Containers How clean are your kegs? asks Lambrechts

Just how clean are my kegs? this is a vitally important question for the craft brewer, as the quality of the ingredients and the care taken during production in producing a great pint can be wasted if your kegs and spear are not surgically sterile internally

To wash a keg requires the dirty keg to be de-ullaged, before moving onto the wash cycle: The first wash at 60°C usually re-uses the last wash water saving on average 9 litres per keg Followed by a caustic wash usually conducted at 75-85°c with a 2 to 2 5% concentration A final wash always using clean water ideally above 80°C. All purge gasses and steam used for this purpose must be filtered to 0.2 micron.

All these processes are constantly monitored by a Lambrechts machine Lambrechts firmly recommend the use of Saturated Steam for the sterilisation process, stating that if heated to 135°C for a period of 60 seconds you can guarantee destroying all beer spoilage organisms An investment in a boiler or electric steam generator gives peace of mind of a sterile keg and useful capacity for CIP systems within the brewery

However, what can brewers with no access to saturated steam for sterilising do to minimise the risk of infection A high degree of disinfection using a sanitiser eliminates nearly all recognised pathogenic microorganisms but not all microbial forms - eg bacterial spores In short it does not ensure ‘’overkill’’ so lacks that margin of safety achieved by sterilisation

According to Lambrechts spokesman Mike Hickman, “We are selling an increasing number of ‘entry level’ washers with the Lambrechts NANO, offering excellent value to the craft brewer with a budget of under £20,000 “We have received a particularly enthusiastic reaction to a YouTube video