Do you all have a recommendation for a beer line cleaning apparatus? should I get one of those pump bottles? I noticed in pouring a guava saison I had that my Perlick faucet was getting stuck after a day of several pours. Not sure if you all recommend a good way to maintain cleanliness, I know there have been complaints about the new adjustable perlicks and getting stuck.
Do you all do anything to clean your faucets each time you pour? I have those little brushes that serve as a covers for the spout of the faucet.
My procedure is to thoroughly rinse out a keg AS SOON AS IT KICKS with hot water, add some near boiling water to the keg and pump through the faucet to dissolve the stickiness, then run Star San through the faucet. A few times a year I run BLC through the lines/faucets. I have enough spare kegs that I haven’t made a BLC pump bottle - I just put some BLC in a keg and pump through the faucet.
I have the pump bottled pictured below. I use BLC one time through, let it sit for 20-30 minutes then pump fresh water through. Note the end attachment. It plugs right onto the ball lock beverage out connector. It took a little looking at the hardware store to find the right adapter, but I found one that works.
I’ll usually rinse the lines with Star-San between kegs with a pump bottle as posted. Every 3 months or so I’ll bust out a bucket of hot BLC, and a mini pond pump, and circulate through each of my lines for a good 20 mins a piece. I find the moving BLC is much more effective than filling the lines and just letting it sit.
I flush the lines out between kegs with star san, then clean the lines maybe every 2-3 kegs. I’ll replace the lines about once every two years.
I tested this little gadget out last night that I got from brewhardware.com:
It connects 2 lines together so you can use a pump and circulate BLC through them. I have a 6 tap kegerator so I would need 3 of them to clean all 6 lines at once. The link below shows 2 lines being cleaned. I would just need to connect 2 more of these and jumper the perlicks in two places and all 6 lines cleaned at once.
I do have a spare keg and can use that to clean out lines by putting hot water through the line and faucet and then running maybe some oxiclean and starsan. Thanks for that advicel.
