drink from it everyday which adds to the problem. If that's your drinking regimen, a quick clean out is probably the way to go. It definitely was an issue before the keg floated.

I've heard of people spritzing their faucets with starsan after pouring. Rinses and sanitizes in one step.

Homercidal said:

I scrub my picnic tap ever day!

Click to expand...

Dude! This is a family-friendly forum.

I run 1 gallon of oxy-clean/water then 1 gallon of StarSan/water through each keg before I refill. This keeps the kegs/faucets perfect.

jwible204 said:

i run 1 gallon of oxy-clean/water then 1 gallon of starsan/water through each keg before i refill. This keeps the kegs/faucets perfect.

Click to expand...

+1

I had a really bad rubbery taste in three beers that nearly rendered them undrinkable. They were all from the same keg.

Well one day I'm cleaning out the keg, and as I toss the beverage post into the PBW, the poppet comes out... followed by a chunk of greenish gray mold.

The off flavor went away after that.

Clean out your beverage posts.

I just kegged for the first time this past weekend. I don't drink everyday, but I tend to drink more towards the end of the week/weekend for obvious reasons. Is it recommended to clean my kegerator taps everytime I drink, or is once a week sufficient? Since I've never kegged before, I'm assuming a good squirt of starsan on the taps would suffice.

I clean my lines and faucests by circulating with hot BLC, and a thorough rinsing after each keg, and if I don't have a keg to replace the empty with right away, I store Star-San in the line until I have a keg to tap, seems to have been working flawlessly. No funky flavors, and crystal clear beer lines.

What made me start this procedure was when I kicked a keg of a Belgian Quad that I brewed. The beer line was partially full of beer, and it must have sat in the line for a good month before I dealt with it. When I started to circulate the cleaner through the line, chunks of stuff were coming out, like a film, almost looked like algae, but the wrong color. Anyhow, I made a pact with my kegerator to never allow that to happen again, and so far so good.

After I kick a keg and it's had a ride on my keg washer, I push the star-san solution through the tap as well, using CO2. This cleans everything nice and seals the keg for storage.
Of course, I'm still using cobra taps, so they stay cold in the fridge, which I'm sure helps.
It probably helps that I'm a hop head too, so the taps are normally ready for a long sea voyage

When I finish a keg I run pbw through the lines and leave them full while the keg soaks. Then I rinse the keg and fill with a gallon or so of star san and run it through the lines. Every 5 kegs or so I take everything apart, clean and sanitize, and put back together. I got a keg based contamination a couple years back and I will never let that happen again.

I just do it every keg. pop off the liquid disconnect. Fill up the sink with hot water and oxyclean, take apart the disconnect, and the picnic tap and let it all soak in oxyclean while I'm racking my beer to the keg. Then I rinse it all, soak in star san real quick, and put it back together. Hasn't failed me yet.