How often do you cleen you taps?

[TimCA]

Hay there, I seem to get mold that grows inside my picnic taps. With this said I'm thinking that the mold is present long before I can I see it. How often should I be cleaning my picnic taps? Can this “reverse” contaminate the beer in my keg?

Thanks
Tim

[Bugeater]

The brewcasters can attest to the fact that a moldy picnic tap can indeed infect a beer. Unfortunately, I sent them a bottle filled with just such a tap. I hadn't noticed it before because I always drank the beer right away. TBN's bottle had sat for a couple weeks. The infection had not spread "upstream" to the keg, so I imagine only the stuff you actually pour will be affected by the mold in the tap.

Depending on how often you use the tap, you should take it apart and clean it after every keg. Only takes 2 or 3 minutes and is well worth the time.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company

[rich]

I disassemble and clean my taps prior to very new keg.

[Steve]

Hay there, I seem to get mold that grows inside my picnic taps. With this said I'm thinking that the mold is present long before I can I see it. How often should I be cleaning my picnic taps? Can this “reverse” contaminate the beer in my keg?

Thanks
Tim

Hmm, actually I have a slightly different problem. I too think it's important to keep those taps clean but what do you do when you have a coupler for a regular sanky type keg, the 15.5 gallon size, all hooked up. You see sometimes when I'm out of homebrew I have setup my bar to handle both types of kegs so I may put in a keg of Yengling or somthing. On occation I get a few flakes come thru the tap. I can only imagine what isn't coming out. I have heard of those "cleaning bottles" that you can just snap onto your coupler and clean the entire line and tap included. Corney kegs are a bit tougher in the fact that you have to disassemble the quick connect and feed your cleaner down thru the tap and line and then rince. Where might I find one of those cleaning bottles cheaply or should I just do things the hard way and take it apart and clean it as I descibed earlier. I have done that once or twice but it's a true pain in the ass. Any suggestions?
Steve

[Danno]

I have found a unique way to keep the taps clean between kegs (yes, I clean and sanitize mine with every keg). I took one of those chemistry lab squeeze bottles that are used for solvents (like this one: http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=USPlastic&category%5Fname=6252&product%5Fid=14628).

I cut off the tip so that it points straight up. Take a urine specimum cup
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=USPlastic&category%5Fname=4&product%5Fid=12638 and drill a hole in the bottom just a bit smaller than the nozzle sticking up out of the bottle. Slide the cup over the nozzle and you have a squirt bottle for StarSan that catches what drips back down. I don't have any mold problems any more.

[SaintTaris]

When I swap out kegs, I fill the new keg with Starsan, shake and let it sit for 3 mins. Then I pump half of the Starsan through the beer lines and faucet.

This way I sanitize a keg, the beer lines and faucet all at once.

[diver]

I clean my taps every keg change but I noticed that I never see any mold buildup since I switched to forward sealing taps like Perlick.

[brewsters millionths]

nice idea taris, i might start on that one. a lot easier than stripping everything done. i have sankey kegs like steve, but have just recieved my first set of cornys.