Kegerator Maintenance Tools

There are a few different tools that every kegerator owner should have to keep their kegerator maintained at optimum efficiency. With repeated use, malt and yeast particles build up inside the beer lines, causing over foaming and posing a risk of contamination. The most important tools for the maintenance your kegerator are those tools that are designed to clean and sanitize your beer lines. Here I will go over the necessary kegerator tools for this job.

As far as cleaning agents and detergents go, you will want to be sure that you use a chemical that is food safe, in terms of its residue, and non-abrasive. This is because tiny abrasions will act like little claws in your beer lines, tearing at the CO2 molecules embedded into the beer that you are dispensing. If your lines get scratched, or if there is build up of yeast or malt sugars, it will make a rough texture that may cause over foaming as your beer makes its way through the beer lines and to the beer faucet. Beer Line Cleaner or Power Punch-22 are perfect choices for cleaning and sanitizing purposes. Beer line cleaning kits are available with either of these brands of cleaners, some with hand pump containers for the cleaning mixture.

Cornelius kegs, or soda kegs, can be used instead of a hand pump for cleaning and maintenance of your beer lines. Using Cornelius kegs, you can mix up a batch of cleaning solution and pump it to your beer lines through your keg. In this way, you can make sure that the stainless steel liquid tube that is inside your keg gets cleaned thoroughly, as well as you beer lines.

Whether you mix your own batch of cleaner and pump it through your Cornelius keg, or use a kegerator cleaning kit, you will need to remove your kegerator's beer faucet. Removing the beer faucet requires the use of a tool called the faucet wrench, which looks like half a hook shaped slim wrench. In order to clean the beer faucet properly, you will also need a small bottle brush to really get in there. It is a good idea to let the faucet soak in cleaning solution for a while before scrubbing and rinsing the beer faucet.

Most kegerator cleaning kits work by cleaning in the reverse of the regular beer flow. The kits contain a tool called a cleaning attachment, which hooks up to the beer shank after you remove the beer faucet with the faucet wrench. The cleaning attachment connects to a hand air pump mounted on the lid of a plastic jar, into which the cleaning solution is placed. The air pressure pumps the cleaning solution through the beer lines and into a bucket at the end of the beer line (which is actually the beginning of the beer line, where it connects to the keg coupler or Cornelius keg fitting).

With all of these kegerator maintenance tools, anyone will find it easy to clean and sanitize their kegerator. A good regime of kegerator maintenance - a cleaning about every two weeks - will keep your beer flowing properly. All you need is the right tools.