First time use keezer

[WBB]

After you built your keezer, did you disconnect all the liquid lines, take apart the shanks, the tail pieces, the couplers, swivel nuts, etc. and soak everything in pbw or star San and then put everything back together and then run star San through again in preparation for beer to be run through the lines? Or did you just run pbw and star San through the completed keezer?

Or did you clean the parts prior to putting it together the first time?

I built mine, but since all the parts were brand new, from the shanks to the tubing to the clamps, taps, everything, but I never washed them or cleaned them. I was thinking since I’ll be pbwing and star saning the kegs, I figured I could just push the pbw and star San out from the kegs through the taps. I mean the beer is only going to be touching all those places that the pbw and star San touch.

Thoughts?

 

[BeerBaron1985]

Ran BLC through everything once it was assembled. No star san or any super caustic cleaner as my shanks and faucets are chrome plated brass. Unless you spent the bennies on stainless steel hardware, do not use star san!

 

[day_trippr]

Well, ok, the pH of a standard Star San mix is around 2.5, clearly more acidic than the pH of beer which runs around 4.
Otoh, one only runs Star San through a dispensing system briefly - it only needs 30 seconds to do about all it'll ever do wrt sanitation but practically speaking it'll likely persist for many more minutes before it gets displaced by beer. Still, short duration exposure.

Meanwhile that pH 4 beer is there 24/7/365. So I doubt plating exposed to beer will persist indefinitely, Star San or not.

As to the OP: as I recall I essentially did the same "post-assembly" cleaning and called it good to go. But I did use my compressor to blow out all of my faucets and shanks in case there was any machining debris within before assembling my t-tower.

Occasionally you'll see apocryphal tales of grease-packed faucets, or faucets or shanks loaded with machining debris. I reckon tiny metal fragments would get flushed out well enough, but maybe not the grease-packing. So it's worth doing a decent visual inspection at least before final assembly to help prevent surprises ending up in a glass

Cheers!

 

[WBB]

Yeah I had bought all stainless. The only thing that isn’t stainless actually are the nuts on the swivel nuts, the stems are, but not he nuts, they a chrome plated brass.

I take that star San and non stainless steel don’t get along?

 

[BeerBaron1985]

Yeah I had bought all stainless. The only thing that isn’t stainless actually are the nuts on the swivel nuts, the stems are, but not he nuts, they a chrome plated brass.

I take that star San and non stainless steel don’t get along?

Its very acidic and will eat away at the chrome plating. BLC is not as acidic and cleans real well. Just been my experience.