Keg line and tap cleaning

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Beer:30

Chief Bottle Washer
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I am looking forward to building my kegerator and I am contemplating sizing and how many taps I will be installing. I am leaning toward five taps based on my brewing frequency. What I am wondering is this potentially stupid questions; how often do most of you clean your beer lines and taps. I am going to build with forward ceiling faucets. My usage would be about two pints a week out of any given tap I would imagine. Can I just wait to clean the lines and faucets when the keg eventually kicks and gets rotated out or is more frequent cleaning necessary?

Thanks
 
Cleaning too often won;t hurt anything but it will burn through chemicals quickly.

Basically, you are just going to have to decide for yourself what the appropriate schedule is to be.

I clean after each keg. No matter how long the keg has been on the line.

I also inspect the lines periodically to look for sign of beerstone (calcium oxalate) and clean if noticed.

Also, PBW is the same stuff as the Line cleaner that many sell. Just drier.
 
At that rate, I would clean after each keg at the very minimum. At that rate you're looking to go about 5-6 months between kegs. Ideally, you would want to clean much more frequently then that, but I would just keep an eye on the lines for now.
 
what are you guys doing for cleaning procedure?

I have just been putting starsan in a keg and run it through the lines before putting a new keg on. I leave the starsan in the line for a few minutes, hook up the new keg and pour until I get beer to remove the starsan. Should I be doing more than this?
 
I usually clean the kegs twice, once after it is kicked and once before it is filled. Each time I start off with Oxyclean and HOT water. I'll shake and swirl the Oxyclean mixture and let it sit for about 10 minutes or so. Then, I rinse the keg out really good to ensure there is no more Oxyclean in the keg. I'll then mix up a StarSan solution and shake that around for a few minutes. Usually I'll hook the keg up to gas and flush all of the sanitizer out through the beer line. The keg is now sanitized until it is opened. I do that exact same procedure right before filling the keg as well.
 
i clean after each keg, i run hot water and pbw through the lines for a bit, let it sit for a while, then run starsan through it. I basically consider it the same process as cleaning my keg
 
what are you guys doing for cleaning procedure?

I have just been putting starsan in a keg and run it through the lines before putting a new keg on. I leave the starsan in the line for a few minutes, hook up the new keg and pour until I get beer to remove the starsan. Should I be doing more than this?

Star san is not a cleaner it's a sanitizer. I would suggest a commercial beer line cleaner, I use this. http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/line-cleaning-pid-CFP-1.html, it will last a long time. There's really no need to sanitize a beer line, but you do want to clean them. I also use the pump bottle that micromatic sells, it's a bit expensive, but works very well. http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/line-cleaning-pid-CK-1100.html
 
I just run really hot water through the lines every time a keg kicks. No cleaner or anything.
 
Star san is not a cleaner it's a sanitizer. I would suggest a commercial beer line cleaner, I use this. http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/line-cleaning-pid-CFP-1.html, it will last a long time. There's really no need to sanitize a beer line, but you do want to clean them. I also use the pump bottle that micromatic sells, it's a bit expensive, but works very well. http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/line-cleaning-pid-CK-1100.html

whoops, I am overdo for a cleaning then. I see others are using oxy clean which I have plenty of
 
I use the same hand pump as wildwest but I clean with hot PBW and rinse with a hot Starsan solution to both sanitize and help remove any calcium deposits. By hot, I mean ~120F.
 
I probably go a little bit overboard with my cleaning process after each keg, but after each keg, I rinse with an OxyClean solution, then a sanitizing solution. And for each step, I run it through the tap line to clean/sanitize that as well.

I'll usually pull the dip tube out and give that a thorough cleaning/sanitizing separately as well in between each kegging, just to be safe.
 
I use the same hand pump as wildwest but I clean with hot PBW and rinse with a hot Starsan solution to both sanitize and help remove any calcium deposits. By hot, I mean ~120F.

Nice! Just as a side note, the cleaner I use does NOT call for hot water, they specify warm. Pbw is different, not wrong, just different.:mug:
 
I don't understand why so many people use (waste?) StarSan in their keg lines. I clean my lines with BLC every month or so, and leave it at that. BLC helps remove beer stone from the lines and cleans the gunk.

I see no need to use PBW, Oxi-clean, or StarSan on the lines. I don't know of a single bar that would go to such lengths...
 
I don't understand why so many people use (waste?) StarSan in their keg lines. I clean my lines with BLC every month or so, and leave it at that. BLC helps remove beer stone from the lines and cleans the gunk.

I see no need to use PBW, Oxi-clean, or StarSan on the lines. I don't know of a single bar that would go to such lengths...

bolded... same difference, and one way you waste much less since I assume you are already cleaning your kegs to begin with correct?
 
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