Sanitizing kegs in dishwasher?

[nanobrau]

I’m considering ditching my old carboys since switching to kegging (and fermenting in a keg), but I’ve kept them around for sours. After some thought, I realized I could do a very thorough and hot sanitization in the dishwasher since my kegs are 1.5 and 2.5 gallon. I don’t expect this to wash the inside well so I would still do a PBW soak beforehand.

Thoughts? Does anyone else do this? Hoping to avoid maintaining separate hardware for sours, although I can tolerate separate small bits like beer line.

 

[day_trippr]

If these kegs have rubber bits I would make sure to disable the dishwasher heater...

Cheers!

 

[nanobrau]

They’re torpedo slims, so as long as I remove all of the orings, everything in the dishwasher would be stainless steel.

 

[IslandLizard]

Don't forget to manually clean the dip tubes. The posts and other small parts can go into a basket.
I think the rubber o-rings would be fine in the dishwasher, even with heated drying.

But... since you're already pre-cleaning with (homemade?) PBW what benefit do you think the dishwasher adds, that a regular water and Starsan rinse won't?

 

[nanobrau]

Two reasons:

1. Make extra sure I’ve washed out all of the gunk the PBW loosened.

2. Heat the entire keg to be sure every nook and cranny is sanitized.

It’s just extra assurance after running sours through. The usual soak and rinse has worked well enough for me between normal beers.

 

[whattabrau]

You can pour boiling water into kegs to sanitize. I do it often enough and skip the starsan entirely. Yes, I've wondered if it does something to the rubber handles on mine. No, it hasn't, and I've been doing it for years and years.

Or, you can probably set a small all-metal keg upside-down in a kettle with a steamer basket and steam it.

I've stopped using the dishwasher to sanitize anything. Modern dishwashers save water from the previous rinse for the pre-rinse, and that water might contain all kinds of undesirables you don't want accidentally getting into your brewing equipment, especially with something like a keg where it might check in but never check out. Sure, you first clean the dishwasher, then start a rinse, halt, and maybe repeat one more rinse before you put the brewing equipment in there, but at that point you have to start asking if it's making things easier.

As an aside, assuming I understood your intent correctly, kegs are probably not the best vessel for fermenting sours, or at least I can't imagine how to get a small trickle of O2 into them.

 

[SanPancho]

i second the use of hot water, its way easier. if i use boiling i'll fill half way, seal it, and set it upside down to heat the lid,posts/etc. or you can use 160F water and just fill whole thing.

 

[nanobrau]

Doesn't boiling water negatively impact the keg lid o-ring?

Also I imagine you're handling the keg with thick gloves, otherwise this thing is too hot to touch.

And thanks for the info on the water reuse. I didn't know this was a thing. Sorta gross.

Regarding O2, I have a gas manifold built into my fermentation chamber. I could hook up some sort of O2 source, but I haven't thought about this in detail.

 

[SanPancho]

lid orings are typically either epdm or silicone. (sometimes buna i think?) both are fine at boiling. most kegs have rubber bottoms/tops. torpedo doesnt, but the handles dont get that hot. i just use a towel if i need to hold it for some reason.

 

[whattabrau]

Doesn't boiling water negatively impact the keg lid o-ring?

Maybe they last a decade if you use boiling water and a decade and a day if you don't, so I'll mark it down as a "no".

And thanks for the info on the water reuse. I didn't know this was a thing. Sorta gross.

I'm guessing the rinse water contains mostly a small amount of detergent and rinse aid, and some of the former you want in your prerinse anyway, so it's nothing particularly gross except if you're not actually washing things.

One thing I forgot to mention: you also need to turn the rinse aid dispenser off, so that's one more thing to fiddle with. And who knows how much is "in the pipe" after you turn it off.

Regarding O2, I have a gas manifold built into my fermentation chamber. I could hook up some sort of O2 source, but I haven't thought about this in detail.

Nonono, that's waaaay too much O2. We're talking about mimicking the porous nature of a wooden barrel. Most people do it with a poor-sealing airlock, by using a plastic bucket, or such. If you start injecting O2, you're almost certainly overdoing it (on a homebrew scale). At least I'd assume that a constant trickle of O2 vs. a lot of O2 infrequently is not going to get you to the same place.

 

[nanobrau]

The manifold allows non-pressurized O2 exchange, so no worry there. The O2 ingress can be restricted as much as needed.