I haven't brewed any ale for a couple years, but this year decided to make 10 gallons for the holidays. I struck it 3-4 weeks ago, two 5-gallon batches a few days apart. Unfortunately, I had left my old Cornelius keg hooked up to the dispenser system, without cleaning it, for that entire beer-abstaining time. I had forgotten about it. I cleaned the tank up with a homemade hot alkaline cleaning mixture and sanitizer and I ran it through the lines and let soak for 20 minutes or so, followed by an acidified-water cold rinse.
I filled a sanitized Cornelius keg with 5 gallons reverse osmosis water which had been boiled and cooled, and hooked the keg up with about 20 PSI CO2, specifically to make homemade carbonated water to drink, purging the airspace with CO2 a few times. I let it sit in the cooler. A few days later, it tasted kind of yeasty, but wasn't fully carbonated yet, so I shook it a little and waited for a few more days. It was wintertime with coldish weather, and cold, carbonated water was not being consumed very quickly.
A week or so later, I noted the fully carbonated water didn't taste yeasty anymore. What had happened? Had I grown "used" to the flavor? Or had it rinsed away?
Getting back to the holiday ale, in prepping the system for festivities later in the month, and having kegged the first batch but not tapped it yet, I thought I better disassemble the dispenser valve, soak and brush it up, give a good cleaning, before maybe swapping out the lines. So, I did that today. I could see no yeast on it to clean. It seems the carbonated water did a good job at scrubbing out the lines and dispenser valve.
Just thought I'd share that little cleaning observation, maybe someone else will find it worth trying.
I filled a sanitized Cornelius keg with 5 gallons reverse osmosis water which had been boiled and cooled, and hooked the keg up with about 20 PSI CO2, specifically to make homemade carbonated water to drink, purging the airspace with CO2 a few times. I let it sit in the cooler. A few days later, it tasted kind of yeasty, but wasn't fully carbonated yet, so I shook it a little and waited for a few more days. It was wintertime with coldish weather, and cold, carbonated water was not being consumed very quickly.
A week or so later, I noted the fully carbonated water didn't taste yeasty anymore. What had happened? Had I grown "used" to the flavor? Or had it rinsed away?
Getting back to the holiday ale, in prepping the system for festivities later in the month, and having kegged the first batch but not tapped it yet, I thought I better disassemble the dispenser valve, soak and brush it up, give a good cleaning, before maybe swapping out the lines. So, I did that today. I could see no yeast on it to clean. It seems the carbonated water did a good job at scrubbing out the lines and dispenser valve.
Just thought I'd share that little cleaning observation, maybe someone else will find it worth trying.
