Hello all,
First post guys, great forum with loads of helpful topics... I have a problem with my first kegged batch of homebrew, a coopers lager, It has gone cloudy and sour with a metallic tang on the back and side of the tongue! I've come to the conclusion that it is infected so I'm looking into a deep clean for both my kegs!
I work for a food production company and they use a couple of products, Chlorfoam and Holquat... Chlorfoam is a detergent with SODIUM HYPOCHLORITE SOLUTION, 15%
Cl ACTIVE, SODIUM HYDROXIDE, SODIUM ARYL SULPHONATE and ALKYL DI-METHYL AMINE OXIDE. I'm thinking of using this as the cleaner, its an active foam cleaner and will get into the nooks and crannies! Holquat is a disinfectant basically, an Antimicrobial Surface Sanitiser (Quaternary Ammonium Chloride Biocide)
Will I be good with these, obviously care will be taken but surely these will do the job??
What do you think??
Cheers
Infection in Corny Keg... I think!!
-
Wonkydonkey
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Re: Infection in Corny Keg... I think!!
Well allysim1972, welcome to the forum.
As for deep cleaning your kegs, you could use the stuff from work, it may well be good a very good cleaner, but it may have other things, that we don't want. Just like washing up liquid. Has somthing the will ruin a head on a beer,
There are a few things that most of us use to clean the brewing equipment. Washing soda, oxi clean (unsented), caustic soda (aka sodium hydroxide aka NaOH) (it's strong shit, so don't make it too concentrated) PBW, VWP (contains NaOH and chlorine), and a few others.
Good sanitation starts with good cleaning
So The main thing in cleaning is not to leave any organic matter, as it can harbour bugs. The maker of starsan States this in a podcast. (Charlie tally)
If you have an infection, it helps if you know where it came from, otherwise you could miss/skip cleaning that part.
I allways taste a bit whenever I transfur the beer by doing this I can sometimes almost pinpoint when it got the infection, ie in the FV, or after moving it to another vessel. I mostly keg my beer, but as I can't get more then 19lt in a cornie I bottle a few. I then have a sample to compare to the keg.
When I do a 50lt brew it gets split into two, once I got a infection in one FV, it was me opening it and some dust got dragged in. So now I'm more carful opening. But the main thing was Almost knew it had got infected before it went into the cornie as it had a slight sour taste, it got drunk very quickly, well drunk till it became undrinkable.
But on a last note, be careful with the bleach ( sodium hypochlorite) if it does not get washed away properly. The chorine can react in the FV And you get somthing like a TCP taste.
Some peeps use thin cheap unsented bleach, with vinegar as a sanitation. Again the maker of star San States this in his beer smith podcast.
Add bleach to water,,and add vinegar to this, but do not add vinegar to bleach you may well gas yourself. The volumes/ratio can be found if you want them
One last thing it's worh a full stripdown of a cornie. You may have already done this.
when you get them as they have had flavoured syrup in them, and bugs love the sugar but there's not enough water for them to do much, but when we add beer the bugs think they gone to heaven.
there are a few places that get over looked on a cornie, PRV, DIPTUBES AND ALL ORINGS.
I hope this helps you find those little bug-gers
As for deep cleaning your kegs, you could use the stuff from work, it may well be good a very good cleaner, but it may have other things, that we don't want. Just like washing up liquid. Has somthing the will ruin a head on a beer,
There are a few things that most of us use to clean the brewing equipment. Washing soda, oxi clean (unsented), caustic soda (aka sodium hydroxide aka NaOH) (it's strong shit, so don't make it too concentrated) PBW, VWP (contains NaOH and chlorine), and a few others.
Good sanitation starts with good cleaning
So The main thing in cleaning is not to leave any organic matter, as it can harbour bugs. The maker of starsan States this in a podcast. (Charlie tally)
If you have an infection, it helps if you know where it came from, otherwise you could miss/skip cleaning that part.
I allways taste a bit whenever I transfur the beer by doing this I can sometimes almost pinpoint when it got the infection, ie in the FV, or after moving it to another vessel. I mostly keg my beer, but as I can't get more then 19lt in a cornie I bottle a few. I then have a sample to compare to the keg.
When I do a 50lt brew it gets split into two, once I got a infection in one FV, it was me opening it and some dust got dragged in. So now I'm more carful opening. But the main thing was Almost knew it had got infected before it went into the cornie as it had a slight sour taste, it got drunk very quickly, well drunk till it became undrinkable.
But on a last note, be careful with the bleach ( sodium hypochlorite) if it does not get washed away properly. The chorine can react in the FV And you get somthing like a TCP taste.
Some peeps use thin cheap unsented bleach, with vinegar as a sanitation. Again the maker of star San States this in his beer smith podcast.
Add bleach to water,,and add vinegar to this, but do not add vinegar to bleach you may well gas yourself. The volumes/ratio can be found if you want them
One last thing it's worh a full stripdown of a cornie. You may have already done this.
when you get them as they have had flavoured syrup in them, and bugs love the sugar but there's not enough water for them to do much, but when we add beer the bugs think they gone to heaven.
there are a few places that get over looked on a cornie, PRV, DIPTUBES AND ALL ORINGS.I hope this helps you find those little bug-gers
To Busy To Add,