How do you clean your beer line?

Hi guys,

I'm sorry for bombarding you with questions the last few days, you've been very patient and helpful.

I kegged my first beer last Sunday and it's been carbing since then. Tonight, I hooked up my beer line to try a glass (it's great!). My question is, after I disconnected my beer line, the line remained full of beer. Even if I open the tap, the beer remains in the line. If I reach up inside the disconnect and press the little pin, it seems to release whatever vacuum is in place and the beer trickles out, but how do you guys clean the lines between batches?

I just use some warm starsan in a keg and let it run for a couple min.
Every couple months ill run some BLC through them

i made a DIY beer line cleaner and run some hot PBW and starsan through it when I change out my kegs. ive left beer in the lines for over 3 months without cleaning and had no problem getting it clean with a quick run through. I try to keep certain taps dedicated to certain types of beers also (ipa, stout, other misc)

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/diy-beer-line-cleaner-226497/

I use one of these. Very light and handy, and doesn't tie up a keg...


Cheers!

I'm also curious about this so thanks for posting. My question for u, because I'm trying to understand, is are u talking about emptying the line after each serving, when you're done drinking for the day, or just after the keg is empty? Is it important to disconnect the beer line when done drinking for the day? I'm trying to move into kegging soon.

Any time I change a keg I use that DYI cleaner on the beer line. And QDs stay put unless I'm changing or swapping kegs, no reason to disconnect them daily...

Cheers!

I don't clean my lines very often at all, only if they've been sitting really stagnant for a while; even after I've kicked a keg, I just hook the line up to a different keg and continue using it. I've read that others will clean their lines if they're going from a dark beer to a light one, but I don't bother with that.

I have quick disconnects though, so on the occasion that the beers been sitting in the line a while, I just unscrew the quick-connect and run hot water through the line to clean it out, maybe soak in oxyclean or PBW if that's not cleaning the line out enough.

Do they even need cleaning? Alcohol itself is a sanitizer after all

Pbw sits on my line while the next keg carbs. Works like a charm!

xmacro said:

Do they even need cleaning? Alcohol itself is a sanitizer after all

Click to expand...

There are all kinds of carbs, proteins, fats/oils, resins, etc, in beer, that will build up on the inside of the lines, fittings and faucets, and eventually will affect the flavor of the brew passing through. And not in a good way...

Cheers!

After I kick a keg I clean it with PBW and then run the PBW through the tap line to clean that. Then when I keg my next beer I use star San to sanitize the keg and run the star San through the tap to sanitize the line.