Breaker, breaker good buddy

And the keezer is at capacity now. I just kegged the sixth, a Belgian Golden Ale. I'm out of town next week. When I return home from work tonight, I'll put it on the serving manifold. It should be chilled by then. Hopefully it will be nicely carbed awaiting my return Friday evening.
 
Here's a question for those in the know. My keezer is about 1/4" too short to put a keg on the compressor shelf. It does fit if I don't have the lines attached. I do plan to use that space for lagering, but could I also use it to force carb with no line attached? Say I put 30 lbs on it, shake it to get more gas in there a time or two, and then disconnect the gas and let the keg just sit? I could regas it later, as well. Surely the CO2 has to go somewhere, right? Would it absorb well enough into the beer to get me a good head start? It's got to be better than nothing, but is it worth doing? I was thinking of force carbing the last two (of four total) weeks of lagering, anyway.
 
don't shake it, let it sit and regas it every night, also you should be ahead enough to just let beers sit for a week without force carbing but hooked up at serving pressure
 
That's the problem. I can't close the freezer with the gas line connected. Too tall. I'm wondering if I could take the plastic liner off. Maybe that'll give me the room that I need.
 
Looks like I'm about to blow my first keg. Another one is not far behind. Let's talk cleaning. I have MFL connectors for my ball lock fittings, so I plan to remove the fittings, disassemble them, and soak them in OneStep. I'll do the same with the faucet. The shank has a barb fitting, so I'll leave the beer line attached to it. I'll either pump or run OneStep through it, or force a brush through it. I plan to do this every time I change out a keg. What kind of method and schedule do others use here? Am I forgetting anything?
 
I personally do not like using cleaner of any kind every time I empty a keg I use hot water only.
first get the yeast and hops out with a small amount then I fill very hot water about a third of the keg, push the popit in to drain the tubes then inspect and use a brush if necessary if anything is attached to the sides or bottom then close the lid and shake it and turn it then shake it then turn it dump. fill a third of the keg with strong star-sans and hot water and do the same thing.
I store the keg upside down after shaking the star-sans for at least an hour then leave it until your next kegging or at that point you just run it through your tap to a bucket or another keg.
I use a small line brush on my lines and soak my other fittings in the sink with hot water then you guessed it star-sans
one issue when filling the keg later you need to spay the keg out or the star-sans will foam bubbles out as your filling
 
I watched a keg cleaning video a while back where a guy used StarSan. Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere! He said not to worry about it and you'll never taste hit. Sure is hard to wrap your head around that one.
 
its true you cant but the issue is where is the top of the beer?, you cant see it the bubbles block your view
 
Good point. I did overfill one keg, since it's a little deceptive figuring out where the bottom of the gas dip tube is, relative to the side of the keg. Then I realized that all I have to do is look how far the dip tube is from its own reflection.
 
Ozarks Mountain Brew said:
I personally do not like using cleaner of any kind every time I empty a keg I use hot water only.
first get the yeast and hops out with a small amount then I fill very hot water about a third of the keg, push the popit in to drain the tubes then inspect and use a brush if necessary if anything is attached to the sides or bottom then close the lid and shake it and turn it then shake it then turn it dump. fill a third of the keg with strong star-sans and hot water and do the same thing.
I store the keg upside down after shaking the star-sans for at least an hour then leave it until your next kegging or at that point you just run it through your tap to a bucket or another keg.
I use a small line brush on my lines and soak my other fittings in the sink with hot water then you guessed it star-sans
one issue when filling the keg later you need to spay the keg out or the star-sans will foam bubbles out as your filling
Click to expand...

Pretty much the same only if some grunge left will throw some PBW in there to soak and scrub and I sanitize with Saniclean, a five star product so no foam problem with cool water.
You might have one but I didn't see a mention of it. A dip tube brush makes cleaning dip tubes a snap.
A little BLC run through the tap lines from a keg makes that part of cleaning pretty simple. If it's good enough for the pubs, it's good enough for me.
 
Yeah, I have a dip tube brush. I'm okay with cleaning the kegs. I've done 7 so far. I also had all of the keezer hardware and plumbing cleaned and sanitized as I put it together. But now I'm looking at my first keezer plumbing reuse. That's what I'm wondering about now.
 
I don't take mine apart, just run what ever you want through it, people get carried away with cleaners, remember its just sugar and sugar dissolves in hot water
 
You don't disassemble your faucets?
 
no, not every time I change a keg, I have dust caps that keep gnats out and helps to keep air from drying the beer

but you've reminded me its about time to do it now, Im usually full and cant but I try to do a thorough clean of everything at least when a faucet sticks or the freezer starts to smell
 
I'm not sold on dust caps. I'm hoping gnats won't be a problem. I can just picture me blowing the cap into every glass that I pour!!
 
Okay, I blew my first keg today. I disassembled the ball lock fittings, including the disassembled socket. I disassembled the faucet as well. I mixed up a gallon of OneStep. I poured some of the OneStep into a small container and soaked all of the small parts. A friend stopped by at that point, so they got some good soak time, and I got to show off my keezer. I ran my dip tube brush through the shank and liquid tube. I put the keg back together and dumped all of the OneStep in it. I stored it upside down for a few minutes, and then I ran it through the reassembled line and faucet. Since the keg was what I consider to be sanitized (we can discuss OneStep versus labeled sanitizer like StarSan if you'd like. This is all I've used so far in my short kegging career, and it seems to be working well), I decided to keg a batch I would've kegged toward the end of this week. I think I'll be okay with this process. I just need to get my pipeline going so I always have one ready to keg.
 
Ozarks Mountain Brew said:
no, not every time I change a keg, I have dust caps that keep gnats out and helps to keep air from drying the beer
but you've reminded me its about time to do it now, Im usually full and cant but I try to do a thorough clean of everything at least when a faucet sticks or the freezer starts to smell
Click to expand...

Ditto, ditto and ditto. After cleaning the keg, flushing out the lines and tap with a sanitizer is fine. they don't really need to be completely disassembled every keg. If you use one step I would do the keg first(after spraying it out with hot water) then flush the one step through the line and tap. That would put contact time on all parts that contact beer and save a little time.
BLC is made specific for cleaning lines and can be flushed with clear water. It gets the "beer stone" out without scrubbing. My kegs are due for that and I have 20 gal to keg. Better get on it now I guess.
Btw had a friend wondering what that black thing was in his beer he just poured, But I haven't blown a tap cap in my beer yet!
 
I used Dawn to wash the keg out, rinsed, and then used OneStep. The guy at the homebrew store recommended to disassemble the ball lock socket every now and again, saying he's seen some gunked up fittings. That's what got me thinking about cleaning all of the plumbing every keg. None of it was too hard. The faucet was probably at the top of that list, though. I'm all about lazy. If I can get away with running OneStep through the lines at the end of a keg, I'll probably settle on that. Maybe a more thorough cleaning if I start to notice a funny taste.
 
My youngest son is a sophomore in high school. A couple weeks ago, he was looking for a quick project to finish up his woodworking class. He came up with the idea to build a shelf to replace my cinder block drip tray stand. And my graduating high school daughter continues to put graffiti on my keezer!
 

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