When cleaning the liquid-out tube with PBW solution, should you pressurize the keg and run some of it out through there?
If so, how much CO2 pressure is needed to move PBW or an acid solution out of the keg?
I’ve never kegged before, but I will be as soon as my present batch finishes fermenting.
Thanks in advance for your advice.
I simply remove the dip tube, fill the keg with cleaner, and drop the dip tube in there. If you don’t do that, you should pressurized and run some through the diptube. How much pressure? Nor much…you’ll know.
What Denny said assuming the question is about corny kegs.
Initial cleaning should include disassembling the keg and doing a thorough cleaning of individual parts. If the keg is used, replace the O rings too. Special brushes are available, and cheap, to run through the dip tubes for a more thorough cleaning.
I do what Denny does. I completely disassemble the kegs each time I empty them.
I usually make a pile of 4 to 6 dirty kegs, disassemble and soak them in succession. I mix up 5-6 gallons of PBW and transfer from one keg to the next until I’m done. I run a dip tube brush through each one for good measure, sanitize and reassemble.
It’s probably overkill but it works for me.
As for how much pressure you need to transfer PBW, just enough to move it. Anywhere from 1 -10 pounds is plenty.
Paul
I only disassemble when I read posts like this and realize I should disassemble.
I don’t always disassemble, but sometimes i do. Rinse with hot water, dump, add hot PBW solution, soak, transfer to next rinsed keg.
When I do break down a keg it gets inspection. Dip tube gets the brush run through it. Posts and poppets get cleaned. If there is anything thing that I’m not comfortable with, say Brett or sour bugs were used, the post poppets and rubber gets a quick boil.
I found that disassembly with each cleaning caused more leaks to arise in my set up after re-assembly (Operator error, yes, but a pain to find out later when carbing!), so I now typically only remove the main lid and use a pump in a 5 gallon bucket connected to a spray head and QDC’s for washing the keg and each of the posts and tubes, then rinse fully with the main lid off, then fill a keg with sanitizer, put the lid back on (lubed O-rings as needed) and purge to another clean and rinsed keg, then on to the next keg for cleaning. If I have problems with a keg, I will strip it down and replace components and O-rings, as necessary and lube and test thoroughly upon re-assembly. The last keg to be cleaned and sanitized gets its contents dumped to a spare bucket.
You can. I just disassemble and fill with cleaner. I use a cpl small bowls for QD posts, poppets, and dip tubes (I use floating dip tubes so they’re short).
I don’t run PBW vis pressure. But I do run sanitizer out via pressure (CO2 purge). I use 1-2 PSI.
FWIW, I completely disassemble and fill with One Step. I’ve left them filled for days at a time if not a week. Scrub, rinse, sanitize, reassemble and pressurize with co2, leaving it until needed.
I thoroughly rinse with HOT water (heater is set to 138) fill with hot water and OxyClean and let soak for a few minutes. I then run that solution through my empty keg line under pressure. Rinse again. Fill with StarSan and run through keg lines again.
Oxygen cleaners should not be mixed with hot water, just room temperature or a little bit warm at most, even cold is ok. At higher temperatures, the reaction is accelerated, and all the oxygen is released at once, so it has no time to have the desired effect. It needs to be slowly released over at least a half hour or so in order to break down organic material.
^^^^^This
Once the keg is disassembled I use either PBW of a bulk milk tank cleaner and a keg brush to clean the soils out of the keg. The dip tube the gas in tube and all the keg post get disassembled and cleaned with a brush as well. Once finished and rinsed, the keg is re-assembled and pressurized with CO2 and stored until needed. This will tell you if the keg leaks when I re-open it to fill it with Saniclean to sanitize it. The sanitizer is then pushed back to the storage container or to a second keg using CO2 to fully purge the keg. It works well for me.
I have almost never used anythign butt the hottest tap water I can get, and both Oxi and Craftmeister were perfectly acceptable. Maybe this is another thing that’s more theoretical than a real issue?
Possibly, and all the cleaners work in more than one way at once. But in very hot water you probably aren’t getting full advantage of the oxygen, while maybe enhancing the effects of the simple carbonates and metasilicate? Just some information new to me I came across doing research on the interwebs on how to make up a cheap, homemade cleaner that checks all the boxes on the patent for PBW. I’d always heard around here that oxygen cleaners need hot water while others don’t, it may actually be the other way around! So I’ve started mixing my PBW, oxy, whatever, in warm but not super hot or cold water. Soak long enough, heck, the water alone will do a lot!
But do I need to take fuller advantage of the cleaner if I’m getting everything perfectly clean already? And FWIW, Oxi and PBW list a 120-130F temp (IIRC) in order to fully dissolve their components. One of the things that I like about Craftmeister is that their formulation dissolves at lower temps. Just one of tgose random pieces of info stuck in my head.
Yeah, we’ve probably discussed it before, but somehow I get PBW to dissolve and rinse easier than Craft Meister. Who knows why, probably in the water, but, bottom line is, do what works for you. Important thing is to get everything clean.
Wash keg out with hot water. Add clean hot water (3gal) and flush this through beer lines(10psi). Add clean hot water with PBW(3gal) let soak 30min, flip keg over soak 30min then flush through beer lines(10psi). Spray keg out with clean hot water then fill with 2 gal water and flush beer lines(10psi). Fill keg with starsan and send through beer lines into another keg. Ready for next beer. Only take keg apart if it was sitting for a while +3-4 months
I have a really hard time dissolving PBW. What I have to do is get water from the hot water dispenser (about 170-180) and dissolve the PBW. I then add that to the regular hot water. I got a giant drum of PBW, so I’m stuck with it.
Well at least you got enough of a bargain to make the little extra effort worth it! BTW if anyone is interested in exploring bargains, this monster thread over on HBT is where I started researching homemade options. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/homemade-pbw-recipe.467655/