How often do you clean beer lines?

[O2 Mash]

I was talking to a beer equipment distributor that said most bars clean their beer lines every two weeks. This seems like more of a headache than a necessity. I don't have beer lines yet, but will shortly. How often do you guys find that you need to clean lines. When does the beer start to taste funky due to bacteria build up?

[Stodbrew]

In the pub, I try and clean my lines every couple of weeks. Build up can and does happen very quickly. As far as how long it takes before you can actually taste the difference, I'm not really sure, but it doesn't take very long. In the pub, it's a huge pain in the ass and takes a good two hours to get it done. But I do it because I want my beer at the peak of freshness. For my kegerator at home, it only takes about 10 to 15 minutes.

[O2 Mash]

Thanks for the reply. Any idea of why the lines will get stale even though they are refrigerated? The keg is the same temp, but it's many months before the beer will go bad.

[danno]

I'm lucky if I get to it once a month during the summer, and maybe once all winter (my chest freezer is in my garage). I haven't noticed any problems though, so I haven't felt the need to be more diligent about it.

[O2 Mash]

Originally posted by danno
I'm lucky if I get to it once a month during the summer, and maybe once all winter (my chest freezer is in my garage). I haven't noticed any problems though, so I haven't felt the need to be more diligent about it.

Hey, with all that landscaping you've been doing, ya gotta draw the line somewhere.

[I'mRocketMan]

I run One-Step sanitizer (~1 gal) through the each line when the keg is empty. Then I take the faucet off and clean it before I put the new keg on... I've got 4 cornies on line at a time (4 faucets, also)

Cheers! Rocket

[toneyc]

You're supposed to clean those things? Hmmm....

:D
Toney.

[kevin]

So what is a easy way to clean the line. Sanitizer in the keg and run it straight throught the line?

[danno]

I mix up 5 gal of PBW in a keg, hook it up and push it through the beer lines and taps into another keg with the lid off. (I catch the first pint in a glass to try and keep my pbw cleaner) then I do the same thing with 5 gal of water.

[fuji6100]

I do mine about every month or two. Just whenever I think about it, basically.

I run Beer Line Cleaner through the lines and then let them sit for 15 minutes or so. Meanwhile I've taken the taps off/apart and am cleaning those. After putting the taps back on, I flush star san through the system to sanitize it then hook the beer back up and flush about half a pint through to get any residual sanitizer out.

I keep a spare keg just for "cleaning duty" so all I have to do is swap the quick disconnects.

Seems to work fine for me

[brewmonkey]

A good line cleaning should consist of a PBW wash with warm water (not hot it will screw up the line) followed by a warm water rinse and follow that with a sani pack.

Mix the PBW to the concentration you need and run it through the lines. Allow it to sit in the lines for a few minutes and then drain the line. Follow it through with a warm water rinse, until you have rinsed all the PBW out.

After rinsing run some sani through the line, like sani-clean, and allow it to sit for a few minutes.

When I was in the pub I cleaned the lines after every batch but I also had a long draw system. My short run was 100' to the back bar and almost 200' to the front bar. Even after one batch of beer the lines needed it.

[barleyburps]

I clean my beer lines about as often as I change the oil in my car. . . .about once a year. . .on a good year. . . I think about it often though, I've yet to have funky tasting beer as a result, and foaming issues seem to happen only on a few batches.

I was wondering how often you all clean yours.