After every keg, every two weeks, every three months, just replace all the lines annually.These are all examples of the recommendations I’ve read concerning cleaning beer lines. I think experience is the best teacher. How often do you run BLC or similar chemical through you lines? PS I sanitize every time I tap a fresh keg, but I don’t tear everything apart and run BLC. Am I wrong?
I’m new to kegging, but I’ve been told by members of my brew club that lines should be replaced once a year. I also don’t sanitize with every new keg, but every other keg I’ll run some starsan through. Maybe a gallon or so.
EDIT: I do clean and sanitize the kegs with each fill, but only run stansan through the lines/tap every other keg or so.
Because we are already pumping some kind of cleaner/sanitizer into the kegs before transferring the beer into the keg we just pump some through the lines with every new beer. It’s not much work and seems like a good idea to us. We are new to kegging also but haven’t had any problems yet.
If there is beer moving, the lines will stay clean, if it sits warm that’s what you need to worry about. Flushing them when your keg is gone is not a bad idea. If you have clear lines, look at them and see if they are opaque at all. That’s a sign of them needing to be cleaned.
I flush my lines with Starsan between beers, disassemble and clean faucets 2-3 times a year, and replace lines once a year.
Why once a year instead of after dispensing so many kegs? Does someone who runs through 10 kegs a year need to replace lines as often as someone who runs through 20 kegs?
Its not very expensive to change lines, but you don’t need to change them so often IMO.
