Keg Liners

[Daniel de Wet]

Just a quick query, can you sanitise and re-use the keg liners? 

[Thagomizer]

Daniel,

Welcome to the Forum. 

Keg liners were meant to be single use disposables.  The idea was to eliminate the tedious job of sanitizing your kegging equipment.  The keg liners are extremely fragile and must be handled carefully even when installing and filling them.  I doubt if you could clean and sanitize one without destroying it.  Over many brews, I have ruined a few just installing them.

I know they seem a little expensive, $10 for 4 liners in the USA, but $5 for keg liners applied to a $40 batch is not too exorbitant.  If you want to save money, consider buying your dry hops in bulk (8 oz. packages) *, supplying your own cleansers and sanitizers and buying bulk dextrose for priming your batches.  (Although you probably already thought of those things.)

Happy brewing. 😀

^* Gives you creative freedom in recipes.)

[Rob Courtney]

On 07/05/2023 at 3:03 PM, Daniel de Wet said:

Just a quick query, can you sanitise and re-use the keg liners? 

Yes you can, no, you shouldn't.

It is one of those questions we all ponder when we start and it seems like a sound idea but when you work through the process of what you actually have to do in comparison to busting out a new liner, it seems silly and a waste of your valuable drinking time.

It is sort of like an Ice Cream Maker, sounds like a great idea but if you only eat like 4 tubs of ice cream a year...best get a new tub.

 

[Mark Gillman]

I have been in the liquid packaging industry for over 30 years, dealing with 1000lt liner bags and 1000lt IBC's or Pallecons. when customers ask the question can the liners be reused, the standard reply is 'they can but we dont recommend it'..then we give the reasons why...hygiene for one, liner damage when cleaning and then potential leakers.

Considering the content of the 5lt Keg is $20.00 and a liner $2.25, by using them twice your cost is $1.12.

With the potential spoilage of your beer and a possible leak...its not worth the hassle and risk.

From what I can see of the liner it has an inner polythene liner of under 50um and and an external metalised laminate which provides oxygen barrier properties.

Iam waiting for my first keg to be used so I can dismantle the liner and put a micrometer over the layers. The Liner is mage by Scholle and here I Australia they have a manufacturing plant in Adelaide.