Keg has hop smell after cleaning

[MikeCo]

I've noticed really hoppy beers can leave a hoppy smell in my kegs even after soaking them with PBW or the equivalent. They look spotless inside, but definitely have a noticeable hop aroma. Do I need to use something like dish washing detergent (Dawn) to eliminate the hop oils?

 

[day_trippr]

I use hot pbw (~130°F) in my Mark 2 keg washer - with the keg o-ring removed from its lid and dropped in the cleaner - and even my hoppiest kegs are free of hop odors.

Cheers!

 

[IslandLizard]

I use hot pbw (~130°F) in my Mark 2 keg washer - with the keg o-ring removed from its lid and dropped in the cleaner - and even my hoppiest kegs are free of hop odors.

Similar here, but without the pump.

I put a gallon of very hot, near boiling (homemade) PBW into the already rinsed-out keg, lock the lid and shake it. Then let it sit right side up, then upside down, for a few minutes and shake again. The cleaning solution is reclaimed for the next keg or next use.
I also soak the lid, posts, o-rings and such in hot PBW. I do keep the parts of each keg together.

I usually have a small line-up of kegs that need to be cleaned, so it's pretty efficient that way.

 

[Broken Crow]

^^^ Yeah, what they said, plus: Before I built a keg-washer, I did 3-gallons of 130° PBW, 25 mins or so upside down, and 25 mins or so rightside up, and then used some CO2 to push it through the liquid diptube, either to the next keg, or storage/draining. (Disabled, so shaking is really good, I just can't do it.) But: While upside down, I put a bare disconnect on the gas post to flush some through and clean the gas post out.

 

[MikeCo]

Thanks for the replies. I'll try hotter water and longer soaking times.

 

[Neldog0]

I've noticed really hoppy beers can leave a hoppy smell in my kegs even after soaking them with PBW or the equivalent. They look spotless inside, but definitely have a noticeable hop aroma. Do I need to use something like dish washing detergent (Dawn) to eliminate the hop oils?

I have the same problem. I found that PBW does not clean everything. I found that using citric acid as a follow up takes care of all remaining films & smells.

 

[MikeCo]

Thanks, I'll try that too. I re-cleaned the keg and found that the thing that retained the most hop smell was the silicone floating dip tube, so I soaked that a while in PBW. Citric acid may work better to clean the tubing also.

 

[MikeCo]

It was definitely the dip tube that had the smell. After re-cleaning the keg and removing the tube, the keg smelled new.