Boiling beer lines for sterilization

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rtstrider

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Hey all! I need new beer lines, but, will be having company the next couple of days. My beer lines are putting out a tart flavor. It's my fault as I let room temp beer sit in there for a week or two at a time, it got build up, and did not keep up with my cleaning. I've tried an overnight soak with PBW, acid wash number 6 (soaked for 15 min because I didn't have a free keg at the time), and it's definitely much better but there's still a twang there. If I pull a sample directly from the keg it's clean. I do have floating dip tubes and soak/brush out the silicone hoses after every use. Also I break down, clean, and soak the kegs/fittings after the kegs are empty. So in lieu of no homebrew over Christmas my wonder is if I can boil the hoses for 10 minutes or so in treated (campden) water. Here are the hoses I have

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CPMS5M...=QwXuq&ref_=sbx_be_s_sparkle_mcd_asin_0_title
Here is a pic of the acid wash I picked up from the brewery

1640270933960.png


I do have an empty keg and am not opposed to filling it up with this solution and bumping it out with co2 on each line. All I have is home made pbw, starsan, and Acid Wash 6. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Well I’m going head first lol if it discolors the lines I’m fine with that. As long as it gets the soured beer smell out! After boiling I’m going to leave the lines, cobra taps, and pin lock fittings in the pit as it cools down. Might as well go big or go home!
 
I recently put a vinyl tube in a pot of water at rolling boil for several minutes and it turned white and was much softer. Not sure if that reduced the bursting pressure of it since I don't use them with pressure. It took a day or so for it to turn clear again.

Might either do a test piece of hose or else just keep the water temps somewhere between 170°F and 190°F. I'm pretty sure I've left vinyl tube in water at those temps and never had an issue.
 
I recently put a vinyl tube in a pot of water at rolling boil for several minutes and it turned white and was much softer. Not sure if that reduced the bursting pressure of it since I don't use them with pressure. It took a day or so for it to turn clear again.

Might either do a test piece of hose or else just keep the water temps somewhere between 170°F and 190°F. I'm pretty sure I've left vinyl tube in water at those temps and never had an issue.

Well I did it and the hoses are cloudy as all get out. I'll go ahead and order new hose. These will more or less be on the kegs only when in use until the new hose gets here. This definitely cooked out a good bit of stuff but I would not recommend this outside of a last resort...With new hoses on the way lol The tart smell/flavor in the hose is not noticeable, but, I can taste hops and such from many previous batches. Will setup a cheap diy gravity fed rig and run that acid cleaner through the lines a few times each this evening.
 
Can't you just use the brush that you clean the dip tube with, that's what I do if they don't come clean after 20 min on the keg washer(I have a third fitting on my washer for lines).
 
Can't you just use the brush that you clean the dip tube with, that's what I do if they don't come clean after 20 min on the keg washer(I have a third fitting on my washer for lines).

My brush is right under 3 feet long. Draft lines are in the 10-11 foot long range so it wouldn't be long enough. Now with that said I did run the brush through both ends and such for giggles. The brews are much cleaner coming through the hoses now but I'm just going to make up new lines and chalk up draft line cleaning to a quarterly maintenance item. Will probably rig up something with an aquarium pump
 
1. You can't sterilize by boiling, sterilization requires higher temperature which is why canning wort requires a pressure canner.
2. What you wanted was pasteurization. Heat the water and vinyl tubing to 160 degrees. Let it sit at that temp for 5 minutes (it really doesn't take that long) before taking the tubing out.
3. Vinyl tubing doesn't like boiling. It turns it cloudy and it may make it stiff as you boil out the plasticizer.
4. New tubing will solve the problem.
 
The beer line and taps were received this morning. Glad this was a frustratingly easy fix!
 
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