Sanitize keg ahead of time

[Brett3rThanU]

I'm just about to keg my first batch in a week and a half and want to go ahead and sanitize this weekend in preparation. I've already cleaned it with Oxyclean so that's out of the way. What I'm thinking of doing is hooking up all my lines and putting a few gallons of water with BTF and letting it sit in the keg for a few, pressurizing the keg a little and then running the sanitizer solution out through the tap lines leaving just a little left in with the keg somewhat pressurized until I rack. Is it okay to do this with BTF? Is it okay if sanitizer sits in the tap lines for a week too, or should I clear them?

 

[brewhappy]

This is how I clean my kegs, except I use starsan. I just push it all out through the tap and then store the sanitized keg until I'm ready. I've never used BTF so I'm not sure on that. It might stain the lines and make them look funny. I just usaually hook up another beer to the line after a day so I don't have sanitizer sitting in the line too long. If you have an extra keg you could just put some water in it and then clear the line that way too.

 

[Brett3rThanU]

Yeah, BTF seems to stain plastic if it sits, but I'm told it has no effect on flavor, etc.

 

[copyright1997]

I don't use BTF, but do use Star San. While my routine varies, I usually use one of the following two methods:
1) I have a batch of Star San stored in a keg under (somewhat low) pressure, which I can use to sanitize beer lines, etc. When I want to keg a batch, I relieve the pressure, pour the Star San from that keg to the next keg (which has been cleaned, but not sanitized), then I use the original Star San keg as my target for my batch. Since it's been sitting with Star San in it for days/weeks, it's ready to go.

2) If I'm too lazy to do #1, I just take the 2nd keg (already cleaned), and use the 1st Star San keg plus picnic tap and transfer a little Star San to the target. Then I put the lid on, shake it up nice and good, and give it a bit of co2 to pressurize. After sitting for a few minutes/hours, I hook up a picnic tap, remove some of the Star San via the picnic tap (to sanitize the beverage out line), and then vent the keg and dump out most of the rest of the Star San and then the keg is ready to go (ready to be the target of the batch that I rack to it).

Knock on plastic laptop case, using the above I have yet to have any infection/sanitation issue, and I've used these methods for the past 15 batches.