How do I clean and sanitise the kegs for my kegerator fridge?
Clean gear makes for great tasting beer.
Let's talk about how to clean and sanitise your kegs!
You should do this every 4 - 6 brews or so, on top of your regular flush out, to clean hop build up and other gunk from the keg and check your seals.
Before you start, grab yourself a bucket of about 1 litre of water and dilute a tablespoon of sodium percarbonate.
You’ll need a tube brush, tap brush and a pair of multigrips or a spanner.
- Remove the liquid posts - crack it open with your multigrips or a spanner, then unscrew.
- Remove the poppet valve and put the liquid post of poppet valve into your bucket of sodium percarbonate and water
- Remove the liquid tube from the keg
- Grab your tube brush and give the tube a scrub, make sure you get into the bend in the liquid post really good - this process is really important for brewers who like hop heavy beers, as hop residue can block your tube and poppet.
- Check that your springs on your poppet valve are nice and clean and give them a scrub with your spout brush.
- Once cleaned, put your poppet valve back in the liquid post. This is a good time to check the condition of your o rings and replace them if you need to.
- Then put your liquid tube back in the keg and screw the liquid post back on top, nipping with your multigrips to tighten.
- Then repeat the process on the gas side.
- Remove the O-Ring from your keg lid and give it a good scrub as well (or replace them if they need it).
- Then fill your keg with some water and hook it back up again as you normally would if you were going to pull a beer, pressure test everything to make sure you've got no leaks.
- Tip the water out, give the inside of the keg a quick spray with sanitiser solution and you are good to go.
Grab a keg cleaning kit and give your kegs a little bit of love.