BeerBorg

I wasn't sure what to use as the subject, but settled on clogged lines. But there's a lot more that goes into it.

tl;dr: trub clogged the lines and I had to rekeg one keg.

I travel fairly regularly and long ago bought a perlick tap because the tap that came with the kegerator would often get stuck if I was out of town long enough.

I was recently gone for a week and a half. When I got back, beers poured normally, but the next morning, the bar towel was full of beer. So I started putting a glass under the tap. It didn't seem to be turning off completely, which is odd. I figured I'd wait until the weekend and take care of it.

The other night, the glass overflowed. So I disconnected the keg and cleaned things up. When I reconnected the keg, nothing came out.

I took the tap apart and it was full of gunk. My first thought was that I deserved it because I didn't do a good cleaning between kegs. So I hooked up a keg full of water and tried to force that through. Nothing. So I hooked the beer keg up again and after a while, got a trickle. So I hooked up the keg with water (actually water+oxiclean) and ran it until it ran clear. Then I hooked up the keg again and it was barely a trickle.

I finally realized the problem. I bought a bunch of expired HME cans and brewed with them. They tended to under attenuate, but continue to ferment after kegging (I'm glad I keg; if I were still bottling, I think I'd have had a few bombs, or at least really overcarbonated beers). This particular batch had fermented enough in the keg that it created enough trub to clog the tube in the keg.

I cleaned the lines thoroughly and transferred the contents to another keg and all is well. All that remains is making sure that the first keg is clean enough that I can fit it Sunday.

After dry hopping a batch of an IPA I brewed, in the keg, the pickup tube become so clogged with hop debris the beer stopped pouring. To clear it out I unscrewed the beer out ball lock, removed the pickup tube and cleaned it with a long pickup tube brush. After removing about an ounce of pellet hop 'sand' from the tube and reinstalling it still no beer. It wasn't until I unscrewed the beer out post again that I saw it was loaded with hop residue. Once the hops were cleaned out of it the beer stared flowing again.

Since then, after every keg is kicked, I give the beer post and pickup tube the same thorough cleaning. Now after every two or three kegs I run beer line cleaner through the kegs, beer lines and taps just to keep them clean and fresh.

I probably need to break down my kegs for a thorough cleaning. New kegs went right into rotation, used kegs and reconditioned (ready to go) would get broken down for sanitizing to my standards.

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I have had frozen lines, and hop block. I'm pretty thorough with keg cleaning from fear of infection.

I clean my keg completely every time. Only takes 10 minutes but I feel it’s worth it as I usually use lots of hops.

Nobody disassembles the faucets, cleans and sanitizes them?

I clean the faucets and the lines each keg change.

I clean the faucets and the lines each keg change.

I don't dis-assemble the faucets or disconnects unless there is a problem. I do run line cleaner through almost every time.

I flush mine with really hot water for a minute or three, then fill with PBW and let sit for a few minutes, then run Star San through them. Then put it away until the next keg needs the line. Never really had an issue doing it this way.


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RickBeer wrote:Nobody disassembles the faucets, cleans and sanitizes them?

I pump 140F beer line cleaner, followed by 140F water, then room temperature StarSan through the two Perlick faucets and they never need to be disassembled for cleaning.

No faucet disassembly here either. Mix a gallon of beer line cleaner in keg and flush all the taps at once.

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I also follow the hot water, PBW and then StarSan routine after each keg kicks. I don't dissemble and Perlick even says there is no need to because of their design. Until I have a problem with the faucets, I don't plan on messing with them.

I've only had clogged lines/post once and it was because I was dumb and keg-hopped commando.

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Kealia wrote:I also follow the hot water, PBW and then StarSan routine after each keg kicks. I don't dissemble and Perlick even says there is no need to because of their design. Until I have a problem with the faucets, I don't plan on messing with them.

I've only had clogged lines/post once and it was because I was dumb and keg-hopped commando.

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I tried to take my Perlicks apart to see if the internals needed cleaning and couldn't do it. Unlike other types of faucets Perlicks do not come apart for cleaning.

To close the loop on this, I finally killed the keg. I removed the tap and cleaned and pulled the tower from the kegerator. I blew out all of the lines and cleaned and sanitized everything with Star San before putting it all back together.

I think this is the first time I've removed the tap since I put the perlick in. There was a scary amount of gunk in and around the spring (probably due to the trub that flowed through with the last keg).

I tapped the next keg and it's running fine.