Does Beer Line Cleaner go bad?

I bought a kegerator last year off of craiglist for a good deal, and originally put a keg of Miller Lite on it. It was on there for a good 8 or 9 months, but has been empty for the last 5 months (still refrigerated and with beer in the line). I bought a keg of Yuengling today for a party tomorrow. The guy I bought the kegerator from gave me a small bottle of BLC, but I don't know how old it is. The bottle is pretty dirty and the seal was broken, but it's full. Maybe the price will tell you how old it is; $4.35 for 4 oz. I don't know what it goes for.
Anyway, since I am switching to a different beer and have never cleaned the beer line, I want to clean it. I have PBW and Star san, but am wondering if I should try the BLC.
For the record, when I bought the kegerator, I changed out all the lines and cleaned and sanitized all the fittings and couplings. Also, I bottle my homebrew. I'm not ready to take a chance on tying up my kegerator with a potentially bad batch.

So.. do I use the old BLC? Use PBW? Run hot water tonight and get BLC tomorrow? I want to tap this puppy tonight.

I'd look at it. BLC is almost clear, but a slight tint to it. Its an acid based cleaner, so really it shouldn't go bad until its noticably bad (dark color, crusties on the inside of the cap, etc)

if you're still freaked out, go ahead with the pbw instead, and if you have star-san I'd run that through after since its an acid sanitizer and will make sure the lines are 'fresh'.

malkore said:

... Its an acid based cleaner...

Click to expand...

Wrong. BLC contains potassium hydroxide, which is caustic/base.
My bottle is a couple years old and the liquid is colorless.

I would try it. If you don't want to, save it for use as drain cleaner.

If you have not changed the beer lines, I would consider doing so now. I change plastic lines out every year! I would think the cleaner would still be effective however.

Thanks guys. I used hot water, PBW and starsan, kept the same lines and everything worked out fine. It tasted fine and nobody complained. I'm off the the store today, so i'l just pick up some more BLC to be safe. There is still no color, but there is a chemical odor. I have never smelled it before so I don't know if it's the right odor or not.