Keg Nightmare: Broken Circuit, Chest Freezer Off for weeks, Lots of Mold-what to do?

[Stevorino]

I just moved into my house 2 months ago and really haven't figured out everything.

So 3 weeks ago I tripped the breaker to the outside, which is also the same breaker my chest freezer that cools my storing brew. Since then, I haven't needed electricity outside and haven't checked my freezer. I went down to check on it today and the chest freezer was off, room temperature inside, and the entire thing is covered with mold.

Some of the kegs are so covered with mold on top that you can't see the surface of the keg.

So what do I do with all of this beer and mold?

 

[Fingers]

The beer in the kegs should be fine provided they are sealed. Clean them off really well and see how they are. If the freezer stinks really bad, pack it with newspaper and change the paper every few days. It will absorb the smell.

Good luck.

 

[Boar Beer]

I agree with Fingers.
My question is how hot did things get. under 80 F you should be ok
less than 70 F and i think your beer is fine
wash things down
cool your beer down and give it a try
good luck

 

[McKBrew]

I'd mix up some diluted bleach water to clean everything up as well and kill off the mold.

 

[Yunus]

When I bought my freezer it had a nasty smell to it. I cleaned it out as best I could, then sprayed paper towels with an orange scented general purpose cleaner. Then left the wet paper towels in the freezer for a few days to help saturate it with a better smell.

 

[gpogo]

Same thing happened to me. I was rather disgusted and worried about my beer.

I ended up taking all the kegs out and scrubbing the outsides with chlorox wipes.
Then I scrubbed the inside with chlorox wipes.
Then I cleaned all my lines inside and out(picnic taps at the time). I used oxyclean, followed by water, followed by starsan, followed by water.

Afterwards I drew a pint once the kegs were cool and clean again. Everything tasted fine.

 

[Stevorino]

Thanks guys-- doesn't seem like quite the disaster I thought

I thought I was about to lose 40 gallons of booze

 

[Damonic]

I wanna see pics before you start cleaning.

 

[Moonshae]

I want to know why you didn't visit the kegerator in 3 weeks! It must have been feeling very neglected.

 

[Stevorino]

I want to know why you didn't visit the kegerator in 3 weeks! It must have been feeling very neglected.

It was-- long story short: I just moved into the new house and have been working a lot, literally haven't had time to homebrew since July. It's been eating away at me, but this holiday season I'm going to put a TON of time into getting this up to snuff-- I'm pretty stoked.

 

[IrregularPulse]

definitely need pictures

 

[MSUConrad]

A note from my construction days, if you mix a solution from 10% bleech to 90% water it will trick the mold spores into absorbing the solution. Then they die.

If you use a stonger solution the mold spores will die that get direct contact, but the other will hide below the dead ones and come back.

Just toss it in a spray bottle and coat the inside. Let it sit for a day closed before you clean it out.

 

[gpogo]

definitely need pictures

When this happened to me I considered shooting pictures, but I was too grossed out. Not to mention at the time I was similarly freaked out that my kegs were bad as well!