How do you clean your beer lines?

[atomicpunk]

You've kicked a keg and have one on standby ready to keep all your taps flowing. Do you clean your line before the new beer goes on? Got an easy way to do that without taking the line and tap apart? Assume I do not have a spare keg.

I have seen those hand pumps on B3 but $45 seems ridiculous.
http://morebeer.com/view_product/16362/ ... eaning_Kit

[Bugeater]

I only clean my beer lines every 3 or 4 kegs. I just flush the lines with a little beer from the new keg. The first pour will have some debris from the bottom of the keg anyway so it won't really be wasting any beer.

For a quick clean, I do have a keg of star san around all the time. I just hook that up and flush the line and then let it sit in the line for awhile. I then flush out the star san with the first pour of the next keg.

For a more thorough cleaning I put a couple gallons of hot PBW in another keg and run that through the line and faucet and collect the flow in a pot. I let the line sit full of PBW while I go put that pot of PBW on the stove to rewarm before running it through the line a second time.

I know you said to assume you didn't have a second keg, but another keg is cheaper than that kit. You can also use that keg for beer between cleanings if you don't clean after every keg.

Wayne

[ipaisay2.0]

I too just clean my lines every 3-4 kegs, but I would use a cleaner such as warm PBW, or BLC. However, I have lately been using TM DESANA MAX which is really cool. It is a cleaner that dissolves grime then sanitizes the line. The most amazing thing is that it has this weird color indicator in it that if it turns purple, the line is completely clean!

Check out the website and ask for some free samples. They'll give you some!

http://www.desana-usa.com/


They are just starting to market this technology to homebrewers in the last 4-5 months.

[11amas]

I didn't think caustics were used to sanitize...thought you needed something like StarSan to do that part? Our local BJ's brewer came in and gave a talk to our club on the product; looks really cool but I have always chased my BLC or PBW with StarSan. Maybe if it is caustic enough it will sanitize but the literature doesn't say sanitize, just "clean". Am I wrong?

[dags]

I use both PBW and starsan, what the caustic dosent get the acid will - caustic cleans then starsan sanitises. Rinse with water in between just to be on the safe side though. I remember mixing acid and caustic being sometimes bad in chemistry at Uni

[aquariumdrinker]

I have seen those hand pumps on B3 but $45 seems ridiculous.
http://morebeer.com/view_product/16362/ ... eaning_Kit

I thought the same thing too $$, so I bought something similar to this http://www.acehardware.com/product/inde ... =456655133
which you can eaisly hook up with tubing to one of these http://morebeer.com/view_product/15965/ ... ng_Adapter to back flush and your good to go. Every few months I use it to pump the proper BLC dilution through my lines let sit awhile then flush with hot water. I believe I heard on the Session once that pushing BLC with O2 makes it inaffective??

[breyton]

Usually just push a little star san thru my lines every 3-4 kegs. Once a year (or longer... if I really cant find something else to do) I will usually change out the old lines with new tubing.

[Ozwald]

I use both PBW and starsan, what the caustic dosent get the acid will - caustic cleans then starsan sanitises. Rinse with water in between just to be on the safe side though. I remember mixing acid and caustic being sometimes bad in chemistry at Uni

Yup, PBW does the cleaning, StarSan does the sanitizing. I do hot water, hot PBW, let it sit, hot water, hot water, StarSan. The acid will actually neutralize the PBW (and vice-versa, hence the hot water rinses). As far as PBW & StarSan, it's pointless to mix them together, but I highly doubt it would result in anything bad besides neither being effective anymore.