Keg Systems

[Jazzafish]

Well today is a sad day...

My latest dark larger has come to an end. After many weeks of happy drinking, I poured the last two beers. The sound of an empty keg is a deathly sound. Even worse when there isn't a fresh keg to replace it... Cold Conditioning at the moment.

However, the last two beers had a sour aftertaste... :blink:

I hadn't poured one for a week or two, but it hadn't had a sour aftertaste before. Very supprising! Not normal. The tap did feel a little rigid when I poured today <_<

Do you think it got infected via the taps?

Also, how does everyone clean their lines?

I have been filling a keg with a couple of litres of boiling water, turning up the pressure to 200 and shaking the keg for a bit (making a boiled soda water), and flushing the lines while hot. Seems to work. I'm going to take the taps out and give them a good clean, sanitise and sterilize tommorrow.

Anyway, I'd like to know how you fellow keggers keep it clean...

 

[mikem108]

Caustic for the kegs and lines , I clean the lines and tap once a week

 

[roach]

i am sure if you used the search function you would find plenty of info, as this has been covered plenty of times before.

Howevever to get you started you could do what I do and I flush with a solution of napisan(and follow up with a rinse of course).

infection may have always been in the beer but has taken a while to get hold.

a good idea to take apart the taps and give them a good soaking.

i suggest you thoroughly santise your whole kegging system before connecting up a new keg. otherwise you are at risk of ruining future batches from the infection that seems to have developed.

 

[roach]

Caustic for the kegs and lines , I clean the lines and tap once a week

[post="76251"][/post]​

caustic is dangerous stuff and I would not use it to clean kegs(OK for plastic fermenters etc - but napisan is much safer) , as prolonged exposure to caustic may lead to pitting the keg.

 

[Jazzafish]

i am sure if you used the search function you would find plenty of info, as this has been covered plenty of times before.

Yeah,

I always do a search before I post on this forum, but most of the info I found didn't help much.. but hey I didn't mention it earlier. This is a forum, not just a glossary, so please forgive my backtracking questions.

More importantly, thankyou all for your methods in cleaning out the keg lines. I have used methods along the mentioned standards, but I have only started to use an antibacterial napisan recently. And I'd soak the taps for sure.

Interesting that the infection may have been there from the start... never thought of that after it being such a flawless drop until the last two glasses.

Basically the main thing I wanted to know was the possibilities of infections entering from the beer taps... but hey, I did ask about cleaning as a double question...