I’d just buy some new dip tubes rather than waste beer. Wasted beer makes baby Jeebus cry… 
I clean mine each time as well. I have a commercial two bowl sink and most weekends I have PBW in one bowl and just drop stuff in to soak, but if you keep it all clean, soaking is not generally required.
It’s stainless steel though, how could it corrode? I’ve had these kegs for 3 years and brewed good IPAs that first year and haven’t brewed one that stayed good till the end in over 2 years. Why would IPAs turn to butterscotch a week in and not other beers? Still going to run this experiment…
Probably will replace tap lines, remove ball lock quick disconnects and soak the sh*t out of everything for a day. 2 steps back, 1 step forward…that how it goes? :x
[quote=“Beersk”]I’ve had these kegs for 3 years and brewed good IPAs that first year and haven’t brewed one that stayed good till the end in over 2 years. [/quote]If you didn’t run a brush through the diptubes when you bought them (to scrub out the dried-on soda syrup) and haven’t since, then I would definitely give the diptubes a really good, long soak in 2x strength cleaner hitting them with the brush every now and then to work any crud loose.
[quote=“560sdl”]Probably will replace tap lines, remove ball lock quick disconnects and soak the sh*t out of everything for a day.[/quote]Be sure to disassemble the quick disconnects, I found mold in the gas QDs when I had my gas line issue.
Will do. The gas quick disconnects are pretty new though, since I recently put a 3 way manifold in my kegerator and bought new disconnects and gas lines.
Shade, I think the kegs came from Midwest pretty clean, there weren’t any issues with them for the first year or so I had them. But a dip tube brush has never been run through them as long as I’ve owned them, so that could be the problem.
I’m wondering whether I need to replace poppets on the liquid side. Think I should?
This is an interesting discussion for me. I rarely if ever disassemble a keg to clean it. They get scrubbed with a brush, PBWed and no-rinse sanitized but not much else. I have had back ups into the CO2 lines and removed them and soaked to clean just in case.
I am thinking now I might take one apart and soak everything plus run a brush through then use it as a test case compared to kegs from the same batch that just get the usual cleaning.
[quote=“Beersk”]I’m wondering whether I need to replace poppets on the liquid side. Think I should?[/quote]No reason to, they’re stainless and should come clean with PBW.
How do people get back ups in their CO2 lines? Filling the keg to the very top? I don’t do that, don’t think I’d have any reason to get a back up in the gas lines…
Thanks, Shade, I’ll not replace the poppets for now, then.
[quote=“Beersk”]How do people get back ups in their CO2 lines? Filling the keg to the very top? I don’t do that, don’t think I’d have any reason to get a back up in the gas lines…
Thanks, Shade, I’ll not replace the poppets for now, then.[/quote]
Several ways to get beer in your gas line but the most common is to connect a keg that is pressurized over the gas line pressure via the out post.
[quote=“Beersk”]How do people get back ups in their CO2 lines?[/quote]I think for me it was filling a keg too full, (up to the gas in tube) carbonating and down the road attaching the gas lines again with the tank shut off or set to less pressure than the keg was at. Now when I tap a full keg I relieve the pressure before attaching the QD.
i think that’s how it happened to me too. it could have been foam getting pushed into the line when i moved the keg around (if the pressure in the keg was higher than the tank)
So, what sorts of off flavors could this produce? Moldy, grossness? Certainly not the diacetyl BS I’m getting that gets worse with time…
The 6 kegs I had infected were sour and not in a good way, plus they were gushers when I’d pull the relief valve. The first one made a huge mess in my cleaning ares, the rest got done outdoors.
[quote=“Beersk”]How do people get back ups in their CO2 lines? Filling the keg to the very top? I don’t do that, don’t think I’d have any reason to get a back up in the gas lines…
[/quote]
In my case I think what happened was with 2 kegs connected using “Y” fittings, one was carbed much higher than the other so they tried to equalize backing beer from the higher pressure keg into the line.
Good tip. I hadn’t thought of that.
“The second-most influential way diacetyl is produced in beer is through bacterial infection. Two main bacterial culprits are to blame for this: Pediococcus and Lactobacillus (Gram-postive/catalase-negative cocci and rods, respectively). Both of these bacteria produce lactic acid, so when the buttery aroma is detected along with a sour character, it is pretty certain that an infection has occurred.” -from Diacetyl – “Who put butter in my beer?” beer sensory science
Well, these beers don’t have sourness to them, but definitely diacetyl and it worsens over time, which points me to infection. Another angle I looked at was oxidation of alpha acetolactate compounds…but that seems unlikely…having never run a brush through my dip tubes, there could’ve been build up of crap that running BLC or oxiclean through couldn’t get off.
I gave my kegs a serious soak for 24 in a strong PBW solution, ran a brush through the dip tubes, and rinses like a mo-fo. I brewed a batch of IPA yesterday, simple extract with tons of simcoe and cascade, to split between a keg and bottles to see if I can find out where the sh*t is coming from. That is, if the cleaning didn’t take care of it or if it’s fermentation related (doesn’t seem likely, as I pitch plenty of yeast and aerate well with a mix stir and control ferm temps).
Anyway…is it normal for a dip tube to have corroded spots on the inside? And could that be a potential? I think I asked that earlier, but didn’t get much of a response.
No, that’s not normal at all. If it’s a straight tube you could run a new .30 caliber bronze bore brush through them. It may just be crud and not corrosion. If it is corrosion, you could buy a replacement but that’s starting to get pricey.
[quote=“fightdman”]
No, that’s not normal at all. If it’s a straight tube you could run a new .30 caliber bronze bore brush through them. It may just be crud and not corrosion. If it is corrosion, you could buy a replacement but that’s starting to get pricey.[/quote]
$20-25 for a new dip tube doesn’t seem like much considering all the funky batches.
