Feedback on keg sanitizing method?

[Cider Wraith]

Into cleaned and empty keg add about half a gallon hot water and recommended amount of Starsan ... keg is not filled with solution. Install lid, shake, including holding upside down. Waiting five to ten min between efforts repeat three times. Let sit for about an hour for foam to subside. Attach liquid QD connector with drain line into sink. Using tank force sanitizer into sink, which will be running solution through liquid tube. Allow to sit a bit longer and repeat to move out residual solution best as reasonable.

Seems like this removes available liquid and most foam. Improvements? How do you do it?

Also, Starsan versus Saniclean?

Thanks for feedback / words of wisdom -

 

[PCABrewing]

Into cleaned and empty keg add about half a gallon hot water and recommended amount of Starsan ... keg is not filled with solution. Install lid, shake, including holding upside down. Waiting five to ten min between efforts repeat three times. Let sit for about an hour for foam to subside. Attach liquid QD connector with drain line into sink. Using tank force sanitizer into sink, which will be running solution through liquid tube. Allow to sit a bit longer and repeat to move out residual solution best as reasonable.

Seems like this removes available liquid and most foam. Improvements? How do you do it?

Also, Starsan versus Saniclean?

Thanks for feedback / words of wisdom -

I follow a similar procedure, not a full keg, but I do disassemble the posts and lid, pull the tubes and give them a soak by themselves.
Too many nooks and crannys. For the soak I drop them back into the solution inside the keg.
Leaning it over at an angle in the slop sink allows the inside of the dip tube to be submerged.

 

[Cider Wraith]

I follow a similar procedure, not a full keg, but I do disassemble the posts and lid, pull the tubes and give them a soak by themselves.

Up until a few months ago I broke every keg completely down every time and sanitized every part, however that took an eight-hour day to clean five or six kegs. I believe at this point I'll only break kegs completely down about every ten or twenty uses. And there was discussion here about breaking down Italian AEBs invalidates the warranty. My guess would be if running a tremendous amount of cleaning liquid through poppets you're gonna' get what's there

Leaning it over at an angle in the slop sink allows the inside of the dip tube to be submerged.

I tried to keep my post brief and didn't mention that I also hold the keg vertically upside-down to allow solution to also flow out of the gas post

Thanks for your reply

 

[Cider Wraith]

Following shaking Star San solution several times to coat the interior of the keg, do you remove the top again before adding beverage? A tank will push out the liquid solution, but let's say the shaking process generated a third a keg of foam. Anybody have practical experience with how long it takes for a third of a keg of Star San foam to dissipate down to liquid so that it can be blown out, an hour? ...three hours? ...overnight? Or is a third of a keg of Star San foam not going to impact beverage?

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

Here's my cleaning routine, hope it helps you with yours.

I use a home built keg washer using a PBW solution for the cleaning. The keg washer has connections for the gas and beer QD's on the keg and a rotating spray ball. The keg cover is removed and the keg is placed over the spray ball and connections made to the QDs. Let that run for several minutes.

Before I built this keg washer, I would first rinse the keg with hot water to remove the big chunks that settle out in the keg. After that fill up a quarter of the way with PBW and hot water and attach the keg lid. Slosh that around for a few minutes then let sit, slosh some more and turn the keg upside down. After that exercise, I'd drain and flush out the keg with hot water and flush the dip tubes with an attachment on the sink faucet.

After all that deep cleaning, I'll fill the kegs, a quarter amount with sanitizer, the foaming kind like Star San. I'll slosh the keg around too for several minutes. I keep the sanitize in the stored keg until I need to fill it with fresh beer. Wipe down the outside of the keg with a rag soaked in sanitizer and spray the top of the keg and QDs. When kegging day comes, I empty the kegs of sanitizer and let them drain upside down in the sink till I'm ready. If there's a lot of foam in them, I'll give them a quick rinse with water before filling them. Before I attach the QD's I spray them with sanitizer.

I only break down the kegs if I suspect an issue but do so once a year to inspect all of the gaskets and replaces as needed.

Star San and many other sanitizers don't need a rinse but if I have excessive foam I'll give them a quick rinse even though I might need to. So far I have not had any issues.

 

[Cider Wraith]

Sounds great - any pics of your keg washer?

 

[esdill]

I do similar to OakIslandBrewery except I fill the keg completely with StarSan until liquid is at the very top of the keg, I dip the lid in StarSan and install it, spray the posts with StarSan, then use CO2 to completely empty the keg. I now have an empty keg, sanitized, and purged of oxygen, with a little residual CO2 pressure in it to ensure it stays sealed, and to purge my lines of oxygen when I hook the keg up to fill it through the beer out post (closed transfer between the keg and the fermenter with a CO2 tube installed between the gas in post and the fermenter - beer flows from the fermenter into the keg, CO2 from the keg flows back into the fermenter).

 

[madscientist451]

Into cleaned and empty keg add about half a gallon hot water and recommended amount of Starsan ... keg is not filled with solution. Install lid, shake, including holding upside down. Waiting five to ten min between efforts repeat three times.

I've turned into a super lazy-@ss brewer....why repeat three times? I put a couple of quarts of star-san/water mixture in an already cleaned keg, put the lid on shake it up, turn upside down, and then dump the starsan into a bucket and re-use it for something else. When I clean the keg, I take everything apart and the cleaned dip tube and other stuff gets soaked in star-san before reassembly.
Being super lazy, sometimes I don't even clean the keg at all, if the keg had a stout and I've got another dark beer to go in, its all good.
If there seems like a lot of material in the bottom, sometimes just some hot water rinse, a quick rinse with some star-san and Its done.
Often I can't remember when the last time a particular keg has been cleaned (I have a large collection) so I go ahead and take it apart and clean it.
Its been a few years since I've adopted my lazy brewing ways, but I haven't had any issues with kegged beer.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

Sounds great - any pics of your keg washer?

The keg washer I built uses a five gallon plastic bucket with cover. The bucket has 1-inch holes drilled all around the sides near the bottom. It sits in a sink that's filled with hot water/PBW solution. The submersible utility pump is 1/5 HP I got at a home improvement store. With a skip trough the fittings isle I was able to get a garden hose to 1/2" NPT adapter to connect a tee and a length of 12" pipe. The rotating spray ball came from Amazon.

So on keg washing day I fill my brewery sink with the PBW solution and invert the keg with the two QD's connected and let it rip. The keg lid I just put in the sink so it can soak as I clean the kegs. After the cleaning sequence I spray down the inside of the keg and dip tubes with clear water, an attachment that fits on the sink faucet. After that I sanitize the kegs and store them till I need them.

One change I plan do is replace the tee fitting with a cross so I could connect directly to the sink faucet and rinse everything instead of doing that extra step.

 

[balrog]

Into cleaned and empty keg add about half a gallon hot water and recommended amount of Starsan ... keg is not filled with solution. Install lid, shake, including holding upside down. Waiting five to ten min between efforts repeat three times. Let sit for about an hour for foam to subside. Attach liquid QD connector with drain line into sink. Using tank force sanitizer into sink, which will be running solution through liquid tube. Allow to sit a bit longer and repeat to move out residual solution best as reasonable.

Seems like this removes available liquid and most foam. Improvements? How do you do it?

Also, Starsan versus Saniclean?

Thanks for feedback / words of wisdom -

No need to wait for foam to subside really
Pour in sanitizer, close with lid, rock back and forth while rolling to coat inside surfaces completely, blow out through diptube, if doing more than one keg, hook liquid to liquid and blow from one to next (how I do it as I always seem to lazily wait until I have more than one keg). I bought the MarkII keg washer and applaud @OakIslandBrewery 's build. With warm water and fresh (homemade) PBW it only takes about 10 min to clean even a ferment in keg, keg. Once sanitized, I further set it aside with only a little pressure to keep lid closed, until I use it during fermentation, exhausting from fermenter airlock through liquid out QD of keg, out the gas in QD to a jar of starsan to purge keg with CO2. Then "closed as I can" transfer from fermenter vessel into liquid out of keg.

 

[Broken Crow]

The keg washer I built uses a five gallon plastic bucket with cover. The bucket has 1-inch holes drilled all around the sides near the bottom. It sits in a sink that's filled with hot water/PBW solution. The submersible utility pump is 1/5 HP I got at a home improvement store. With a skip trough the fittings isle I was able to get a garden hose to 1/2" NPT adapter to connect a tee and a length of 12" pipe. The rotating spray ball came from Amazon.

So on keg washing day I fill my brewery sink with the PBW solution and invert the keg with the two QD's connected and let it rip. The keg lid I just put in the sink so it can soak as I clean the kegs. After the cleaning sequence I spray down the inside of the keg and dip tubes with clear water, an attachment that fits on the sink faucet. After that I sanitize the kegs and store them till I need them.

One change I plan do is replace the tee fitting with a cross so I could connect directly to the sink faucet and rinse everything instead of doing that extra step.

View attachment 814306

I've built a very similar keg washer, but I put a Quick Disconnect in the [expensive] CIP ball so that it can do double duty,...after a brew I remove my steam-condenser from the 1.5"TC domed SSbrewtech fermenter lid (which is a perfect fit for my keggle) and I plug the CIP ball in there for clean up. The ball itself will not fit through the TC bulkhead, but a nipple with a male QD goes through easily.

 

[Broken Crow]

To sanitizing; I'm a hardcore advocate of 'overfilling' the corny with Star San... I have an extra 7 gallon fermonster that I use as my Star San resevoir and I make sure every possible gap is full of it before purging once with CO2.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

I like the idea of the QD for the spray ball. I've been thinking of something like that so I can use the same spray ball in my CF10. I bought another 4" TC for the fermenter and I'll have some threaded ends welded to it then add the QD's. Expensive, yes but it'll offer more flexibility with something in the future - maybe using the pump for line cleaning.

 

[Spivey24]

Lately I have switched from disassembling, PBW, then purge with starsan. Such a pain to do.

Now I blow out as much gunk as possible while keg is still on tap when keg kicks. Then at some point later I take an old clean keg and fill halfway with boiling water. I wear heat gloves and good shoes for this. Close up the clean keg and pressurize with CO2. Then depressurize the dirty keg most of the way. Then hook up a co2 purged hose from out post on clean keg to in post on dirty keg and let the keg fill to about a gallon of the hot water. Shake it all up and let it soak for 10 minutes. Give it another shake and hook up hose to out post and let it drain. Then disconnect and repressurize keg. All sanitized and purged of O2 mostly. Usually do 2 dirty kegs at a time. If feeling ambitious, I will use the same method to push some star San in, shake it and leave it until used.

 

[Cider Wraith]

If there's a lot of foam in them, I'll give them a quick rinse with water before filling them.

I thought conventional wisdom was to not rinse Star San. I have done that also but used a few ounces of sterilized water hoping it would at least be better than tap

 

[Cider Wraith]

then use CO2 to completely empty the keg. I now have an empty keg, sanitized, and purged of oxygen, with a little residual CO2 pressure in it to ensure it stays sealed

That's a great method but I've feared it would go through CO2 tanks too quickly

 

[Cider Wraith]

why repeat three times?

Because seem to recall that Star San must be in contact with a surface a minimum of two minutes. So wild guessing is after three or four shakes I've gotten at least that much surface contact time

 

[Cider Wraith]

sometimes I don't even clean the keg at all, if the keg had a stout and I've got another dark beer to go in, its all good

I'm with you @madscientist451 ... I refill fermenters without cleaning with new ingredients and the outcomes keep improving. So I'm reusing the yeast slurry also. Have had good results up to about the fifth to seventh refilling

 

[Cider Wraith]

Pour in sanitizer, close with lid, rock back and forth while rolling to coat inside surfaces completely

Yeah, that's what I was trying to convey. I'm thinking you only need a few ounces of sanitizer switching that around and blowing it through the tubes accomplishes same thing as if the keg were filled I hope. And a few ounces doesn't foam up enough to half fill the keg with foam. Now, for PBW, yeah, that requires completely filling and an extended soak

 

[Cider Wraith]

Expensive, yes but it'll offer more flexibility with something in the future - maybe using the pump for line cleaning

Just received a brewing pump to cycle cleaner through lines. So, I'm thinking adding about four to six inches of water with PBW or Star San or clear water, and a final Star San pass-through each stage through the tubes for a few minutes with the new pump. Will also be cleaning lines at the same time

Really like the nicely constructed keg washers, excellent work

 

[Cider Wraith]

The rotating spray ball came from Amazon.

Who knew these existed?!

 

[PCABrewing]

Who knew these existed?!
View attachment 814337

Maybe most of the people who frequent the list

 

[day_trippr]

I thought conventional wisdom was to not rinse Star San.

Well, yeah, mostly because it's a "no rinse" sanitizer
Unless one has water that's even more sanitary than sanitizer it makes zero sense to rinse it off...

Cheers!

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

I do a lot of shopping on Amazon but another place is Fleet Farm. The dairy section has a bunch of items that can be used for home brewing. I haven't seen any rotating spray balls though.

 

[madscientist451]

The spray ball just seems like overkill for cleaning kegs for home brewing....
Just dump in some hot water and PBW if its really dirty?
Y'all got more free time than I do, I guess......

 

[esdill]

That's a great method but I've feared it would go through CO2 tanks too quickly

If I have any other kegs that need to be cleaned I use the residual CO2 in them left over from serving to purge the StarSan from the recently cleaned keg (I have a gas post to gas post jumper for this purpose). No sense venting that co2 into the atmosphere before opening the keg when I can use it to purge another keg ...

 

[balrog]

Because seem to recall that Star San must be in contact with a surface a minimum of two minutes. So wild guessing is after three or four shakes I've gotten at least that much surface contact time

AFter rocking some starsan in a keg to coat internal surfaces, pushing it out takes at least a minute, and that's all contact time as it does not dry instantly inside the keg.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Up until a few months ago I broke every keg completely down every time and sanitized every part, however that took an eight-hour day to clean five or six kegs.

I feel like I am pretty anal about cleaning my kegs. I remove the disconnects and tubes each time, cleaning all the small parts and giving the inside a scrub. For me, that is a 15 minute process per keg. I am trying to figure out how it could take over an hour to clean a single keg.

I agree with the comments that a surface just needs to be damp with StarSan for 30 to 60 seconds. That is why the product has a surfactant. A little more time and a few extra shakes is not a bad thing, but likely not necessary.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

The spray ball just seems like overkill for cleaning kegs for home brewing....
Just dump in some hot water and PBW if its really dirty?
Y'all got more free time than I do, I guess......

I can see your point. I'll do a simple rinse if a keg then wait till I have 3-4 empties then haul out the keg washer. My keg washer cleans both keg dip tube at the same time. Just dumping in some cleaner into the keg won't get the beer tube clean.

 

[madscientist451]

Yeah, I take the dip tube out to clean it when needed.

 

[odie]

I do a full break down every time. It's not much effort to do a single keg while you are waiting on the cold crash or for the kettle to chill a bit.

I clean right before filling, so there is no issue with anything getting in or growing while it's in storage.

But since I ferment and serve in same keg, then dump fresh wort in to sart over, cleanings have dropped significantly. The only thing to clean is the lid.

 

[Yesfan]

I do a full break down every time. It's not much effort to do a single keg while you are waiting on the cold crash or for the kettle to chill a bit.

I clean right before filling, so there is no issue with anything getting in or growing while it's in storage.

But since I ferment and serve in same keg, then dump fresh wort in to sart over, cleanings have dropped significantly. The only thing to clean is the lid.

What about the krausen ring after fermentation or does that even matter?

After a few fermentations in the same serving keg, I can see myself looking down at this big booger chunk of krausen that made it through the disconnect and into my glass. It's floating around like an iceberg, staring back at me with contempt and ill will.

Oh, the horrors..............

 

[DuncB]

Given the thread title.
You can't sanitise a dirty keg.

So dump out dregs, PBW through my homemade keg / fermenter rinser, then rinse with water at temp of PBW to get rid of residue.
Then fill keg with Starsan, mine are D sankeys so no irritating issues of corneys for full filling.
Purge with ferment gas pressurise leaving the dregs in the bottom.

Just before filling shake the starsan dregs around. Invert keg and purge out the remaining starsan through the PRV.

Then fill by closed transfer.

No posts to fiddle with as the Sankey coupler has those on.

 

[odie]

What about the krausen ring after fermentation or does that even matter?

After a few fermentations in the same serving keg, I can see myself looking down at this big booger chunk of krausen that made it through the disconnect and into my glass. It's floating around like an iceberg, staring back at me with contempt and ill will.

Oh, the horrors..............

I find it best not to look...

Just pop the lid, take a quick sniff...if nothing funky...dump that fresh wort in and close it up.

If your keg was clean and sanitary beginning with the first ferment, and you never opened it the whole time after the initial fill and yeast pitch all the way until you drank the last pint...well, what is there to fear?

DO keep the keg nice and cold between beers. DO NOT let that yeast cake get warmed up without fresh wort.

 

[balrog]

What about the krausen ring after fermentation or does that even matter?

The MarkII washer knocks the krausen ring of a ferm-n-serve right off in 10 min. I imagine a CIP spray ball would do it even more quickly.

 

[Yesfan]

.............DO NOT let that yeast cake get warmed up without fresh wort.

Well, that's answers one question about one of my kegs. Just curious though, why not?

 

[odie]

Well, that's answers one question about one of my kegs. Just curious though, why not?

used kegs that I don't plan to re-pitch into get pulled and set aside until cleaning time. Upon opening, many yeast cakes were "questionable" IMO.

I gather that warm yeaties are trouble waiting to happen. There is likely a reason liquid yeasts are kept cold at the LHBS.

Cold yeast is dormant, warm yeast it looking to do something.

I suppose I could pull an empty keg, let it sit outside for a couple weeks, then open it and dump fresh wort and see what happens...

But it just too easy to let the empty sit in the kegerator nice and cold while I brew up something to go in it. Or just move it to my fermentation chamber and dial the temps down while waiting on a batch of wort.

 

[Yesfan]

..........I suppose I could pull an empty keg, let it sit outside for a couple weeks, then open it and dump fresh wort and see what happens........

I may try something similar on my next brew. I have my 15G corny in the corner which still has the yeast cake from its batch I brewed 2 months ago. It's too large to put in cold storage, but it's still under pressure. I may pull some of the slurry out using the method you mentioned earlier and pitch that in a test batch just to see how it turns out.

 

[odie]

2 month old warm yeast cake?

My assumption would be it's probably nasty but I have no actual information on warm, liquid yeast cakes.

Might very well be just fine and it's just an unfounded assumption on my part.

I just assumed since all liquid yeasts always seem to be sold cold, shipped cold, stored cold.

No one ever talks about "warm" yeast storage. Except for dry yeasts and I keep those cold too.

 

[balrog]

I can store a yeast cake for up to several months.



Under a couple gallons of beer in a fermenter.