sterilizing corny keg

[Ian]

Hi guys, I'm looking for a little advice here regarding sterilizing a corny keg. Generally when I have done that I have sterilised the keg in the usual way then turned on the CO2 and attached the handgun and pumped some sterilising fluid through the system, followed by a rinse and pumping some plain water through. Then rack the beer from the fermentor into the keg.

  Now, I already have a batch of beer in my keg in the kegerator with CO2 attached and conditioning/carbonating. I have a second brew approaching the end of fermentation and I want to put it into a second corny keg that I have and use a device with a CO2 bomb that I was given to get some CO2 into it to displace the air - then it would sit at room temperature until the first beer batch is finished and I can refrigerate the second brew and attach the CO2.

  So I need to sterilize this second corny keg but, since I shan't be pumping beer through the lines I am a touch concerned that that wee pipe that goes down to the bottom of the keg to slurp the beer from the bottom for delivery might remain un sterilised. Do you think this is a problem? Any comment welcome.

Cheers,

Ian

[Chris Mills]

Three weeks seems to be enough - as I am a fan of real ales I don't refrigerate them and simply keep them in nice cool corner under the house at around 15°C.

[Ian]

I go quite a bit on my craft brewing mate's advice and he always insists that the best thing when connecting the keg to CO2 in the kegerator is to leave it be (barring inquisitive sips every week of course) for a full four weeks. This stretches delayed gratification pretty thin but I have tried abiding by that and my beer seems to definitely benefit by it when I tuck in.

  I have a keg in the fridge now and another standing beside the fridge. The second one I primed with a bit of raw sugar. I was advised that maybe this wasn't the best way and maybe just displacing any air with CO2 and leaving it until getting it into the fridge with CO2 hooked up is best? I'd be interested to know what you guys  feel. Also, whilst I know the carbonating with CO2 won't be effective until the keg is refridgerated, does it still condition significantly standing at room temperature?

Cheers,

Ian

[Reviled]

Ahh - english yeast - question answered ;o) lol - cheers Chris

[Matt Smith]

When you use napisan, is that basically in place of something like PBW ?....I just ran out of PBW and was going to order more, but I'm thinking napisan is going to be way cheaper. What type of ratio do you use ?

Cheers !

[Matt Smith]

That reply was meant to be under Revileds post further up, not sure why it ended up down here

[Chris Mills]

You might go in on a bag of sodium percarbonate (primary ingredient in Napisan) from Clark Products up in Napier (http://www.clarkproducts.co.nz/products/chemicals). It comes in a 25kg sack and lasts a long, long time - in fact if anyone wants a kilo of it I'd be happy sell a little if you are interested.

 

This raises the notion of mixing up a batch of home-brewed PBW by purchasing a 25kg bag of Sodium Metasilicate and 2 x 25kg of Sodium Percarbonate and hiring a small electric cement mixer it should be possible to mix up 75kg of PBW-analogue for a little under $5/kg as opposed to $36/kg of PBW in packaged form in NZ. I'd be very happy to go in for a third of the cost of this if anyone else is keen to get in on something like this too.

 

I am not a chemist, but my searching on the web has shown that PBW is 30% Sodium Metasilicate and the rest is mostly Sodium Percarbonate. Please feel free to check me on my notions of mixing raw ingredients to make something which ought to cost far less than PBW off the shelf.

[Reviled]

Matt - Napisan is definately one of the cheaper products out there, and Chris is right that the active ingrediant is Sodium Percarbonate, but because of all the other crap in there you do need to rinse it off!! I dont use a specific ratio, just half a cap full, mix with water until its good and foamy, splash it around, let it sit, splash again and then rinse!!

 

PBW is fkn expensive mate, waste of money IMO unless you are trying to get rid of kettle stone...

 

Chris - Sodium Percarbonate - in its pure form I've read that this stuff breaks down into oxygen once it's done it's thing - so would this be suitable as a type of wash and sanitiser all in one? Or do you still need to rinse away the sodium percarbonate residue??

 

And wow, 25kg?? haha, that's like a lifetime of cleaning product!!

[Haish]

Not quite, it breaks down to sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide (which breaks down to oxygen and water) so you will have the sodium carbonate left to rinse off. 25kg should last a little while...

 

There are other ingredients in PBW that allow it to remove beerstone and make it more effective, but the chemicals Chris mentions will make a pretty good cleaner. Just be careful using too much sodium met, I think its quite caustic.

[Rhyno]

Please correct me if I am wrong (and I probabaly am) but what was the cleaning product that Albrecht mentioned not to use on Te Radar's program when Radar asked him what was the biggest mistake new hombrewer's could make. I know thats going back a year or two now.

From memory I thought it was Sodium Percarbonate.................

[Matt Smith]

From memory I think it was sodium metibisulphite, used as a sanitizer which you have to rinse. I used to use it when I first started brewing with kits but switched to star san pretty quickly.

[Reviled]

Yeah it was sodium metabisulphite - nasty stuff!!

 

From what i've read, It's not actually a sanitiser either, it prohibits growth but doesn't kill anything. On top of that, its horrendously bad for asthma and kills your lungs!!

[Chris Mills]

I've only ever used it when making mead and even then you only drop one or two tablet in to a 20L batch and then leave it for several months. It's best for keeping unwanted things from growing in wine or mead while it's still fermenting. I also used to use it as a no-rinse sanitiser for wine bottles and corks as it was going to sit for at least 3 months before it had aged enough to drink it.