Benefits of Line Cleaning Mid-keg

[Piper]

Hello,

I have had several years of successful Guinness on tap at home. I religiously clean my faucet, coupler and lines before and after every keg. I have read that it is good to do so every two weeks for the life of the keg. Logically, I need help in understanding how this helps matters. As a note, my kegs usually last between 6-7 weeks. It's hard for me to conceive how cleaning the beer lines would help things when the inside of the keg has been "tapped" for the same amount of time. I'm not a physicist, so maybe therein lies my problem. My assumption is this: if the lines and the keg are both filled with gas and beer, how will simply cleaning the lines help the taste from deteriorating mid-keg? Forgive my possibly naive question, but a logical explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Jeff Reed

[psychodad]

Your lines are likely fine while you have a keg going because as you pointed out, environmentally the lines basically are not subject to anything the rest of the keg isn't. The reason I clean mine every two weeks is the faucet doesn't stay fine. Small amounts of beer remain in the faucet and nasties can find their way into that leftover beer.

[Piper]

Psychodad,

Well said. That makes perfect sense to me. The faucet is the thing that is exposed to the elements unlike the lines and the inside of the keg. Thank you for the simple and logical reasoning. I may even start cleaning mid keg!

Cheers,

Jeff

[doug ellis]

That long between kegs, can not imagin but i do know that after about two weeks i do notice not the same pour ability. My keg lasts me about three weeks and i could clean my faucet and lines after two.

[edramshaw]

There is another issue to consider. The inside of the keg is stainless steel, the beer lines are vinyl. Beer contains what is called calcium oxylate or beer stone, the will deposit on the walls of your plastic tubing and great an environment that is kind to yeast and bacteria. Removing this every few weeks keeps things from building up and doing the same the psychodad pointed out but in the lines too, not just the faucet.

[gbb]

Cleaning

Hi everyone, new here and to owning a kergerator. Just got a used brewmaster last week and got a 1/2 keg of miller lite going. boy i love it. my question is how and what do you use to clean your systems. How do you do this during use, can you untap a live keg and re-tap it? could you soak the hose tap and spigot in bleach water than rinse real good? like i said new to this and my questions may sound dumb, but i'm just trying to learn.

thanks, george