Forgot to rinse PBW.....

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Nummey

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Posted this in the bottling/kegging subforum but it's probably best suited here....

So after 2 years of bottling batches, I kegged my first batch last night. About 20 minutes after I kegged and pressurized the keg, I realized that I forgot to rinse the PBW from the keg and serving line…UGH!

Before filling with beer, I put 2 gallons of hot water and a little PBW in the keg, shook it around for about 5 minutes, hooked up the gas and ran it through the serving line. Then I sanitized the keg with Star San but didn’t run it thru the serving line. After realizing my mistake of not rinsing PBW, I hooked up the party tap to the filled keg to drain whatever water/PBW may have been left in the dip tube. Part of the first pour was basically the water/pbw that remained in the dip tube. Am I screwed here by not thoroughly rinsing the PBW from the keg and serving line? I know, wait it out and see how it tastes but wondering if anyone has any similar experiences?

thanks
 
No, you are fine. C02 and Starsan are acidic so they will neutralize the base of PBW. You might have not effectively sanitized everything since it got neutralized but you are probably fine. Nothing to worry about.
 
If you want to know with more certainty, contact Five Star directly. They're really helpful and can get you an answer from a chemist. I know that it would be heavily diluted, but drinking PBW solution would concern me personally.
 
I'd definitely give the company a call and also see if you can get the MSDS sheet and see what sort of toxins are part of PBW, just in case. I'd think you would be ok since we are probably talking of the order of 10ml of possible diluted PBW in ~20L of beer, so 500ppm of diluted PBW but better safe than sorry.
 
You don't need to call the company to get the MSDS. http://www.fivestarchemicals.com/wp-content/uploads/PBWMSDS2.pdf

I'm confused by the story though. Did you leave BOTH the starsan AND the PBW in the keg and then racked on top of it??? If so, then your beers probably going to taste nasty. If you rinsed the PBW WITH Starsan and drained it all, you're going be just fine.
 
Sounds like he drained the PBW, then added the StarSan after draining the PBW, otherwise he'd have had about 2 gallons of beer on the floor.
 
Sounds like he drained the PBW, then added the StarSan after draining the PBW, otherwise he'd have had about 2 gallons of beer on the floor.

LOL...good catch. Ya never know though. Could've been a short batch and he just stopped racking when the keg got full.

In that case I'm going to say you're 100% fine. I generally clean all my lines at the same time with PBW, then rinse by running starsan through them. I generally do about 1/2G of each per line. Don't reuse the starsan after that...obviously.
 
Thanks for the replies guys.....To clarify, yes I did dump the PBW out of the keg after shaking it for 5 minutes....just didn't rinse it with water. I did sanitize the keg with Star San but not the serving line. What a time saver kegging is though, just hope it doesn't kill me!! ;)
 
Update for anyone interested. Here's the finished product after 10 days in the keg. An IPA inspired by Sierra Nevada Celebration ale. No off flavors at all...man is it good! I won't be bottling the old way anytime soon!

beer.JPG
 
Glad it worked out! Kegging is spectacular. If not for the time savings, certainly for the ability to say that your beer is on tap at your home!
 
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