Need Help Simplifying Kegging

[njnear76]

Whenever I kick keg, I take apart the whole keg (posts and poppets), and clean it head to toe with oxyclean and then rinse. I also run BLC through all my beer lines.

The keg usually sits around for a month or two prior to filling it up again with liquid goodness.

I usually take apart the whole keg again when I sanitize it, but I'm thinking this step is unnecessary. I should just fill with sanitizer, shake that bad boy, and dispense the sanitizer. What's your opinion?

 

[cruckin78]

I would think after a good clean then dispensing the sanitizer would do the trick.

 

[Thirteen]

Sounds like overkill. I rarely disassemble my kegs. I use a pond pump to circulate oxy and sanitizer (similar to many of the keg/carboy cleaner threads here) pretty much as soon as I finish off a keg. I'll then throw the lid back on, circulate through the posts for a bit, drain and let sit till I'm ready to refill.

 

[BargainFittings]

I think the second disassembly is unnecessary. Just run some sanitizer through it and be sure to vent some through the poppets and pressure relief.

 

[njnear76]

How will I vent the sanitizer through the gas in? Do I have to hold the keg upside down?

 

[BargainFittings]

Yes or lean it over and depress the poppet with a blunt object or a spare gas connect.

 

[motobrewer]

i voted yes before reading the entire post, lol.

i change my vote to no.

 

[JonK331]

I take apart my kegs every ten batches or so. I don't see a need to do it much more than that. No contamination issues for me with that regime.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I dis-assemble the entire keg for throrugh cleaningif it has sat for a while unused.

Otherwise, I soak with PBW then sanitize, If you look around a bit, you can find a canning funnel with a small stem ( I use a Coleman funnel) . Connected to a hose, connected to a disonnect. I do this to ensure that the liquid post gets sanitizer contact through the length of the interior.

Could always push with CO2 but I hate using CO2 for that kind of stuff when air or gravity will suffice.

 

[strat_thru_marshall]

Instead of taking your keg apart twice why not take it apart, oxyclean, rinse, re-assemble, fill with 1 gallon of starsan made with distilled water, pressurize, and store. The starsan will keep it sanitized pretty much forever as long as your use distilled water, and keep the keg sealed under pressure. When its time to fill, give it a shake, push some starsan out through the liquid side, then empty the rest.

 

[robertbartsch]

I store "empty" kegs with a full load of sanitizer water and I pressurize the keg and shoot some out the vent using a keg tap.... They can sit around a long time but they are ready to go when the need arises....

When I am ready to fill them with beer, I just empty the sanitizer and fill them with beer, purge the head space with c02 to remove air and that is it.

 

[jason.mundy]

I clean with PBW. It is dismantled. Parts are in hop bags. I flip with keg upside down inside of a bucket to get the top too. Rinse with water.

I store the keg with 1 gallon of Star San.

I dispense the star san with a picnic tap or my filter set up.

 

[njnear76]

Hmmm.... I think I should switch to starsan. That could definitely simplify my kegging technique. Thanks guys for the pointers.

I'm leaning towards just taking apart the posts to clean them and not doing it again when sanitizing.

 

[rcrabb22]

Whenever I kick keg, I take apart the whole keg (posts and poppets), and clean it head to toe with oxyclean and then rinse. I also run BLC through all my beer lines.

The keg usually sits around for a month or two prior to filling it up again with liquid goodness.

I usually take apart the whole keg again when I sanitize it, but I'm thinking this step is unnecessary. I should just fill with sanitizer, shake that bad boy, and dispense the sanitizer. What's your opinion?

I take mine apart when I clean but if not put back in use right away I place the liquid out dip tube in the keg loose. I then cover the keg opening and the in and out ports with a folded paper towel. I store the cleaned lid, gas and liquid posts, gas dip tube , poppets and all o-rings in a ziplock bag sitting on the paper towel.

When time to use the keg, sanitize the package and rack .

 

[Simphoto02]

I clean mine thourly and rinse then sanitize then store pressurized with C02. Run Star-San through it before filling and force cabonate.

 

[zymurgy101]

I go through kegs too quickly to break them down every time. However, they do get PBW run through, then a rinse and finally StarSan. Usually, I clean them in pairs as I do ten gallon batches. I use C02 on the first keg to push the PBW, Rinse and StarSan through the beer lines as well. I recycle the PBW and StarSan as much as possible. Typically, I clean the kegs on a Saturday and rack to them immediately afterwards. Sunday is brew day, so much of the PBW and StarSan gets reused then. As my brewing process gets more refined and proficient, I'm finding that I was doing many things two or three times and wasting too much effort. Sanitizing kegs twice was one of them.

 

[fartingdog]

I only do a full breakdown cleaning every 5 or so batches to inspect o-rings and lube them (I have alot of kegs, so that is maybe every year or so).

The method I use is to rinse and fill a keg w/ 3 or so gallons hot water and PBW, pressurize and push some PBW solution out the dip tubes and let it sit for 3 hours. Then I take the lid off and invert into a 5-gal pail and let soak for another couple hours. That cleans the upper part of the inside keg as well as the lid and posts. I like to let the chemicals do the work.

Then rinse, let them dry, sanitize w/star-san (again pushed thru dip tubes) and store pressurized. they are ready to go whenever I need them.

I use the same method (3 gallons, invert in bucket) during breakdown.

 

[AKbrewer]

I break them down every time, gives me piece of mind