The homebrew supply houses often sell a spiffy little pump device designed to flush cleaner through your beer lines. Most of these appear to connect to the tap shank in place of the faucet, and flush the lines back toward the keg. But it's the tap itself I want to clean, as well as the lines. (OK, I also used this opportunity to get one of the Ventmatic type faucets, which seal at the front instead of the back, but that's the plebean approach, right?) What I want is a pump device I can connect the keg disconnect to and flush cleaner through the lines and through the tap as well.

Take a garden sprayer and some parts from Northern Brewer, and here's a handy and inexpensive beer line cleaner you can build in about fifteen minutes, if you get lucky as I did.

The Delta Sprayer was something like seven bucks at the local builders' emporium garden center. Remove the tip of the sprayer nozzle and set that aside.

You'll need a Corney Keg Plug adapter, like Northern Brewer's K168, which has 1/4 inch female flare threads on one end, and the 19/32" male threads and O-ring on the other so a Quick Disconnect plug can fit it. I used a K108 Liquid Type B (Cornelius Ball Lock) plug assembly for the beer line adapter. These two items are found on the page linked above.

You'll also need some of that other Handyman's Friend, silicone aquarium cement. (You could use duct tape in this project somewhere if you insist, but here you'll have better results with the silicone).

 

Sprayer

The business end

Closeup of sprayer

I was intending to experiment with hoses or tubing or some sort of ugly, floppy lashup to get the plug adapter connected to the business end of the sprayer. If you choose one of the larger sprayers with the hose and wand, you're halfway there.

But fortunately in my case, the plastic tip of the sprayer, minus the actual spray head itself, was a tight fit for the flare end of the adapter. So I carefully screwed the adapter onto the end of the nozzle itself, cutting threads in the plastic as I went.

This wasn't quite enough to stop leaks, so I removed the adapter, schlocked a little silicone glue (the aquarium type, which doesn't have mildewcide in it. If you have some actual food-grade silicone, all the better) onto the plastic and replaced the adapter, being careful not to strip the newly-made threads. Let that glue dry.

When done, put the Liquid Plug on and away you go! Charge the sprayer with your favorite cleaner (I use OxyClean, as it looks the same as Powdered Brewery Wash, but way cheaper), pump up the pressure, hook up the Liquid Disconnect from your keggerator, press the sprayer button and tap enough cleaner to get the grunge out of those lines!