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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org


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Contents:
  RE: Cleaning Kegs (Mike Schwartz)
  Re: Cleaning kegs (Calvin Perilloux)
  Beer crackers - flat pretzel wafers (stencil)


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Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 07:15:52 -0500
From: Mike Schwartz <mjs at seadogboats.com>
Subject: RE: Cleaning Kegs

  If you have a farm supply that carries dairy supplies (Farm and Fleet, 
Fleet Farm, etc) they sell a 75% phosphoric acid based milk stone 
remover that works wonders for removing beer stone and only costs about 
$5/gallon.

Mike Schwartz
Beer Barons of Milwaukee
beerbarons.org
worldofbeerfestival.com



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Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:03:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Calvin Perilloux <calvinperilloux at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Cleaning kegs

Hi Keith and Dave,

An item of note:  Beerstone is best removed with an acid
cleaner, not a caustic, which has hard time dissolving it.  
Caustic cleaners work great for hops, organic oils, and 
burned on crap.

Personally, I avoid caustic (specifically NaOH/lye/caustic soda)
due to the hazard of one small misstep leading to a medical
emergency, especially if I'm pumping it anywhere or have a
pressurized vessel.  It sounds like you're pumping it, Keith.
Like I said, I wouldn't, not unless I wore the same gear the 
guys in the brewery do when they pump it.

As far as I could tell in my brewing since giving up caustic, 
PBW worked about as well but with far less hazard.  You also 
don't want caustic anywhere near aluminum or other soft metals.  
PBW is better in this regard as well.  Oxyclean might also be 
useful here, though I'm not sure whether it's got the various 
other ingredients (like chelators for hard water) that PBW uses.

While some of these things like PBW and Oxyclean have modest 
sanitizing effects due to the dissolved oxygen content they 
produce, you really need to sanitize after using these things,
and an acid sanitizer like Starsan, Saniclean, is ideal for this.

My cleaning regimen, for what its worth:
(1) Soak in hot PBW
(2) Hand clean if any areas are still problematic
(3) Dump and rinse with water*
(4) Sanitize with Starsan/Iodophor/whatever-no-rinse sanitizer**
(5) Drain and use

* If I had a closed system, I'd consider just draining completely
and then go straight to my acid sanitizer as my "rinse".  I do
a water-rinse step with my current system because it's easy.

** If I have beerstone I want to get rid of, I soak in 
Starsan overnight if it's stainless, then wipe off in the 
morning.  Don't do this with soft metals like aluminum!

Some selected products:
If you are using a pump and circulating sanitizer, Starsan
might not be for you.  Consider a low-foam product like Saniclean.
There are lots of others out there besides the typical homebrew 
products, but be careful.  I've corresponded with a guy who
used TripleSan (or Trisan?) because it was cheap, but it left
awful odors behind.

As for what to do with used chemicals, depends what I'm using.
Most go right down the sink!  Seriously.  And I have a septic, 
so I am quite conscious of what goes there.  I'm reluctant to 
dump lots of bleach down there.  Homebrewing amounts of Iodophor 
haven't caused problems (diluted too much), but I sometimes 
dump that in the yard anyway out of paranoia.  Starsan is zero 
problem at all for the septic or sewer.  PBW, Oxyclean, and
even caustic in homebrew amounts don't cause problems, either.

I read that some people even use Starsan to fertilize their 
acid-loving plants!  I haven't tried that on my roses yet, 
but perhaps in this near-drought, I should give it a go.
If I can ever get back to brewing again, that is.

Calvin Perilloux
Middletown, Maryland, USA



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Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:05:54 -0400
From: stencil <etcs.ret at verizon.net>
Subject: Beer crackers - flat pretzel wafers

Simple pretzel dough, rolled very thin and scored into
squares before the last rising...  is there some practical
reason why these do not exist?  Or is it that they do exist
and I'm just not very attentive?  Got a yen for a little
snack with my weizen and a regular bretzen is just too big.

gds,  stencil



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