Page one, keg assembly and disassembly

A well-maintained keg will serve you far better than one which has been neglected. Here are some of the things you'll quickly learn to do to keep your kegs in tip-top shape. Leaking kegs will waste CO₂, and could even cause quite a mess. We once had a slow leak from the poppit of the beer fitting on a keg that was sitting unattached in our closet. Overnight it drained some 2 or 3 litres of beer onto the closet carpet! Needless to say, we now check our poppits very carefully when disconnecting beer lines. This is but one example of the sort of thing you learn through experience, and wish that someone had been able to tell you beforehand. Well, read on, and hopefully we'll be able to save you some of the trials and troubles that we've had to fight through for lack of a similar reference.

Cleaning a Keg

Kegs are no different from any other part of your brewery in that they should be well cleaned and sanitized before use. For some general tips on doing that, have a look at our sanitation page. As mentioned on that page, you should not be using bleach on metals such as those of which your keg is made, as it can corrode them. Please select one of the sanitizers which are not corrosive to metals, and use it. Actually, bleach should be fine as long as you don't exceed 1/4 cup (70ml) per 5 US gallons (20 litres) of water, and also do not exceed the recommended contact time of 15 to 20 minutes.

Cleaning and sanitizing a keg is not very difficult at all.

Some people completely dissemble their keg every single time they empty it, so as to completely clean it out before refilling. Others clean and sanitize it without removing all the poppits and posts. In the past we would dissemble our kegs only every 4th or 5th time we refill it, though these days we do it almost every time. Why the change? Did we feel we were taking chances with only cleaning it every 4th or 5th time? No, not really. Over the years after lots of practice we just have keg-cleaning down to a science now, and it does not take very long to clean one anymore. So doing it every time is not a great deal of overhead.

Over the years we've refined our methods as well. The way we used to do things still works well, and some may find it easier so we'll leave the instructions here on the site, but it does tend to waste a lot of CO2 since we were always dispensing sanitizer. Nowadays we clean and sanitize a keg with very little wasted CO2. We'll detail our new way of doing things, but also keep the old way on this page for those who want to use it. This also helps illustrate the point that there is no one right way to do things when making beer : there are almost as many ways to make beer as there are homebrewers.

A quick note on using hot water. Do not use extremely hot water, as that can cook organic substances to the surface of the keg, making them more difficult to remove. But unless you have your home hot water tank on the highest setting for about 170F water, you do not have to worry about this so feel free to use your hottest tap water. If you do have your tank on the hottest setting and are getting 170F water from your tap, consider toning it down a bit with a bit of cold water.

Cleaning Method One : The New Way

First we take the lid off and put it into a plastic container just big enough to hold it. Next take a wrench and remove the poppits and diptubes. The poppits and main fitting housing can go into the plastic container with the lid, as can the small dip tube. The large dip tube can be placed inside the mouth of the keg. Fill the plastic container with hot water and mix in the proper amount of cleaning agent. We use OxyClean.

Give the keg a good rinse or two with warm water to remove as much of the gunk in there that you can. Now fill it 2/3 with hot water and dissolve in your cleaning agent. We use a tablespoon or two of OxyClean, but use whatever you normally use. Let it set the appropriate amount of time according to your agent - 20 minutes is enough for OxyClean unless you have some really stubborn stains. Now take a 5 gallon white plastic brewing bucket and put it upside down over top of the keg. Tip the keg to the side and get one hand underneath, and keep the other hand firmly on the bucket. Quickly tip the whole thing over upside down so the keg is now upside down in the bucket. The first time you do this you may want to practice outside or somewhere else where it will not matter if you spill anything. If you do it right you will not spill a drop.

Now the keg is resting upside down in the white bucket and the water level in the bucket is fairly low, while the level of water inside the keg will be close to the 2/3 level. Pull up on the keg just a bit to allow enough water to flow from the keg to cover the fittings and neck of the keg on the outside. Set it down again into the bucket and allow to soak the required amount of time. Submersing the whole top of the keg like this is useful for removing the dried beer grunge which invariably builds up on the outside top of the keg due to splashing and leaking when connecting and disconnecting the lines.

After the requisite time has elapsed, remove the keg from the bucket and give it a really good rinse or two. Or three. If your keg was not terribly dirty you can reuse the cleaning solution in the white bucket for another keg or two. Judge by the solution itself and how dirty it is.

Now you are ready to repeat the process once again but this time with your sanitizer rather than your cleaner. Fill the keg 2/3 with water and dissolve in the proper amount of sanitizer. After soaking the required amount of time, put the white bucket upside down on top of the keg and quickly flip it. Let soak again the required amount of time, then remove the keg. Rinse the keg if you are not using no-rinse sanitizer like iodophor or star san.

Meanwhile your lid, poppits and fittings are soaking in cleaner in the white plastic container. When you move on to sanitizer with the keg, you should also drain and rinse the other parts 2 or 3 times, then fill with a sanitizer solution.

See a photo tour of cleaning a keg right here

Cleaning Method Two : The Old Way

First of all, you'll want to give it a thorough rinse with warm to hot water. Make sure you remove anything you can see, rinsing with 500ml to one litre of water, then dumping. Rinse, dump and so on until it looks clean. At this stage you could introduce a small amount of dishwashing liquid (5 or 6 drops is fine) into the keg then a bit of warm water to allow you to clean it. This is especially important if it is particularly dirty. My forearms fit down into the keg allowing me to manually scrub the inner surfaces with a soft cloth or sponge, but they just barely fit, so it's likely a 50/50 chance that you'll be able to get yours in there. If not, you'll have to rig up a cloth onto the end of a stick or something. We often skip this manual scrubbing step when cleaning out a keg that's just been emptied of beer. It still has to be rinsed really well, of course. If you are using a good cleaning agent like PBW or OxyClean, it may also negate the need for manual scrubbing

Now fill the keg one-third to two-thirds full (again with warm water), seal it up with a blast of gas, give it a really good shake, then dispense the water as if it were beer. This helps keep your beers lines cleaned. If you used dish detergent in the above step, you might want to do this rinse 2 or 3 times to make sure all traces of the detergent are clear of the keg.

Now you'll want to take the keg completely apart. For complete details on doing that, see the maintenance section of this page. Making sure the keg is first depressurized, pull the bail on the lid to release it, then remove the lid. Remove the gasket from the lid, and put it and the lid itself into a container just big enough to hold them. Now remove the gas and beer fittings from the keg, take them apart, and place them into the same container. If you have ball-lock kegs, make sure you are going to be able to identify gas from beer when it comes time to put things back together. If you don't think you'll be able to, put each in a separate container and label them both. It also can't hurt to use a permanent black marker to label the openings on the keg itself "gas" and "beer". Parts from one keg won't necessarily fit those from another (especially if one is Coke and the other Pepsi), so if you are cleaning several kegs at once, use a separate container for each one, and keep them labeled so you'll know which keg each belongs to. For this and other reasons (like keeping a log of what's in which keg), it's a good idea to label your kegs numerically increasing from #1, using a permanent black marker. Now remove the small dip-tube (if there is one - sometimes there won't be) and put it into the same container as the lid and fittings. Remove the long dip-tube and put it upside-down into the mouth of the keg. Now cover the contents of each container with water, and dissolve the proper amount of the sanitizer you have chosen to use.

Once that's been completed, fill the keg half way with warm to cool water, and dissolve the proper amount of sanitizing agent according to either our sanitation page, or even better, the instructions on the package. Use the amount for the full keg size, because you'll now be filling the keg the rest of the way to the very brim with the same warm water. Leave it stand for at least the amount of time specified for the sanitizer you are using. Again, trust the package instructions if they differ from what's specified on our sanitation page. When the keg has soaked for the specified time, dump out a litre or two of liquid from the keg and procede to put it back together, taking care to thoroughly rinse all the pieces before putting them back onto the keg. Seal the keg with a blast of CO₂, give it a good shake, and dispense the contents as though it were beer. You might want to save the liquid in a large bucket for use later. Release the pressure from the keg by means of the pressure-relief valve (if it has one) or by the gas-in fitting (if it doesn't), remove the lid and give the inside a thorough rinse, dumping out the water as you rinse. Now fill the keg about 3/4 with warm water, seal it up with CO₂ pressure, give it a really good shake for a minute or so, then dispense the water as though it were beer. If your sanitizer is one which must be rinsed more carefully (like B-Brite or even Diversol), then repeat this step at least once more.

Once you've rinsed your keg, if it's one of the ones with the huge rubber lip around the top, you'll be able to simply tip it over upside-down to allow it to stand and drip-dry. If your keg doesn't have the big rubber rim, you'll have to rig something else up. All of our kegs do have the rim, so mother-neccessity has never caused us to really think much about it. Your keg doesn't actually have to drip completely dry, we just like to let most of the water drip out before turning it back over and using it. Once a keg has been cleaned and sanitized like this, it can be purged with CO₂ and stored for a minimum of a few days to a week before being used. We suspect it can actually be stored a lot longer than that, but aren't entirely sure.

Keg Maintenance

If you've ever bought a discount or surplus keg, you're going to need to know how to refurbish it for use in your brewery. It requires a bit of work, but none if it is really that difficult. The following sections go through the various parts of a keg, and fill you in on all the tips and tricks involved in taking them apart and putting them back together. In some cases, there are definitely quirks that you have to know about, so we'll fill you in on those, too. The chronology is roughly the same as taking a keg apart. We include taking-apart and putting-back-together information in the same section, so read it forwards to take apart, and in reverse to put it back together again. As always, if something isn't clear, simply mail us.

Pressure Test

The first thing you'll want to do is give the keg a good visual examination to make sure there are no big dents or bangs in it. This is something you really should do before purchasing the keg, but mailorder being as prevalent as it is, that's not always possible. If you are satisfied that the keg looks good, it's time to hook it up to your CO₂ to pressure-test it. Connect your gas and raise the pressure to 30 psi. If the CO₂ cannister stops hissing after a a minute or so, it probably doesn't have any leaks. But just to make sure, you'll want to disconnect the gas and leave the keg overnight. Check it again the next day to make sure it's still pressurized. Again, pressure-testing is something you should ask about before buying a keg. If possible, get it in writing that the thing's been tested. If you do end up doing the testing yourself, you'll want to test your keg before you actually dissemble it, just so you can be certain that you yourself didn't mess something up in the reassembly process.

One important point to remember before you proceed too far is to service one keg at a time, since the parts from one keg won't neccessarily fit another. That's especially true if one's Coke and the other Pepsi. If you do have to dissemble several kegs simultaneously, make sure your kegs are labeled numerically from #1 up, and make sure you have a separte plastic container with the same number to hold the parts of each of your kegs. One container per keg keeps you from getting things mixed up. To keep things simple in the future, you may want to initially interchange parts to see if they work with each-other, making very certain that you know where each part belongs just in case they are not compatible. This will eliminate any worries in the future.

If you should happen to get a lemon keg which won't pressurize, depending upon how much you paid for it, you might want to just consider it spare parts. Since all 9 of ours were bought at bargain-basement prices, that's what we'd do. A gas/beer fitting alone can be as much as CDN, which is more than we paid for some of our kegs. So far, though, ours are all viable (though we do have one extremely finicky one, which is how we learned most of the maintenance information on these pages :-) ).

The Lid

For the most part, dissembly of the lid is pretty straight-forward. We'll go through it simply for the record, and perhaps in the process point out a few features of different lids you may encounter. The first such feature is the pressure-relief valve. This is more of a convenience item than a safety item. Corny kegs are perfectly happy supporting pressures considerably higher than those used in the beer industry, so only under the most careless circumstances would you ever have a problem. My brother-in-law makes his own soda-pop in four Corny's of the same Saskatchewan vintage as three of my own, and he's regularly got those things cranked up above 50psi, which is about twice what your average beer would require. But it is at times extremely handy to be able to lower the pressure of the keg with the quick push or pull (both exist) of a valve.

Some kegs do have a safety valve on top, which automatically vents above a certain pressure. Unfortunately these valves are emergency-only, so if you want to vent your keg you'll still have to remove your gas line and pull the old screwdriver trick. Just make sure it's your gas line because if you try that with your beer line you're going to spray the ceiling with beer! Of course, that's one of those things you don't learn for good until you do it the first time. These safety-only valves are easy to spot : they bulge out of the top and look like there's nuclear waste being stored inside. You'll know what we mean the moment you see one for the first time. Fortunately we've never had any of our kegs cranked up high enough to verify that the thing really works, and we'd certainly suggest that you aim for a similar track record.

Gas/Beer Fittings

Poppits

After you get the fittings off, remove and examine the poppits inside. It's the little metal post with the spring around it, that kind of looks like an old Saturn rocket. There will be three little feet on each poppit, and you'll want to make sure that all three look identical, and that none of them are bent or twisted. This is something to really take care of when reassembling your keg, because it's not very difficult to get one of poppits dislodged in such a fashion as to bend a foot while tightening down the fitting around it. When you start tightening the fitting down, do it slowly and watch that the top of the poppit remains level. If it does tip to one side while tightening, one of the feet could get bent. The best way we've found to repair bent feet is to maticulously rebend it back into shape with a small pair of needle-nose pliars, but you have to be exceptionally careful since it would be incredibly easy to snap off one of those feet.

Dip Tubes

Once you get the fittings off and the poppits taken care of, you'll want to proceed directly to the dip-tubes. You'll want to check the flanged edge (as described immediately above) that it's flat and even, and has no dents in it. Dents here (or a faulty gasket) can cause gas to flow down along the thread and escape out the bottom of the fitting. Every once in a while you'll bend a flange in your cleaning regime, but fret not, since it's an amazingly simple problem to fix. Just take the dip-tube out, remove the gasket from underneath the flange, then put the dip-tube back in. With a regular carpenter's hammer you'll be able to carefully tap out any flaws to make it look literally as good as it did when it left the factory. Note that if you don't remove the gasket, you'll simply end up destroying it in the hammering process, and won't be able to get the dent out to boot. We learned this one the hard way. Also, try as hard as possible to leave the lip curling slightly up, rather than slightly down. If it's not curling slightly up, you dramatically increase the chances of having your poppit get a bent foot when putting the fittings back on.

The only other big maintenance item here is the gasket that goes up under that lip. It's shown in the above photo as the black gasket that's tied up in the plumber's tape. Check that it's in good repair, and replace it when required. This is one part of the system which is extremely finicky. If your washer is too skinny, you'll have the problem mentioned above where the poppit won't be able to completely plug the hole in the fitting casing, where if it's too thick it will scrunch up the poppit spring too tightly so that the little metal poker in the line-fitting ("Smaller Inner Shaft" in below photo) won't be able to push it open very well. As of yet we haven't found a perfect replacement, so we've learned to maticulously jerry-rig it with plumber's tape. You simply twist the tape into a loose twine, and use that to wrap the dip-tube where the gasket would be (or use it in conjunction with a worn gasket). We usually have to fine-tune it two or three times before getting it just right, but that still only takes about 10 minutes, so it's no big deal. Once it's just right, it will last at least until the keg is empty, which is all that matters. Actually, it will last until you take it apart again. In the above photo you can see the plumber's tape that's all wrapped around the dip tube. It looks pretty scraggly when you take it apart like this.

When cleaning our kegs, we take the gaskets off the dip-tubes, and soak them with the hardware from the lid. The short tube goes in there as well, while the long dip-tube gets soaked upside-down in the main mouth of the soaking keg.

Line Maintenance

Not only do you have to keep the kegs themselves well-maintained, but you also have to take care of your lines. There are basically 3 parts to your serving line : the fitting, the line itself, and the tap. We'll tell you how to take care of all three.

As pointed out in our section on cleaning your kegs, one of the best ways to maintain your beer lines is to keep them well cleaned. Whenever you clean a keg, don't dump the sanitizing solution out the top of the keg. Instead, dispense it as though it were beer. Do the same thing when you rinse your kegs in order to rinse the lines. Every now and then, though, you'll definitely have to dissemble your entire line to give it a thorough going-over.

Cobra Tap

At present, we're only using the cheap plastic thumb-operated cobra taps, so we can't offer any advice on any other type. These are extremely easy to dissemble and reassemble. The thumb-activated valve sticks out through a lid which simply screws away from the main tap body. This allows you to remove the valve and inner guts, which themselves do not need to be further dissembled. Check the big rubber blob inside to make sure that the rubber isn't getting worn. If it is, small pieces of it will end up in your beer, and the tap may start leaking. Simply replace the entire tap to fix the problem, given that they are relatively inexpensive. To clean, just soak the entire dissembled tap in your favorite sanitizing solution for the proper amount of time.

Beer Hose

The beer hose itself simply need to be cleaned and sanitized in exactly the same manner as any piece of syphon hose. If it becomes worn, or you suspect it is no longer sanitary, replace it. There's not really anything more that has to be said here.

Line Fitting

The fitting which attaches to the keg is extremely easy to dissemble and maintain. On the top of the fitting is a large slot which accepts a regular (albeit large) slot screwdriver. Pull out the guts carefully, because there are a couple of pretty small pieces in there which could easily get lost. When it first comes apart, you'll see 4 pieces : the main fitting body, the main inner shaft (which has the slot on top of it that you were just turning), the smaller inner shaft (metal), and the spring which surrounds the smaller inner shaft. Upon closer examination you'll notice a gasket around the inside top of the main inner shaft (the gasket is missing in below photo, but would be just to the right of the threads in the far right of the picture), and you'll also notice that the smaller inner shaft actually comes apart into a small metal pole and two small plastic collars. Now you've got 7 pieces which simply need to be soaked in your favorite sanitizer which doesn't harm metals.

When reassembling the fitting, put the small plastic collar around the small metal shaft, then drop the assembly short-end first into the main fitting housing. The spring is next in, and once you've checked that it has fallen into proper place around the small metal shaft (which it will 9 times out of 10), put the gasket around the large plastic shaft, and carefully thread the two together. If you don't have the gasket properly in place and seated directly up against the top of the plastic shaft, you can damage it during the threading process, requiring that it be replaced. Once you're assured the gasket is on correctly, however, and that it isn't going to get pinched, don't be afraid to twist it down good and tightly. It will have to be firmly seated to keep it from leaking.

Page one, keg assembly and disassembly