Cheap DIY Homebrew Kegerator Beer Line Cleaner

In a previous post we covered our process to easily clean beer lines using a simple PET soda/soft drink bottle, a couple of carbonation caps and a T-piece adapter. This has worked well for us for some time but has a couple of draw backs. Firstly, the largest soda bottle size you can typically get is around 3L, and secondly, you need a CO2 gas source to make it work.

Introduction

After recently watching a video from The Home Brew Network on YouTube, Gavin outlined his latest process for cleaning his kegerator beer lines using a simple garden pressure sprayer, and after he mentioned how cheap they can be (less than AU$15) we thought we'd give it a go for ourselves. We're always looking for easier and better ways to improve on our processes so let's dive in and see how well this thing actually works.

Garden Pressure Sprayer

Essentially what we're doing here is taking a regular garden pressure sprayer and fitting a carbonation cap (ball lock post) to the end of the hose. The sprayer can then be manually pressurised and have a beer line connected to it via the carbonation cap to allow for cleaning liquid to be pumped through. Cheap, and doesn't use any carbon dioxide CO2 gas.

This is the Garden Pressure Sprayer we went for, and we're pretty sure it's identical to the one Gavin mentions in his video. From memory it was about AU$13 from Bunnings.

Garden Pressure Sprayer box

Unboxing & Assembly

What You'll Need

Here's a quick list of what you'll need if you want to undertake this project yourself.

• Garden Pressure Sprayer
• Carbonation Cap
• Hose clamp or cable tie (optional)

As you can see, there's a minimal amount things required for this, and you don't even need any tools!

Step by Step Guide

• Out of the box it comes neatly coiled up, so the first thing to do is uncoil the hose from around the neck.

The sprayer comes neatly packaged with the hose coiled up around the handle

• Once uncoiled you can unscrew the grey plastic collar to and pull the black hose from the blue hand held sprayer component

Unscrew the grey locking collar

Remove the black hose from the blue plastic barb

Modification for Carbonation Cap

• Next, you insert a plastic carbonation cap into the black hose. The black hose diameter is almost the perfect size for the carb cap to slip right in, then secure it with a zip tie or hose clamp to ensure you don't get any leaks.

Carbonation cap fitted to garden sprayer line

Start Cleaning

Now that you've got your DIY beer line cleaner assembled, it's time to clean some lines!

• Fill the garden sprayer with cleaning (or sanitising) solution mixed at the recommended dilution rate. 

• Tip: If using PBW, warm/hot water works better than cold.

• Attach the garden sprayer lid and screw on tight.

• Pump the handle 10-12 times to pressurise.

• Connect your beer line to the carbonation cap fitted to the garden sprayer.

Beer line cleaner connected up via ball lock disconnect

• Open up the other end of the beer line (eg. tap) to begin flowing the solution from the garden sprayer.

• Once completed, disconnect the ball lock disconnect.

• Empty any remaining contents from the garden sprayer by unscrewing the lid, and rinse with water. Allow to dry upside down before re-sealing and storing.

Conclusion

For less than AU$20 all up (for the sprayer and a plastic carbonation cap) you can have a dedicated beer line cleaner all setup and ready to go. We like that this has can hold up to 5L of cleaning solution in it, and no CO2 gas is required - simply use the inbuilt pump, connect your liquid disconnect to the carbonation cap for each of your taps/lines, sit a bucket under the tap and away you go. So easy, cheap and effortless.

These kind of cheap and effective solutions are ideal for homebrewers, and making things like this as easy as possible make you more inclined to actually use them!

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