How to prevent Brett carryover in a keg?

[Jersh]

In 2012 I had the opportunity to fill a corny while volunteering at Saint Somewhere Brewing. The beer is a farmhouse ale that was open fermented with brett and a saison yeast and it has been in this keg for 18 months. Keg finally blew tonight.

How should I go about cleaning this keg to make sure there is no Brett carryover to the next beer that I put in the keg? My initial thought is to fill it with boiling water, let it cool, then add StarSan and hold it for a week or two... Any thoughts?

 

[augiedoggy]

In 2012 I had the opportunity to fill a corny while volunteering at Saint Somewhere Brewing. The beer is a farmhouse ale that was open fermented with brett and a saison yeast and it has been in this keg for 18 months. Keg finally blew tonight.

How should I go about cleaning this keg to make sure there is no Brett carryover to the next beer that I put in the keg? My initial thought is to fill it with boiling water, let it cool, then add StarSan and hold it for a week or two... Any thoughts?

Umm...
You realize the top comes off the corny and you can just reach in and clean it with a rag and oxy right?
I usually just rinse all the solids out and wipe down the inside, then I put about a gallon of hot water mixed with starsan and seal it and shake it good, then I push down on the poppet for the liquid to push the starsan water through the diptube (the keg will be slightly pressurized from shaking it up) then I tip upside down and do the same with the gas poppet ....then empty and your good to go. in your case I would leave the starsan and shake it up a few times over the course of a few hours. you could also fill the keg with starsan solution and leave it sit but honestly the stainless is not porous so I see no issue with contamination.

 

[Spartan1979]

Replace all the rubber gaskets.

 

[heckels]

All the stainless requires is a good scrub and some StarSan. It may be overboard but I also have a set of rings and beer line hose for my sours.


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[masonsjax]

Brett is yeast, treat it like you would any beer that has yeast in it. You might want to be more anal with your cleaning if it's a beer with bacteria in it though.

 

[Darwin18]

Brett is yeast, treat it like you would any beer that has yeast in it. You might want to be more anal with your cleaning if it's a beer with bacteria in it though.

^ THIS.

Brett is just yeast. Do you do anything special for cleaning out a keg that was filled with american or english yeast strains? There's a lot of poor information out there on the internet about Brett. It's not so super resistant infectious microbe. It's a yeast.

Just make you sanitize as well you would for any other yeast.

 

[billl]

Brett isn't just another yeast though. If you add a little english yeast to a completely fermented beer, what happens..... nothing. What happens if you add a little brett? It will slowly chew through some of the sugars the they other yeast couldn't eat. That is nothing to panic about, but it is reason to make sure your sanitation techniques are top notch. If you aren't in the habit of completely breaking down your keg after each batch, this would be a good batch to do that on. As long as the keg is clean,the normal sanitizers will take care of brett. If you have buildup anywhere - dip tub, poppets etc - the sanitizers don't work well on that.

 

[dinnerstick]

If you aren't in the habit of completely breaking down your keg after each batch, this would be a good batch to do that on.

i only just recently learned that some people don't break down their kegs after each use! some friends had a persistent wild yeast infection and when we broke down their technique it turned out their keg cleaning regime involved some lame attempt at pushing sanitizer through the dip tube. it's so damn easy, and should be done every time! anyways i'm in agreement with the others; inspect all the o-rings, change them if they are cracked. sanitize well and don't worry about it!

 

[Spartan1979]

i only just recently learned that some people don't break down their kegs after each use! some friends had a persistent wild yeast infection and when we broke down their technique it turned out their keg cleaning regime involved some lame attempt at pushing sanitizer through the dip tube. it's so damn easy, and should be done every time! anyways i'm in agreement with the others; inspect all the o-rings, change them if they are cracked. sanitize well and don't worry about it!

I always break mine down, too. I've thought about trying to clean it assembled, but my OCD kicks in and I just can't do it.