ChiechiBrouw
Well-Known Member
A few months ago we bought a second fridge, so the old one was promptly populated with a corny keg, but apparently I'm too stupid to clean it properly.
I soak everything with Chemipro Caustic in warm water, including inverting the keg in a bath of the stuff; about 10-20 minutes per soak. I pressurize the keg and then flush about 10 L of Chemipro solution through it. I take apart the picnic tap and soak it along with all the tubing and fittings. I then repeat the entire process with iodine solution and then several times with water.
No matter what, though, the slight smell of beer-funk remains. After carbonating, even the first beer I pour has a subtle "mop water" smell in the nose that steps all over the desired hoppy aroma. It is hard to tell how prevalent it is (no one else seems to notice) or if it gets worse over time, because I'm so fixated on it that I can't taste anything else. (It is subtle enough that I don't notice it when I keg a stout or porter.)
What am I doing wrong here? I'm assuming this nastiness is from mold hanging out somewhere in the system, but it's just a corny keg (brand new, not refurbished) with about six inches of vinyl tubing and a picnic tap--where could it possibly hide that it would survive Chemipro and iodine? Do I need to completely disassemble the keg--dip tube and all--every time I clean it?
I soak everything with Chemipro Caustic in warm water, including inverting the keg in a bath of the stuff; about 10-20 minutes per soak. I pressurize the keg and then flush about 10 L of Chemipro solution through it. I take apart the picnic tap and soak it along with all the tubing and fittings. I then repeat the entire process with iodine solution and then several times with water.
No matter what, though, the slight smell of beer-funk remains. After carbonating, even the first beer I pour has a subtle "mop water" smell in the nose that steps all over the desired hoppy aroma. It is hard to tell how prevalent it is (no one else seems to notice) or if it gets worse over time, because I'm so fixated on it that I can't taste anything else. (It is subtle enough that I don't notice it when I keg a stout or porter.)
What am I doing wrong here? I'm assuming this nastiness is from mold hanging out somewhere in the system, but it's just a corny keg (brand new, not refurbished) with about six inches of vinyl tubing and a picnic tap--where could it possibly hide that it would survive Chemipro and iodine? Do I need to completely disassemble the keg--dip tube and all--every time I clean it?