Infection in your keg gas line

[RAD]

Not to sure if this is a stupid question but can your gas line, regulator and connection fittings hold infections (bacteria). I have had my keg set up for a few years now and i have never cleaned that side of the system, only the keg gas connections.
How would you clean that side of the set up?
I also have a 8 tap gas manifold.

 

[fraser_john]

I have wondered about this as well.... I have had my manifolds now for 15 years and have even had beer go back into one of them and never had infection. Every time I have to rebuild my keg fridge due to it failing from old age, as I am too cheap to buy a new one and use roadside fridges (three times now), I do replace all my gas lines.....

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Doubt it mate, meat packagers in industry typically modify the atmosphere in the meat trays to 80% oxygen and 20% carbon dioxide, because the oxygen brings out the red colour of the meat but would obviously provide an environment for the bacteria to grow. The carbon dioxide in 20% well and truly provides antibacterial properties.

So given the above your gas lines are 100% carbon dioxide, therefore very antibacterial and a relatively inert atmosphere.

If you have had beer reverse flow into your gas lines, I would soak them in a bucket of perc or PBW, rinse, sanitise and then air dry for ages, preferably somewhere warm.

Moisture and carbon dioxide will produce carbonic acid which can damage some equipment (not stainless steel though).

Hope that helps!

 

[RAD]

Thanks for the info guys that's 1 less thing to worry about

 

[Danscraftbeer]

The hoses arent really expensive so the easest thing would be to replace with new hose. But!
I have made the mistake a few times and had beer blow back.grrrrr :angry: Curse myself everytime.
If you have spare kegs you can put wash solution, sanitizer solution, charge them with pressure and force feed it back through the lines to flush clean and sanitize them.

Maybe I'm paranoid or anal but whenever beer or cider or any beverage goes into the gas feed line I toil and curse and clean and sanitize it immediately.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

The hoses arent really expensive so the easest thing would be to replace with new hose. But!
I have made the mistake a few times and had beer blow back.grrrrr :angry: Curse myself everytime.
If you have spare kegs you can put wash solution, sanitizer solution, charge them with pressure and force feed it back through the lines to flush clean and sanitize them.

Maybe I'm paranoid or anal but whenever beer or cider or any beverage goes into the gas feed line I toil and curse and clean and sanitize it immediately.

Why don't you just buy a check/non-return valve to stop the back flow?

 

[Danscraftbeer]

I will have to look into that.
Cheers. B)

 

[Danscraftbeer]

It only ever happened when I tried to fit too much into the keg and all lines connected when one keg had more pressure
in it than the others. Haven't done in a while, learn from mistakes.
Also cut the gas-in stem shorter.