Questions on Cleaning Beer Lines

I haven't done this yet, but I did get a pump-action beer line cleaning kit with that original craigslist haul I got way back before I had my kegerator going. Since I had to get my CO2 tank reinspected, and that took all of a month, my lines sat there with the same beer in them for, well, a month.

Anyone have instructions on how to go about this? I just kicked the two kegs I had on these taps, so I think it's a perfect time to do it. What I figure I'll do is take the ventmatics off of the tower, depressurize the kegs, hook up the cleaning pump/reservoir---and as I pump, the cleaning solution will go backwards through the line into the kegs.

I don't have any cleaning solution, however, so I'm wondering if there's anything in particular that I should be using. I have oxyclean, PBW and AHS's UBC. Are any of these safe to use? Or do I need to buy the specialized Beer Line Cleaner?

Hm, I take that back, maybe that white bottle in this picture is BLC:



I'll have to check when I get home. That'd be sweet.

That looks just like my BLC bottle.

I don't see the need for the pump. I typically just mix up a couple gallons of BLC in a keg and then hook up the gas and switch the liquid disconnects so I get BLC flowing through all the faucets. Let the BLC soak for 10-20 min in the lines, then flush with water, then some starsan and then hook the beer back up. I guess this requires an empty keg which you might not have, but I only clean my lines when I empty a keg (cleans the empty keg at the same time)

BLC is a fairly specialized product and I haven't found anything as good. It removes everything from scale to biofilms to residual color.

david_42 said:

BLC is a fairly specialized product and I haven't found anything as good. It removes everything from scale to biofilms to residual color.

Click to expand...

Cool...well I think that might be BLC after all. Yeah...now, looking back at my original thread from the CL score, it is!

Okay, so anyone else have thoughts on what drunkatuw said? Like I mentioned in my first post, I have 2 empty kegs right now just by chance, so I could just do what he said. Is there really a need for the pump, then?

+1 on what drunkatuw said. I think the pump is handy for people who only use sanke kegs. But you can use the pump if you want to, that way you won't have to mix up as large a batch of cleaning solution with the BLC, and you'll waste less CO2.

Well, I cleaned them last night...put a half-gallon of BLC cleaner solution into each keg and ran it through for a few seconds. Then I let it sit in the lines for awhile, and then flushed them with clean water. Hooked up a couple kegs, and we're flowing again. Thanks for your help!