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.
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.