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Draft Line Regimen - Stubborn Spiced Ale Lines

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  • Draft Line Regimen - Stubborn Spiced Ale Lines

    Hello
    Spiced ale season around these parts with our pumpkin and winter warmer style beers. We cleaned one line which had a spice pumpkin ale beer on it for a few weeks. Caustic, rinse, PAA. Tapped a lager after and could tell there was still a little "spice" coming through. Eventually ended up soaking line overnight and re-washing which helped out.

    What does everyone do to help clean these stubborn lines?
    Soaking best?
    Higher concentrations? Longer contact time?
    Supposedly I heard PAA should even neutralize strong root beer flavors/aromas?

    Any suggestions?

  • #2
    I've had good results adding a third step (Five Star Sani-Clean) to the line cleaning process. Sani-Clean is pretty good at removing flavors & aromas (even root beer) but you need to do a deep cleaning first.

    Years ago I was advised to do caustic...rinse...acid...rinse...saniclean but now I believe that acid before caustic is the recommendation.

    For a long time I didn't have a a recirculating line cleaning pump. I'd make up a keg of each chemical, and then tap about a half gallon through each line, let it soak 5 minutes, tap another half gallon, and repeat... until each line got a total of about 15-20 minutes per chemical. Finally, I would pause just before running out of SaniClean and leave the lines packed overnight.

    I once recommended this to someone who bought a bar... where the previous owner had turned off the draft cooler & power pack and left warm stagnant beer sitting in the lines for months! It was disgusting. A local draft beer service company (who are pretty good guys) tried and failed to clean it, then quoted him something like $20,000 to replace the (buried) trunk line. As a last-ditch effort the bar owner tried the three-step cleaning (Five Star Liquid Line Cleaner, Acid Line Cleaner, SaniClean) and afterwards the lines were fine.
    Last edited by Yellowbeard; 10-19-2017, 10:25 PM.

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    • #3
      BA Draught Line Manual

      Last I checked the BA draught line manual says stubborn lines should get a "deep" clean of 3% caustic between 90-120F for minimum 15 minutes. Stronger flavored lines may require a longer recirculation of 20-25 minutes. If you do not have a recirculating pump I would advise something like a 30-45 minute soak. You may also be able to prevent the "build-up" of these flavors with a more rigorous cleaning schedule. I work at a brewery that makes ALOT of fruited beers. We follow BA guidelines and clean are lines/couplers/faucets/fobs every 2 weeks and have no issues with flavors staying in the line. Best of luck!

      -Kevin W.

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      • #4
        Spiced beers just like root beer permeate the plastic and the flavor embeds itself in the plastic. Generally strong oxidizer are the only way to remove or improve such lines. I would run a food caustic and acid cleaner first (make sure you have sufficient flow velocity- calculate the Reynolds number for your system, you want to be above 4000) and then soak the line in a 1500 ppm solution of Peracetic Acid for an hour or longer, if needed.

        We also offer new products with a build-in oxidizer into the caustic. Those may work as well.

        Dirk Loeffler
        Loeffler Chemical Corporation


        Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
        Loeffler Chemical Corporation
        (404) 629-0999
        800-769-5020 (US & Canada only)
        www.loefflerchemical.com

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