Kegs smell after cleaning

[h22lude]

I clean my kegs by letting water and oxiclean sit over night. I then wipe it down with a sponge and rinse it well. I clean my beer lines with line cleaner and then clean all the other keg and line parts in the line cleaner. Rinse them well and install them back on the clean and rinsed keg. When I store them I put the lid. I just kegged a pumpkin ale and the inside of the keg smelt weird. Not thinking anything of it I kegged anyway. The other keg that I had sitting also smelt weird. I just washed another keg a week or so ago and left the lid off and that has no smell at all.

Why am I getting this smell? I think my cleaning practices are really good.

 

[bknifefight]

Your practice sounds good but somethings a soak doesnt cut it. Every once and awhile you should completely disassemble your kegs and clean everything really well. There could be some gunk in there.

 

[JJL]

Could be two things I can think of. 1) It might be residual odor from the previous beer stuck in the o-rings or possibly the keg itself. In this case it would just smell like beer. 2) Its stagnant water or possibly bacteria growth. If this is the case, you should re-clean and sanitize well before filling. If you don't store your kegs under pressure, this could be your issue.

Oh and this is assuming that you already did what bknifefight said. You definitely need to disassemble them once in a while.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

It could just be mildew or something. You said the keg you left open was ok. After cleaning my kegs, I always leave them un-sealed so that they can dry out. I've never had foul smelling kegs.

 

[bknifefight]

Could mildew live in a pressurized environment? I ask because when a keg kicks, I clean and sanitize it then, and leave it sealed until beer is ready for it.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

Could mildew live in a pressurized environment? I ask because when a keg kicks, I clean and sanitize it then, and leave it sealed until beer is ready for it.

If you purge it with CO2, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure mildew needs oxygen to grow.

 

[h22lude]

Your practice sounds good but somethings a soak doesnt cut it. Every once and awhile you should completely disassemble your kegs and clean everything really well. There could be some gunk in there.

I do disassemble everything. I take it all apart and let the keg start soaking. I then run beer line cleaner through the out disconnect and out the lines into a bucket. I put both posts, poppets, both dip tubes, lid, and o-rings and the bucket and scrub them with my faucet brush. I run my dip tube brush through both dip tubes. I then rinse them well and let them dry. After a day of soaking, I wash the inside of the keg with a sponge and use my dip tube brush inside the two post screws (just to make everything clean).

Could be two things I can think of. 1) It might be residual odor from the previous beer stuck in the o-rings or possibly the keg itself. In this case it would just smell like beer. 2) Its stagnant water or possibly bacteria growth. If this is the case, you should re-clean and sanitize well before filling. If you don't store your kegs under pressure, this could be your issue.

Oh and this is assuming that you already did what bknifefight said. You definitely need to disassemble them once in a while.

I didn't store them under pressure. It wasn't a beer smell. It was slight but still there....kinda funky.

I hope I didn't just rack into a bacteria keg lol Time to drink this beer quickly. It is a pumpkin beer and it does have a weird taste to it but it also tasted weird when I took the FG reading.

It could just be mildew or something. You said the keg you left open was ok. After cleaning my kegs, I always leave them un-sealed so that they can dry out. I've never had foul smelling kegs.

Yeah I had two I cleaned and closed (not pressurized, stored in my basement) and one I just recently cleaned about a week ago that I still have in my house with the lid off. After rinsing the kegs off I do let them sit upside down for a day or two so they dry.


Maybe I'll have to start storing them either not closed or under pressure.

 

[JJL]

By storing them under pressure with CO2, it discourages growth of the bad stuff. But, storing them upside down with the lid off is probably just as good. The only issue with that is having your o-rings dry out if your kegs sit unused for a long period of time. But, if you're like most people, I'm sure you your kegs don't sit empty very long.

 

[h22lude]

By storing them under pressure with CO2, it discourages growth of the bad stuff. But, storing them upside down with the lid off is probably just as good. The only issue with that is having your o-rings dry out if your kegs sit unused for a long period of time. But, if you're like most people, I'm sure you your kegs don't sit empty very long.

Yeah I think from now on I'm going to store upside down without the lid on. My kegs don't sit long at all

 

[BBL_Brewer]

By storing them under pressure with CO2, it discourages growth of the bad stuff. But, storing them upside down with the lid off is probably just as good. The only issue with that is having your o-rings dry out if your kegs sit unused for a long period of time. But, if you're like most people, I'm sure you your kegs don't sit empty very long.

If you lube the o-rings every time like you're supposed to, they shouldn't dry out.

 

[MrFoodScientist]

+1 to storing kegs unsealed.

Rinse everything down when you kick a keg. Sanitize everything before you fill a keg. That way you know your filling a clean keg, you don't have to use extra co2 to pressurize your kegs in storage.