Cleaning keg exteriors

Systems, Gear, & DIY
1

I picked up some more kegs and hope to recondition them this weekend.  All in all they seem to be in pretty good shape (holding pressure, etc.).  A minor complaint here and there, but the price was pretty good for today’s market.

Anyway, they have a fair amount of stickers on the outside and I was thinking of trying to get those off and polishing them up.

I’ve never actually tried to make the outsides look spiffy before.  I figured Bar Keepers Friend should be good for this.

Any one have suggestions?

2

That’s always worked well for me.

3

First use Goof Off to remove sticker residues, then Barkeeper’s Friend if they just need minor cleaning. For really dingy ones I use a commercial cutting/polishing compound and a polishing machine. Sometimes they even need some sanding before polishing. That said after doing that a number of times I rarely even remove the sticker residues any longer :slight_smile:

4

+1 on the BKF! Your kegs will look awesome!

As far as stickers go I heat them up with a heat-gun and they peel off fairly easily leaving little to no adhesive behind.

5

Heating them sounds like a good idea.  I peeled a couple last night and got old shards of hard plastic stickers up under my finger nails.  Brilliant.

I used Goo Gone to get rid of the sticky residue but didn’t polish them up yet with BKF.  Soon, perhaps.

I’ve got three soaking in oxyclean to get rid of the soda smell and hope to get to those during the week.

I also used a bit of de-greaser (Kleen Hands, IIRC) on the rubber tops.  They were nasty.  Think I might hit them with Armorall, too.

There are so many other things I should do, but this one I can do in small steps.