TimpanogosSlim
Well-Known Member
I talk like i know what I'm doing but I'm just a smart n00b.
Right now i have one beer aging in a keg and there might be something wrong with it. My frustration with that brew inspired me to join the cult of star-san. My elder brothers and mentors in brewing would be so ashamed, as they are of the cults of hypochlorite and iodophor. The former having about 3/4ths of a botany degree and a conviction that 50ppm bleach solution is a no-rinse sanitizer (for anything that isn't made of metal).
I have 11 kegs of random provenance. So far I've used one of them. A few of them are still full of very old soft drinks.
I prepped three kegs today. Here's what i did:
I removed all the hardware and threw away the o-rings.
The posts, poppets (removed from posts), and gas tube went into my ultrasonic cleaner with hot tap water, pure sodium percarbonate (really) and a couple drops of dish soap for 20 minutes.
The keg itself, the liquid tube (removed from the post and dropped into the body of the keg, loose), and the lid (dropped into the keg) got 1/4c of home-made PBW (target store-brand oxygen cleaner + red devil tsp/90 sodium metasilicate) and hot tap water for about an hour. This concentration of solution is caustic enough that i have to wear my blingman engineering nitrile gloves or else my hands are dry and sensitive for a couple days. I make sure that the water line is high enough that it's right up to the top and almost flowing over.
I have very hard water so i doubt the reusability of most cleaners and sanitizers. I'm also painfully aware that if i leave a keg full of PBW solution with my super-hard water overnight it will acquire a heavy patina of mineral deposits and possibly sodium carbonate as well.
After the keg has soaked for an hour or so like this i insert my autosiphon/racking cane and siphon the PBW solution right down the drain.
I have a coil hose that attaches to the spigot in my utility sink so with that and a garden sprayer i rinse out the keg and liquid tube with hot tap water, rotating the keg and spraying along the interior walls to assure that i get a good rinse.
After that, I take off the gloves, and switch to a work table where i have a metal tray with the clean, rinsed small parts and lid.
I break out a new pack of o-rings and put them in the pan with the other parts, and then hose down all of them with star-san from my spray bottle.
I squeeze a little bit of sanitary petroleum jelly (CIP-Film, basically the same as keg lube) onto the rim of the pan, and then spray my (clean) hands with star-san.
I also spray the threads on the keg with star-san.
I get a little lube on my fingertips and lube up the o-ring for the gas dip tube, slide it onto the tube, and insert it in the appropriate spot.
After checking the rubber on the poppet to make sure it is still soft and not decomposing, I run my fingertips along that rubber to lube it slightly as well.
I scrape any remaining lube off of my fingers onto the gas inlet threads on the keg.
Then i insert the poppet into the gas post, give it another hit of star-san from the spray bottle, and thread it onto the keg. Then i torque it down with a wrench.
Same procedure with the liquid tube, except i have to re-lube the o-ring after drawing it over the liquid tube.
Then i get some lube on my fingers and lube up the post o-rings, and install them. Note that posts and rings are still wet with star-san.
Then i take the rest of the dollop of CIP-Film and lube up the new lid o-ring and install it on the lid.
Then i mix about a gallon of star san, hot water, slightly strong, and install the lid. I shake the bejebus out of it. Then i depress the poppet in the liquid post until it squirts (steam expansion, yaknow) and then put the keg up-side-down in my utility sink for about a half an hour.
Then i shake the **** out of it again and put it on the floor right-side-up while i prep another keg according to the steps above.
Then i used a liquid-to-liquid jumper hose and my handy dandy 3 gallon oil-less air compressor to push the star-san into the keg that has just undergone the above treatment (except for the mixing star-san part).
I observe that the star-san has not gone cloudy on me.
After the sanitizer treatment is totally complete - venting pressure from the receiving keg until the liquid transfer tube runs completely dry - I remove the jumper hose and pressurize the sanitized keg to about 15psi, hose down the top with star-san from my spray bottle, and check for leaks. There are no leaks.
My hope is that the keg that i have sanitized and pressurized is ready to receive beer.
Good enough?
Right now i have one beer aging in a keg and there might be something wrong with it. My frustration with that brew inspired me to join the cult of star-san. My elder brothers and mentors in brewing would be so ashamed, as they are of the cults of hypochlorite and iodophor. The former having about 3/4ths of a botany degree and a conviction that 50ppm bleach solution is a no-rinse sanitizer (for anything that isn't made of metal).
I have 11 kegs of random provenance. So far I've used one of them. A few of them are still full of very old soft drinks.
I prepped three kegs today. Here's what i did:
I removed all the hardware and threw away the o-rings.
The posts, poppets (removed from posts), and gas tube went into my ultrasonic cleaner with hot tap water, pure sodium percarbonate (really) and a couple drops of dish soap for 20 minutes.
The keg itself, the liquid tube (removed from the post and dropped into the body of the keg, loose), and the lid (dropped into the keg) got 1/4c of home-made PBW (target store-brand oxygen cleaner + red devil tsp/90 sodium metasilicate) and hot tap water for about an hour. This concentration of solution is caustic enough that i have to wear my blingman engineering nitrile gloves or else my hands are dry and sensitive for a couple days. I make sure that the water line is high enough that it's right up to the top and almost flowing over.
I have very hard water so i doubt the reusability of most cleaners and sanitizers. I'm also painfully aware that if i leave a keg full of PBW solution with my super-hard water overnight it will acquire a heavy patina of mineral deposits and possibly sodium carbonate as well.
After the keg has soaked for an hour or so like this i insert my autosiphon/racking cane and siphon the PBW solution right down the drain.
I have a coil hose that attaches to the spigot in my utility sink so with that and a garden sprayer i rinse out the keg and liquid tube with hot tap water, rotating the keg and spraying along the interior walls to assure that i get a good rinse.
After that, I take off the gloves, and switch to a work table where i have a metal tray with the clean, rinsed small parts and lid.
I break out a new pack of o-rings and put them in the pan with the other parts, and then hose down all of them with star-san from my spray bottle.
I squeeze a little bit of sanitary petroleum jelly (CIP-Film, basically the same as keg lube) onto the rim of the pan, and then spray my (clean) hands with star-san.
I also spray the threads on the keg with star-san.
I get a little lube on my fingertips and lube up the o-ring for the gas dip tube, slide it onto the tube, and insert it in the appropriate spot.
After checking the rubber on the poppet to make sure it is still soft and not decomposing, I run my fingertips along that rubber to lube it slightly as well.
I scrape any remaining lube off of my fingers onto the gas inlet threads on the keg.
Then i insert the poppet into the gas post, give it another hit of star-san from the spray bottle, and thread it onto the keg. Then i torque it down with a wrench.
Same procedure with the liquid tube, except i have to re-lube the o-ring after drawing it over the liquid tube.
Then i get some lube on my fingers and lube up the post o-rings, and install them. Note that posts and rings are still wet with star-san.
Then i take the rest of the dollop of CIP-Film and lube up the new lid o-ring and install it on the lid.
Then i mix about a gallon of star san, hot water, slightly strong, and install the lid. I shake the bejebus out of it. Then i depress the poppet in the liquid post until it squirts (steam expansion, yaknow) and then put the keg up-side-down in my utility sink for about a half an hour.
Then i shake the **** out of it again and put it on the floor right-side-up while i prep another keg according to the steps above.
Then i used a liquid-to-liquid jumper hose and my handy dandy 3 gallon oil-less air compressor to push the star-san into the keg that has just undergone the above treatment (except for the mixing star-san part).
I observe that the star-san has not gone cloudy on me.
After the sanitizer treatment is totally complete - venting pressure from the receiving keg until the liquid transfer tube runs completely dry - I remove the jumper hose and pressurize the sanitized keg to about 15psi, hose down the top with star-san from my spray bottle, and check for leaks. There are no leaks.
My hope is that the keg that i have sanitized and pressurized is ready to receive beer.
Good enough?
