[802Chris]

Just a friendly reminder to take the ball valve off of your boil kettle and clean it from time to time. I am lazy as anyone, but after taking a year off to move, and after being SO excited to brew again, I'm going to dump 5 gallons down the drain... All because I wasn't thorough enough in my cleaning getting my gear ready to brew again!

Hope this helps someone!

[ynotbrusum]

Periodic deep cleaning is the key - this weekend is my spring cleaning date.  All parts broken down, hand cleaned and soaked overnight.  Then rinsed, dried and reassembled.  Same for the beer lines in the kegerator and the taps....

Thanks for the horror story - put the next cleaning date on the calendar now!

[MNWayne]

Good idea.  I'm due for a deep clean too.

[narvin]

Cleaning is important, but for anything that is pre-fermenter I just use heat sanitization.  A 200+ recirculation through the kettle ball valve, pump, and chiller for whirlpooling does a better job than I could do on a regular NPT homebrew style ball valve by trying to disassemble it.

[Big Monk]

My new setup is going to have the easy clean TC ball valves. The only threaded connection I plan on is the cooler bulkhead.

[ynotbrusum]

On my main setup, it is all tri-clamp and ball valves come apart.  My older stuff and the Foundry are threaded ball valves, so those get hot cleaner recirc and removal, soak and hand clean as best I can....

[goose]

Cleaning is important, but for anything that is pre-fermenter I just use heat sanitization.  A 200+ recirculation through the kettle ball valve, pump, and chiller for whirlpooling does a better job than I could do on a regular NPT homebrew style ball valve by trying to disassemble it.

+1

However any ball valve that is on the cold side, like the racking arms on my conicals are taken apart and cleaned periodically.  They are use triclover clamps  The dump valves on he bottom of the conical are butterfly triclover valves are are very easy to keep clean with my CIP regime

[hopfenundmalz]

I recirculate with the pump for 10 minutes on the kettle, which takes care of that loop.

I cleaned the ball valves on the conical recently, disassemble and soaked in PBW.

One thing I do on the conical sometimes is a PBW soak. The pump is used to recirculate from dump valve to taking valve. Both valves get several close/open cycles to expose them to the PBW. Not as good as disassembly, but better than nothing.

[BrewBama]

I use TC valves on the BK and MLT. Too easy not to pop apart and clean the day after when I clean the pump.


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