Faucet and line maintenance schedule

What do you guys do to maintain your draft systems?  BLC after every keg?  How often do you take apart and clean the faucets?  I’ve had my kegerator for 4 or 5 months now and am wondering how best to take care of it.

I clean mine every couple kegs or once a month. I take the faucet apart every time I clean lines. It is quick and easy to do.

I clean the lines every couple of three months or so. I only take the taps apart every 6 months or so.

My draft tower has 6 Ventmatics. I take the faucets apart . . let’s see . . once every . . . . well . . once. That was after being in service for two years. I found them clean as a pin and did it primarily to check the seals. I do flush the lines/ faucets after every two kegs with a hot solution of Oxi-Clean and let it stand in the lines for about 15 minutes. I follow that with a hot flush of water. then a flush of BLC, let stand for 10 minutes, then a thorough cold flush of water. Whole process takes about 30 minutes.(for all 6) I use a 3 gallon cornie for my solutions and water and a small pancake air compressor I picked up from Harbor Freight for $38.00 with braided gas line hose, a quick connect on one end, and a ball lock “Gas In” connector on the other to push it.

Works for me!  8)

I use hot BLC, rinse, and then StarSan with a 3 gallon corny and CO2. Do you find the BLC removes stuff after the OxiClean?

+1 every 2 or 3 kegs or couple of months. With Ventmatics I’ve only taken apart once to clean and that was after I took a few months off of brewing.

Not really . . I just want to make sure to get all the detergent out of the system . . perhaps over kill, but I’m known to do that on occasion!  ;D

I run hot water and PBW through the lines after every keg.  About twice a year I’ll give the lines and faucets a hot water and BLC cleaning.  I sanitize lines with Idaphor solution after rinsing.

I run Iodophor through the lines and faucets after each keg but have yet to take apart the faucets (forward seal perlicks). I haven’t run into any problems yet (but I’ve only had my kegerator up and running for about a year).

I flush mine with a water-alcohol solution usually in the 3.5% - 7% range pretty much on a daily basis.

Other than that I break them down for a good scrubbing when I detect funkiness. About every 6 months or so.

:smiley:

I do about the same. I’ve replaced the lines once so far in the ~3.5 years I’ve been kegging.

Man, you guys make me feel like a clean freak.  I break down faucets and connects, plus flush lines with sanitizer after every keg.

Every time I change a keg, I clean the line and the faucet.

virtually everything I do is a 10gals, so I clean after every other keg.

I’ve got to try that!!

Roughly every other keg, I’ll run oxiclean/pbw through the lines.  I was doing the first cleaning of 8 retired soda kegs yesterday, so was running a lot of oxiclean through the lines when I was pressure testing the rebuilt kegs.

Oxyclean and starsan between every keg.  No problems so far (except this week when I dryhopped without anything to screen the hops) but now you all have me wondering.  :-\

I run star san through it every keg.  I have never taken the faucets apart and have kegged with these faucets 2+ years.

I run soap water through the lines between kegs but spray a vodka/water mix up the faucet if beer is not drawn for a few days.

Pretty much the same as everyone else
PBW after every keg - 5 Gallons hot
Rinse - 5 gallons hot
Star-san 5 gallons
double rinse - 5 gallons

I completely broke down my system a couple of months ago to get rid of a union in the system (leak point). I chose this time to do it due to the ‘stuff’ I saw in the line. I will break it down again after the keg of natural cider that is on tap now just in case.