Cleaning beer engines

[Greig McGill]

Hi all,

Following on from the sanitation product question posted elsewhere, what do those of you with beer engines use to keep them nice and hygenic, and odour and flavour free?

I've been trying a few things, but am never too zealous as I don't want to hurt my babies!

[HerrSchnapps]

I was looking at this yesterday:
http://www.nzfsa.govt.nz/dairy/registers-lists/sanitisers.htm
and noticed Liquid Kloran is a marked as a suitable beer line cleaner?

[Stu McKinlay]

I only hook up for special occasions and I run about 5L of warm water through after use.

I have been thinking about setting up a permanent bar but it's well down my list of priorities - cleaning will be on the list of things to thnk about when I do that. I'd also prefer to work out a method of keeping the cornies at "cellar temp" rather than at room temp.

[Greig McGill]

Indeed, that's my favoured method at the moment also. Never mind cellar temp, I'm really enjoying a pint of my ordinary right now at room temp. It's awesome. I just wish it had kept well in the bottle. Tried the sample which will be being judged today, and it's full of acetylaldehyde, and way too much CO2 for the style. The same beer on handpump was great. :( Oh well, lucky I entered 6 beers!

[Mike Neilson]

Back in the UK we used to clean our Hand pump lines after every barrel (36 gallons) with beer line cleaner which was basicly every 2 day the. Our first draw was with cold water to flush lines and engine. than a strong mix of Beer line cleaner. let that sit there for 20 mins then pull through 3 pints (2 pint lines) to draw through a fresh slightly weaker soloution of beer line cleaner. Let that sit there for 10 mins, After all this we pull through about 4 gallons of water, test to see if there was any residual beer line cleaner in it than its ready to go. If hand pump was sitting around for a while like a few of our seasonal ales we would clean the line and beer engine as said than pull the line and engine dry. When the ale came in we would clean the line again just to make sure that no nasties had got in to it. This method worked as my bar was awarded Cellear of the Year 2 years running!!!

[Greig McGill]

Brilliant Mike, thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for.

[Mike Neilson]

Also why do all the bars here use sparklers on there engines? There used for poor kept beers and bash the beer into smitherings!!

[HerrSchnapps]

Um, I think you just answered your question!

[Mike Neilson]

I was at the Twisted Hop and had seen them using sparklers. A mate of mine asked for a pint of RNA and got it pulled with a sparkler. Straight after him I asked for a pint of RNA with out a sparkler, got a strange look from the bar maid, but she continued to pull mny pint. After sitting around the table and I profoundedly claiming that the RNA was the one of the better pints I have had my mate said try this and I had a taste and said its flat, off and hazed!! what is it? and he said its the RNA?

[Stu McKinlay]

I had one, with sparkler, last Thursday and it was superb.

I think the sparkler v non-sparkler debate is is like saying which is better "lager or ale", or "english pale or american pale"? It's different, not better or worse. I like it both ways. I use a beer engine at home and sometimes I have the sparkler on, sometimes not.

[Mike Neilson]

My Question What does the sparkler add to the beer? When I think of any English ale I think of the good old days a barrel used to sit on the bar on the Stillage with a stile in the top and a tap in the bung served at room temp. Would of been hard gravity feed that through a Sparkler. Dont get me wrong a sparkler has its place but defintly not at the twisted hop as that RNA is superb. I used to be gutted when I would cellar a barrel perfectly, only for some one to ask me to put the sparkler on, five pulls, half a pint in wasted beer!! and a few mins later he had a pint.

[Stu McKinlay]

Yeh, I know where you are coming from but the sparkler gets a bad rep based on the people that use it to disguise bad or old beer (which I assume was why it was invented) rather than for anything else.

I've never seen a bad beer made good or a good beer made bad, either way.

Obviously the Twisted Hop beers, like Galbraith's, are pretty low in CO2 because I've never seen a lot of dicking about with 5 pull pints at either bar. I'm pretty sure both bars use it for the same reason - consistent visual appeal.

I'd go for the barrel behind the bar too - saves the line cleaning!

[Mike Neilson]

And its fresh, If you have ever had the first pint off the barrel in the cellar you will know how good beer is. At our bar in Barnes we had a Firkin of London Special on the hand pull which we have had been since Sunday eve. The dray came in (6am) on a tuesday they had forgot our new Firkin of London Special after i had racked all the barrels I noticed an old stillage sitting behind the larger coolers. I phoned the brewery and they sent out the MIA firkin of London, It came off the back of the lowery straight on to the newly found stillage that just happend to be sitting on the bar. To Cut a long story short the beer had hardly enough time to drop before the anticipation of this solitry firkin on the bar was emptied. It took 25mins for the punters down that one solitry firkin. And they wanted more. We done the same with the winter Warmer and then on St Georges Day we had to Up grade to a 18.