Best solution for cleaning beer lines

I've posted a couple times over here about some off flavors I've been experiencing and I think I narrowed it down to the beer lines. I tried running oxiclean through them but that didn't seem to work. So what is the best solution to use to clean out beer lines. I've seen PBW and BLC but don't have any experience with either of these. Is one different than the other and can both be used for cleaning the lines? Thanks!

I actually bought some BLC when I first started kegging and have never used it. My usual routine now (flame suit on) is to rinse well with hot water and then sanitize with star san. I haven't had any problems with off flavors. I do use saniclean to help get odors out of my buckets, you could try that, it seems to work well. If it's that bad, why not just replace the beer lines? It's not that expensive.

Yeah just replace the lines if you suspect them. They are cheap.

I use BLC when I change to a new batch of beer. And about once a year I take everything completely apart - taps, fittings, everything. And give it all a good cleaning with oxyclean and star-San. Then re-assemble with new lines.

Whenever I soak a keg in oxiclean or PBW, I'll throw in some beer line. I always disassemble and starsan my kegs before storage, so the lines get a good starsaning as well. Both PBW and oxiclean seem to do a good job.

I can't see taking the time to come up with a special process for cleaning beer line, as it's pretty cheap. But integrating cleaning the line into what I'm already doing is easy.

whatever you do, don't sanitize your keg with iodophor and then push it out of you keg through your serving line. That is unless you'd like brownish tubing forever. That was the first and last time I used iodophor.

I fill a bucket with hot water and PBW and throw in my disassembled faucet, shank and serving line minus the disconnect. Let them soak and then rinse. It works for me.

BBL_Brewer said:

I actually bought some BLC when I first started kegging and have never used it. My usual routine now (flame suit on) is to rinse well with hot water and then sanitize with star san. I haven't had any problems with off flavors. I do use saniclean to help get odors out of my buckets, you could try that, it seems to work well. If it's that bad, why not just replace the beer lines? It's not that expensive.

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I remember reading somewhere that you're not supposed to use hot water to clean draft lines as it melts the hose a little bit and makes the inside bumpy and causes your beer to foam. Did I just make this up?

Depends on the off-flavor in question I guess. If it's a plastic taste, from perhaps new lines of the cheaper variety, I've had some success flushing them with hot (hot!) water for a good 5 minutes, sort of empty the entire keg of water sorta thing.

Then BLC it, then run cold water through, that took care of a lot of the plastic taste for me.

If it's just gunk or beer deposit taste or something the same might work fine, anything warm/hot should work wonders, even if it doesn't have a cleaner in it. Chase it with some PBW or BLC, then flush with cold for a while.

Replacing lines with high quality new lines of course would work, but that's a huge hassle in most cases, like if you have a tower.

gregL86 said:

I remember reading somewhere that you're not supposed to use hot water to clean draft lines as it melts the hose a little bit and makes the inside bumpy and causes your beer to foam. Did I just make this up?

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I've run HOT water through mine at one point, for a while, and no bad effects. The hose pours beer just fine still.

That being said it may not be the BEST idea, maybe I just got lucky...

gregL86 said:

I remember reading somewhere that you're not supposed to use hot water to clean draft lines as it melts the hose a little bit and makes the inside bumpy and causes your beer to foam. Did I just make this up?

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By hot water I mean hot tap water. It's not scalding hot, but warm enough to rinse away the residual beer before I sanitize. Works for me, YRMV.

When I empty a keg, I will rinse the keg a few times with hot water, then add a gallon or so of hot water and oxy, shake it up let it sit for a while shake some more and turn it over. I will then hook it up to gas and push that through the line. I them empty the keg and rinse a few times , then put a gallon or so of hot water back in, hook it up to gas and push that through. then I dump a gallon jug of star san dilution in the keg and shake it up , hook that to gas and discard the first few ounces as it comes out of the tap , then recapture the rest.

I think the key is to get the line cleaned up before the crap from the bottom of the keg gets a chance to stick. When you kill a keg, get that line off of there and run hot water through it immediately. I just run hot tap water through the line and then starsan. No problems with off flavors.

Thanks for all the thoughts.

When I empty a keg I typically run some water to flush out the beer, then some oxiclean, then sanitizer. But maybe there was a time when I left either the beer, oxiclean, starsan, etc in the lines too long and some off flavors are stuck in the lines. I try to do it right away but life gets in the way some times. I've now built the DIY beer cleaner which will make it much easier to clean the lines.

I guess I could buy new lines, I didn't really think of that, but when I built the kegerator it was a royal PITA to get the lines hooked up in the tower, so I was hoping to avoid that solution. But perhaps I just have to suck it up and do it. I haven't cleaned my perlicks either, so maybe those need a good cleaning.

maxam said:

whatever you do, don't sanitize your keg with iodophor and then push it out of you keg through your serving line. That is unless you'd like brownish tubing forever. That was the first and last time I used iodophor.

I fill a bucket with hot water and PBW and throw in my disassembled faucet, shank and serving line minus the disconnect. Let them soak and then rinse. It works for me.

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Iodophor only stains if you leave it in the line. I use it all the time and my lines are not stained. The key is to hook it up to the keg and rinse the line clear with beer.

I use oxyclean to clean the lines and taps. I have an extra keg that I keep oxyclean in that I hook up once a month and rinse the lines out.

I just bought all the parts to make the build in the link below. Don't waste CO2 pushing cleaner through your lines.

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/community/pimp-my-system/show?title=pimp-my-system-beer-line-cleaner

ryancrook said:

I just bought all the parts to make the build in the link below. Don't waste CO2 pushing cleaner through your lines.

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/community/pimp-my-system/show?title=pimp-my-system-beer-line-cleaner

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That's what I now have and it makes life much easier.

I can't wait to try it! It looks so easy to make and much cheaper than some of the cleaning systems on the market.

I have a similar system I built with a pesticide/garden sprayer. I flush the lines with a hot Oxiclean/TSP mixture that I use as my poor man's PBW. I usually leave that in the lines to soak for a minimum of a couple of hours, sometimes over night. I flush with StarSan and let that soak for a couple of hours and then start pouring beer again.

So, you don't clean your kegs at the same time? It has always seemed like a two birds with one stone thing to me. At least where I live CO2 is cheap, I pay 7 bucks to have a 10 pounder filled.

ryancrook said:

I just bought all the parts to make the build in the link below. Don't waste CO2 pushing cleaner through your lines.

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/pages/community/pimp-my-system/show?title=pimp-my-system-beer-line-cleaner

Click to expand...

I built this exact setup and it worked great. In expensive and easy build; simply push PBW through and then StarSan. A friend of mine bought a beer line cleaner and said it was flimsy and didn't work well. He was going to build one of these DIY cleaners because the quality was much better and way less expensive.

I just use gravity. I flip my faucets upside down, use a wire nut and my thumb to open the valve on the quick disconnect, then I just pour through the faucet.

goosegrease said:

So, you don't clean your kegs at the same time? It has always seemed like a two birds with one stone thing to me. At least where I live CO2 is cheap, I pay 7 bucks to have a 10 pounder filled.

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Like I said, life gets in the way sometimes. Kegs can kick at the wrong time when you don't have a few minutes to clean them. I have a second regulator and co2 tank that makes it easier but it still takes time....The lines only take me a couple minutes with the DIY beer line cleaner.

Gotcha, life will certainly do that. Wasn't criticizing, just curious.

BBL_Brewer said:

I just use gravity. I flip my faucets upside down, use a wire nut and my thumb to open the valve on the quick disconnect, then I just pour through the faucet.

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My God...this is so simple and obvious, I can't believe this is the first time I've seen it. I also built one of those DIY beer line cleaners and while it works, I still think it's a pain. I usually end up with BLC or water on the floor.

I tend to clean my line(s) whenever I'm changing kegs. I wonder if you could leave the kicked keg attached, disconnect and purge the CO2, and then use it as a reservoir as you pour BLC through the upside down faucet? This probably depends on how high the faucet is relative to the keg. Perhaps I can attach the DIY beer cleaner to the faucet to provide pressure.

Well I ran a solution of BLC through my lines per the instructions for about 20 minutes, flushed with water, and the beer still tastes like crap coming out of the lines....So it looks like I'll have to replace the lines.

Figured I'd up my problem. I finally got around to switching out my lines and my beer tastes 100% better. I have an altbier on tap that I brewed last November that I basically forgot about because it tasted like crap, but I just hooked up the new lines and tasted it last night and it was very good. It's a big PITA to hook up new lines but definitely worth it as that had to have been my problem...Unfortunately I bottled a whole batch up Brown Ale through the lines before I realized the issue so that batch is a dumper.