Tips & Tricks for Cleaning Your Commercial Kegs

No matter how large or small your brewing operation is, you just can’t avoid the truly staggering amount of cleaning that you need to do. With everything you put your equipment through regularly, you must keep it clean and sanitary unless you want your actual product to suffer the consequences. We’ll give you a few tips and tricks for cleaning your commercial kegs to help you get through the worst parts of it with ease.

Cleaning Solutions Matter

Soap and water won’t be enough to fully clean your kegs of scales like beerstone. Acidic cleaning solutions will be your best bet for full sanitization, but you have quite a few options. The differences between two products, such as chlorine dioxide or peracetic acid, might seem small. However, they each have different strengths and target different contaminants. Finding the right solution may take some trial and error, but the effort is worth it to find the one that works best for you.

Don’t Forget About the Fittings

Cleaning the kegs themselves will obviously be your first priority. However, the smaller fittings on the kegs also need a thorough cleaning if you want to avoid them contaminating your product. You’re usually safe to use the same cleaning solution you use in your keg, but remember that some fittings could consist of a different, softer metal. This could mean you need a less corrosive solution to keep them safe.

Rinse Thoroughly Before and After

One of the most useful tips for cleaning your commercial kegs might seem obvious. However, it might surprise you to find out how many people don’t rinse. Your keg and all its parts need a thorough rinsing with water before and after you sanitize them. Rinsing before sanitizing ensures that the cleaning solution can be as effective as possible. Rinsing after sanitizing protects future batches from getting contaminated due to leftover cleaning solution residue.

Sanitize Yourself and Your Tools

While your focus will obviously be on the kegs themselves, you also need to be sanitary if you plan on touching them during the process. Your hands or extra tools might have more contaminants than you realize, which could ruin the sanitation process if you aren’t careful. Always ensure you clean yourself before handling anything that you need to sanitize.

Cleaning a large number of kegs can be a real hassle unless you have a specialized beer keg washer to do the hard work for you. Craftmaster Stainless washers can make the cleaning process faster and much more effective. Contact us today.