[Werks21]

I caught myself recently working on the gas side of my kegerator without sanitizing any thing. I was just grabbing fittings and cutting and clamping away. (all new or cleaned) I Just shrugged it off because I did not feel like dunking and drying everything, and I figured commercial draft techs probably dont sanitize any thing ever so what the heck, relax and have a hombrew. Is this not the right area of brewing to channel Charlie P?

[Phil_M]

I've never sanitized mine. Heck, I can't even remember the last time I sanitized my gas in taps.

That being said, a keg never lasts long in my home, so any issues may have just not made themselves apparent...

[brewinhard]

Some will say no big deal, while others like myself are anal as hell and make sure to sanitize those things just to be sure I can mentally eliminate any potential off-flavors/infection points. YMMV.

[jtoots]

I've had troubles with dirty lines due to tweaking pressures, slight overfills so the gas dip tube is submerged, and/or doing the rock and roll force carb method.  if beer gets in a gas line, it will cause issues eventually.  otherwise, should be a pretty harmless environment i suppose.

[Werks21]

I've had troubles with dirty lines due to tweaking pressures, slight overfills so the gas dip tube is submerged, and/or doing the rock and roll force carb method.  if beer gets in a gas line, it will cause issues eventually.  otherwise, should be a pretty harmless environment i suppose.

I would deal with visible contamination for sure.
Maybe I can be lazy and sanitize all lines, just disconnect at the reg and push star Star San. 

Still undecided on cleaning gas side but I did decide to keep sour/bret beer out of the kegerator. Which the after thinking about seems like something I should not have thought about...

[reverseapachemaster]

The pressure, pure CO2 and lack of food is going to make the gas side an unhabitable environment for most spoilage organisms. For those that can survive and make it into beer are going into cold beer where their ability to do anything will be slow. Perhaps a low gravity, low hopped beer sitting in the keg for months and months might see some evidence of spoilage in the unlikely situation in which something survives the gas lines to get into the beer.

[brewinhard]

I still feel better safe than sorry. Takes but a couple minutes to sanitize. My anal 2 cents.

[Phil_M]

If I had reason to believe that any beer had somehow made its way into my lines, I'd both clean and sanitize them.

That being said, I take a lot of precautions to make sure that no beer contaminates those lines.

[Werks21]

The pressure, pure CO2 and lack of food is going to make the gas side an unhabitable environment for most spoilage organisms. For those that can survive and make it into beer are going into cold beer where their ability to do anything will be slow. Perhaps a low gravity, low hopped beer sitting in the keg for months and months might see some evidence of spoilage in the unlikely situation in which something survives the gas lines to get into the beer.

Interesting, It had never occurred to me that the environment was a harsh one but it makes enough sense. Feeling better about my recent "dirty" workmanship.