I’ve recently brewed my first couple sour beers - a Berliner Weisse and a Flanders Red - and want to put one of them on tap. Do I need to designate one of my faucets and lines as “sours only,” or will a thorough cleaning after the keg blows be adequate to allow the line and faucet to be used for “non-sour” beers? What is the practice among craft brew bars and brewpubs? I can’t imagine that they change out their faucets and lines. My thinking is that the faucet can be cleaned, but that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to dedicate a beer line to sours and change it out if/when I use that faucet for “non-sour” beers. I know bottling is an option, but I’d prefer to keg.
I think your idea of dedicating the soft plastic bits is a good one.
the faucet itself is all metal right? if you needed to you could autoclave it.
I don’t pay much attention and use what ever for what ever and have not noticed and issue YET (the YET is very important) However, I have only served regular beers and brett beers from my kegs, the really really funky ones go into bottles still just so I don’t tie up a keg.
If you’re confident that your cleaning & sanitizing process results in very clean lines (no residual deposits/buildup) and thoroughly clean kegs (no junk hidden on the ceiling of the keg) then it’s all interchangeable in my opinion.
If there’s any evidence or doubt of the above or if you have a number of taps, it’s nice to have one or two taps/kegs dedicated to sour/funk. Then your wild-ale-loving-friends know exactly where to position their glasses each time they visit.
Anything you can boil is not a problem to decontaminate. Don’t worry.
If your lines are refrigerated I wouldn’t worry about it provided you have good cleaning practices.
Neither can I. But I can’t imagine a kegs ever lasts long enough at a bar for it to matter, either.