Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

We just tapped our first keg and I was wondering how you guys go about cleaning, storing, and sanitizing your kegs.  I will not have beer ready to go into the keg for at least two weeks.  I had read that you clean out the inside with PBW, sanitize, pressurize, and then you can store indefinately.  Some one else told me they break down their kegs completely (all the values off and scrubbed, then reassembled), every time.  So, I was curious what everyone else does.

If you just emptied it and haven't opened up the keg, why not just leave it sealed up?  If your beer is sterile (except for the yeast) then it's not going to do much if you just leave it as it is.  Then clean it with PBW and sterilize it when you're ready to fill it again. Kegs are pretty easy to clean, so even if it gets funked, you can clean it up easily enough. I made the mistake of opening a keg and not cleaning it out right then.  Once you open the keg up, then you let in all kinds of bacteria and wild yeast to go to town on whatever beer remains in the keg.  It was stinky, but it still cleaned out fine.  If you really want to clean the keg out now, then open it up, clean it, but I would wait to sterilize it until you're ready to fill it again.  Unless your sterilization technique is quite good, you might get some bugs growing before you fill the keg again. Same goes with carboys.  I wouldn't trust something that I sterilized 3 months ago to still be ready to hold that flanders red I've been fermenting for over a year.  I always sterilize things right before I use them. 

That is good advice, Spidey.  It is going to work out that way because I am lazy and have not opened anything up yet and I will need to keg the porter mid week.

I have 2 empty kegs in my kegerator, waiting for the brews to finish.  I just cap the faucets, and leave them be.  My thoughts exactly, Spidey.  I am not concerned about the faucets getting gummed up.  I disassemble them and soak them in line cleaner when I clean anyway.  If I am going to clean, it is going to be once and before kegging the beer.  If I get totally bored, I might take the kegs out and clean and spray them down.  I would not do anything special.  Just put them in the corner opened, awaiting the sterilization for the next kegging.  Mmmm, fresh kegged beer.  Come on secondary dry hopping, hurry up.

I usually don't completely disassemble my kegs after a batch.  I read a guy who said he goes 3 or so batches per keg before he PBWs and re-sanitizes, so I was trying that philosophy and it has worked out so far.  I think spidey is right on with the advice about leaving a kicked keg sitting, because if the beer didn't go bad, nothing interesting is going to happen with the yeast residue and CO2 left over.  As for sanitizing a keg and leaving it sitting, I use star-san, which sanitizes by virtue of its acidity, so I habitually leave 5 gallons of star san sitting in a sealed keg until the ph is too high to be effective.  I remember seeing something about a guy who rigged up a way to flow PBW or sanitizer into the dip tube and the air in valve to clean and sanitize the keg without having to dissemble it.  He might have also kegged that way to minimize air exposure; I don't honestly remember.