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How To Best Clean My 50L Keg?


Olemate

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I guess the title says it all! I've fallen further down the rabbit hole and I'm  setting up to get into BIAB.

I've found a, legal, 50l keg, cut the hole for access and about to fit a heating element and ball valve. Apart from a hose out, what is the best way to clean the keg after brewing?

I use Percarb in my fermenters, is that the best way to go? How much crud should I expect to be left in the keg after brewing? Being around, I guess, 20 Kilos empty, it's not as easy to throw around as a plastic fermenter.

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Citric acid. Mix it up in some water, boil it, let it cool enough to touch it then scrub it out with stainless steel wool. That's how I clean my urn and it works a treat. 

For the ball valve, after cleaning boil more water and run it through the valve. Leave the valve half open to allow it to dry. Every few batches remove it, dismantle it and soak it in perc. 

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It's very effective at removing boil scale. I usually buy it in 5kg amounts, it lasts a fair while as you don't need much for it to work. It's been effective enough that I don't use any cleaning agents in my urn at all anymore except with I dismantle the ball valve and sight tube to soak them in perc. It's all boiled anyway. I should have noted that I do give the urn a good rinse out before I do the final citric clean to get the majority of the crap out first.

Recently I noticed the kitchen kettle had a bit of muck in it, boil scale where the element is and on the glass volume gauge thingy on the side. Put a bit of citric in it, filled it up and boiled it. Came up like new.

Edited by Otto Von Blotto
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Thanks again Kelsey, I know vinegary water in the kitchen kettle also does the trick very well, boil scale being primarily carbonates, I guess. Our tap water must be reasonable as we rarely need to clean it, and it's used quite a bit.

Cheers

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Yeah, any acid really will work. I use hydrochloric to clean the pool chlorinator cell when it gets a bit of a buildup. Mixed up 1:10 in water and then soak the cell until all the crap falls off. Easy as.

It took about 2 years for the kettle to get to a point where I figured a clean was needed, our water is somewhat hard, last time I did an alkalinity test it was about 90ppm CaCO3. 

Edited by Otto Von Blotto
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7 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

It's very effective at removing boil scale. I usually buy it in 5kg amounts, it lasts a fair while as you don't need much for it to work. It's been effective enough that I don't use any cleaning agents in my urn at all anymore except with I dismantle the ball valve and sight tube to soak them in perc. It's all boiled anyway. I should have noted that I do give the urn a good rinse out before I do the final citric clean to get the majority of the crap out first.

Recently I noticed the kitchen kettle had a bit of muck in it, boil scale where the element is and on the glass volume gauge thingy on the side. Put a bit of citric in it, filled it up and boiled it. Came up like new.

Glad I spotted this, we have an urn which is impossible to clean, Ill give the Citric Acid a go.

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On 5/25/2019 at 2:58 PM, Beers Gone Wild said:

Glad I spotted this, we have an urn which is impossible to clean, Ill give the Citric Acid a go.

Beers gone wild. Your name reminds me of that Curb your Enthusiasm episode where Larry and Jeff order that seedy video of college girls gone wild. 😂

are you a curb fan ?

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14 hours ago, PaddyBrew2 said:

Beers gone wild. Your name reminds me of that Curb your Enthusiasm episode where Larry and Jeff order that seedy video of college girls gone wild. 😂

are you a curb fan ?

Haha no mate, I thought of it when watching "girls gone wild" 😋 A bit stupid really.

Got the missus grabbing some Citric Acid from Woolworths today, Ill be stoked if it does the job, Ill let you know the results.

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