Draught Operations > System Maintenance and Cleaning > Cleaning Standards
Many states require regular draught line cleaning, but all too often the methods used fall short of what is needed to actually maintain draught quality. In preparing this manual, our committee polled all sectors of the beer industry and called on our own many decades of cumulative experience to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for proper draught maintenance. In this chapter, we recommend and detail the practices that have proven effective in sustaining draught quality.
Please note that all parts of the recommendations must be implemented. The proper cleaning solution strength won’t be effective if the temperature is too cool or there’s insufficient contact time with the lines. The lines themselves will remain vulnerable to rapid decline if faucets and couplers aren’t hand-cleaned following the recommended procedures.
| Summary Cleaning Recommendations |
| These guidelines reflect the key actions needed to maintain draught systems and pour trouble-free high-quality beer. Before performing these actions, please read the detailed recommendations found elsewhere in this chapter as they contain many details important to effective and successful cleaning. |
| Perform draught line cleaning every two weeks (14 days), as follows: |
- Push beer from lines with cold water.
- Clean lines with caustic solution at 2% or greater concentration for newer, well-maintained lines or 3% concentration for older or problematic lines. Maintain a solution temperature of 80º - 125ºF.
- Caustic solution should be circulated through the lines for 15 minutes at a velocity of 2 gallons per minute for electric pump cleaning or left to stand in the lines for no less than 20 minutes for static cleaning.
- Disassemble and hand clean faucets; hand clean couplers.
- After cleaning, flush lines with cold water until pH matches that of tap water and no visible debris is being carried from the lines.
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| Quarterly (every three months): |
- Disassemble and hand clean all FOB-stop devices (a.k.a. beer savers, foam detectors)
- Disassemble and hand clean all couplers.
- Perform acid cleaning of draught lines as follows*:
- Push beer or caustic cleaner from lines with cold water.
- Clean lines with an acid line cleaner mixed to manufacturer’s guidelines. Maintain a solution temperature of 80º - 125ºF.
- Circulate the acid solution through the lines for 15 minutes at a velocity of 2 gallons per minute for electric pump cleaning or let stand in the lines for no less than 20 minutes for static cleaning.
- After acid cleaning, flush lines with cold water until pH matches that of tap water and no visible debris is being carried from the lines.
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*Destoning techniques employing EDTA may be used as an alternative to acid cleaning.
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As a retailer, you may or may not clean your own draught lines, but you have a vested interest in making sure the cleaning is done properly. Clean lines make for quality draught beer that looks good, tastes great and pours without waste. Take the time to review these guidelines and monitor your draught cleaners—no matter who they are—to ensure that your system receives the service it needs to serve you and your customers well.
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