I’m about a week away from kegging for the first time. This past Saturday I washed out the kegs with a solution of PBW including running a brush through the dip tubes, rinsed them with hot tap water, and then pressurized the kegs and ran a small quantity of hot water out of each keg. I then depressurized the kegs, removed the keg lids, poured out the remaining water, and left the kegs to air dry.
Now I notice that the liquid out draft line going to the picnic tap is still full of tap water. Will bacteria grow in the water in the 8 or 10 days before I’m ready to keg and potentially spoil my beer? I had not planned to use a PBW solution again, but to proceed straight to a star san rinse of the full keg, blow that out with CO 2, and then rack the beer into the kegs. In the meantime, should I pressurize one of the kegs and blow that line dry (assuming I can do that)?
Also it took a lot of CO2 pressure (more than 25 lbs) to get a good stream of water out of the kegs. I attribute that to the fact that the rinse water was quite hot and the draft out line was way too long. I purposefully started with a longer draft line (6 1/2 ft. of 3/8 in ID) so that I will be able to progressively shorten it after my beer reaches equilibrium to where I get a good “pour” rate.
Your advice please and thanks in advance for your help.
At this point I would wash again and then sanitize with StarSan just before kegging. Take the dip tubes apart to clean and rinse. In the future wash and rinse your keg then sanitize it, empty the sanitizer and pressurize your keg a little for storage. Eventually buy or make a keg washer. Especially if you accumulate a lot of kegs. It will make the whole process much easier.
You can wash again, but if your tap water is chlorinated, and you stored the open keg inverted for drying, I’d just sanitize again. And run the sanitizer out the picnic tap connection…
To your comment about 25lbs. Of pressure needed to get a steady stream; That seems really high even for 6.5 ft of 3/8 inch ID hose. I don’t adjust my regulator down, but I open the valve until I can hear the slightest amount of air running through. If I set it to 25 lbs, liquid blasts out of a 6 ft piece of tubing. Maybe some could advise on how many lbs they set when pushing out cleaner or sanitizer.
I only use what it needs to push liquid out. I assume you’re using a ball lock corny keg. I hook both tubes yo the keg then slowly turn my gas up until liquid flows. 10 pounds max. Double check your posts to make sure there is no obstruction or misalignment of parts.
+1 on the keg washer! Its so much nicer to let the pump do the work and sip a beer while its going than to scrub. I will sanitize my kegs right away after washing them if I know I will use the them in a month or two otherwise I just rinse them and dry them inverted.
I put 4-6 psi of pressure on them to insure a good seal when sanitized. I check how much pressure is in them before filling with beer to be sure they don’t have a leak. If they aren’t sanitized I leave them open to insure they stay dry. If you seal it up with any moisture in it that can get funky quick.
All I can say is I once cleaned a keg by putting dry powder cleaner in it (don’t recall brand) and filled it with water. I disassembled and soaked the poppets and disconnects in the same solution.
I rinsed it all out — I thought it was very well done. I then sanitized it, removed the sanitizer and store the keg under CO2 pressure.
I transferred beer to it,and when the beer was ready to drink, it had a distinct soapy taste. Despite rinsing and sanitizing there was residual soap I assume from the powder.
I now mix cleaning and sanitizer solution in separate buckets and transfer the solutions to the keg vs mixing it in the keg. I’ve not had the problem since.
I don’t store kegs with cleaner or sanitizer in them. When a keg kicks I leave it as is until ready to clean and fill. I figure the residual beer and CO2 will store it just fine while it waits the short period until I place it back into the rotation.
My keg washing and sanitizing procedure incorporates a liquid keg connector with attached hose, with a utility sink faucet connector at the other end. Fill with hot water from the faucet which fills from the bottom and thoroughly mixes all PBW. Then after a soak, either dump or transfer to the next keg needing cleaned. The keg>faucet connector lets me quickly and thoroughly rinse PBW from the keg while holding it upside down, with hot water from the faucet. Then kegs are refilled with warm water and Star San or SaniClean, with the keg connector left on. After the keg is full of sanitizer, the faucet end of the keg connector hose is dropped into the sink, which immediately starts a siphon of sanitizer back up through the dip tube, connector and hose. Pick up the end of the hose and lay it across the top of the keg, to the dip tube and entire connector assembly is full of sanitizer. After an appropriate soak, dump, or transfer to the next keg to be sanitized. Sanitized kegs are drained, and filled with CO2 until needed.
I have a keg washer. Yeah it’s cool the way it works, but only makes sense to me to set up if I have a bunch of kegs to clean at once. My way is quicker and less involved.
I still clean mine by hand and although I try to be vigilant, I always end up with between 4 and 6 to clean at one time. I got lucky recently with only three to clean!
I run my system at 5 PSI unless I’m carbonating. When I’m pushing cleaning water out of a keg (about 1 gallon) I open the valve for a few seconds and then it let blow.
25 PSI is way too high for this application. Perhaps the OP’s out dip tube is clogged.
I also want to add to storing kegs. I clean mine with a dairy detergent (bulk milk tank cleaner) rinse well and store them at around 15 psi of CO2. I sanitize them right before filling them.
I never store kegs with Star San or Saniclean in them. These two products are acidic and acids and metals do not play well together.
I just cleaned 10 kegs yesterday. I filled them w hot water and added DIY PBW. Soaked overnight, dumped, rinsed, and filled one w StarSan. I add a jumper and push out the filled sanitized keg to another. I repeat until all kegs have been filled and emptied. I cutoff all my gas tubes to where they are flush inside the keg. The pressurized kegs are inverted, then I’ll completely empty out of the gas poppit. I’ll leave them with pressure until they are ready to fill. I too usually do not clean kegs as soon as they are empty. Maybe I should, but I never do as they are never any harder to clean.
You can get all of the sanitizer out by tipping the over. I do this over my utility sink, and put a ball lock gas in fitting, no hose, on the gas post to empty.
