How can I eliminate any chance of chlorine/chloromine.

[Ashevillain]

I don't consistently have this problem, but I feel like sometimes upon transferring from fermentation keg to serving keg I start to detect slight traces of chlorine.

I noticed another few threads about this recently and wanted to examine my own process to see if I could identify anything that could be going wrong when transferring/serving in a keg.

It honestly could be in my head, or it could be another part of my process that I'd need to isolate.

For example I brewed 10 Gallons of kolsh and fermented in kegs with closed transfer to serving keg. One turned out great, the other was the same or so I thought, but after a few days I feel like I can pick up the slightest bit of something off. Its pretty doubtful that its infection, but I'm open to any possibility.

I clean and sanitize all kegs very well.

I either leave some sani in the keg and force it out with co2, or even if it had been sanid and sealed ill push some sani in, shake it a bit, and push it back out.

Then I transfer. I don't use treated water when I sani, and I'm thinking maybe I should.

Also, what about cleaning other equipment as well? Its mighty convenient to use a hose to spray things down. Do I need to avoid cleaning/rinsing with unfiltered water? Sounds like a PITA.

One thing I did notice is that when I let the beer warm up to 50 degrees it was much better and didn't seem to have as much of the flavor I was picking up on, but I didn't have to do this for the first keg.

 

[z-bob]

You're not using bleach to sanitize, are you?

Stir crushed Campden tablets into your water; I think it takes about 1/4 of a tablet per 5 gallons. Or use a pinch of K-Meta. As soon as it's dissolved, you're good to go. Vitamin C also works.

 

[Ashevillain]

Okay, so is this a general cleaning/sani practice? I missed the memo xD but I will give this a shot might be an easy solution!

 

[Shepbrew]

Campden is easy and cheap. As to untreated water for rinsing/cleaning, I do this all the time and have noticed no issues at all.

 

[IslandLizard]

Aside from all my brewing water, I also treat my Starsan water (before mixing in the Starsan concentrate) with a pinch of K-meta, just in case. Such a small effort. Now the amount of Starsan left in the bottom of a keg after purging is so small, I doubt it'd makes a noticeable difference.

Are you pre-purging your kegs with water or Starsan? Conceivably Chlorine could gas out and mix with your CO2 upon purging. Treat that with a pinch of K-meta to see if it makes a difference.

 

[kh54s10]

Using tap water for cleaning should not be an issue, unless you are leaving water behind. The amount of chlorine in a wet surface is negligible.

I don't even treat my tap water, I do filter it with a charcoal filter. But then again, my municipal water seems to be extremely good. I don't know how or if it is chlorinated.

What are you sanitizing with? I prefer Starsan and I just mix it with tap water. I have never had any issues with this. Maybe try a different sanitizer.

 

[z-bob]

Are you sure your problem is chlorine?

 

[EDF713]

Are you doing anything to treat your brewing water? If not, I would start there. Your municipal water probably has chlorine or cloramines, which are easily removed with campden. Before I started using reverse osmosis water, I would notice a chlorine or bandaid flavor in my bears after a few weeks that got worse with age.

 

[dyqik]

1/4 Campden tablet per five gallons is a minimum that treats the "normal" levels of chloramine/chlorine in municipal supplies (2ppm). There's no harm in going to half or a whole tablet per five gallons.

Also, you can treat your water for making up starsan. Don't rinse the starsan solution off. You can save and reuse the starsan solution though. It's may be overkill, but I have heard reports of starsan interacting with the chloramine to make things worse. I'm not too sure I believe that, but I guess it's not completely implausible.

 

[mng8r]

I either leave some sani in the keg and force it out with co2, or even if it had been sanid and sealed ill push some sani in, shake it a bit, and push it back out.

Depending on how long you leave the liquid sanitizer in the keg, this could cause a problem. The acidic ph level of the sanitizer does not last forever. I've had kegs that have sat sealed with a small amount of liquid sanitizer in them and when opened a few months later, the liquid was bad and had growths. After that, I always make sure to allow the kegs to dry completely before sealing them. I thought I read that 5 Star recommends that StarSan be allowed to dry.

 

[mongoose33]

Depending on how long you leave the liquid sanitizer in the keg, this could cause a problem. The acidic ph level of the sanitizer does not last forever. I've had kegs that have sat sealed with a small amount of liquid sanitizer in them and when opened a few months later, the liquid was bad and had growths. After that, I always make sure to allow the kegs to dry completely before sealing them. I thought I read that 5 Star recommends that StarSan be allowed to dry.

It's true that it doesn't last forever, but it does last months. I have a bucket of Star-San I use to dunk things in, and it's been about 8 weeks since I made it up. I tested it on Saturday to see how it was doing, and it's still doing fine. Star-San is supposed to be effective w/ a pH below 3.0; here we are with my bucketed pH:






I move Star-San from keg to keg as I clean them and I use CO2 to push the Star-San out into another keg, leaving behind only CO2. I've had that Star-San in there for months.

 

[Ashevillain]

Thanks for all the excellent responses! I do use CO2 to push sani around and purge kegs. I use 100% RO and build my profile/ph. What I'm detecting is very faint, and it may have only been apparent at very cold temps when the Kolsh flavors were muted and recently carbed, possible carbonic bite at play. But I realize choramine can be detectable even at low levels, so I'm pretty excited about my next batch with treated sani. It just feels good creating fail safes and isolation so I don't need to scratch my head when something isn't completely right. I am also trying to consider other possibilities as well, but the first keg that was seemingly unaffected made me think variables in the keg.

For example, if I pushed/purged sani from a full keg for first 5gals while only needing to slightly rock the keg to coat fully with sani, the keg would have less bubbles which are harder to push out.

The 2nd keg might have had a smaller amount pushed in, then was shaken to ensure coverage, which created more bubbles and untreated water that didn't get pushed back out.