Although sanitizing beer lines is not a bad idea, I don't do it. I use caustic (beer line cleaner, aka BLC, is the same thing) in hot water and pump it through the lines three times, letting it sit in the lines for about 5 minutes before pumping a fresh charge of caustic into them. Caustic/BLC will kill anything organic and also eliminate the need to also use PBW. Caustic and BLC contain sodium hydroxide and also have surfactant cleaners in it to remove any accumulated soils from the lines, making PBW redundant IMHO. On every other cleaning, I take the faucets apart and clean the internal parts just to be safe. The caustic does a really good job on them, but I like to inspect them occasionally for things like beer stone. If I see that then I use an acid wash after the caustic cycle. Star San will work for that (because it is an acid) although a commercial acid cleaner (available from dairy supply stores) is much better.
I then flush the lines with hot water three times and am done. I have never experienced an off flavor from using this method. It also saves me time and money.
That said, if you want to clean your lines in the way you mentioned, use the Star San last.
Topic: Order of cleaning agents for kegs (Read 1958 times)
