Clean cobra tap and beer line, not attached

Just got all my kegs and kegging equip. and racked my first batch, which is now attached to gas and carbing in the freezer. I hooked up a cobra line just to test that it worked, which it does. I'm not sure if I should just leave the cobra line on the keg or take it off and clean it. It's going to be about a week until it's carbed, right? Any harm in it sitting that long? How would I clean a line not attached to anything?

Thanks.

By the way, I love this obsession, er, hobby.

You can leave it connected, but if it accidently opens (um, like if someone, not me of course, would accidently drop it on the side of the keg and accidently open the top without noticing........) your keg can literally disappear into the bottom of the fridge! So, either loop up the excess tubing and keep the cobra faucet on top, or keep it off until you're ready.

Anyway, to clean it is easy! See the "slot" on top of the disconnect? Using a flat head screwdriver, take that off. When you do that, there will be four parts. Do it over a white surface (NOT the sink!) so you can see them all. There is a spring, a plastic pin, the top you took off, and a black gasket. The black gasket is really important! It may be around the top you took off, or inside so look carefully and place those pieces in a bowl. Then, you can go over to the sink and unscrew the top of the cobra faucet or just open the faucet and run water and then sanitizer through it. Sanitize the little parts in a bowl, and put the QD back together. Pin first (long side up), then the spring, then the gasket on the top and screw it back on. That's it!

Great answer, thank you. I'm sure no one would make the error that you describe in your post. Just like nobody, not me of course, would accidentally let the temp controller probe fall out of the freezer so that when they wake up they find their keezer is down to zero degrees with a keg trying to carb up inside.

mhochman said:

Great answer, thank you. I'm sure no one would make the error that you describe in your post. Just like nobody, not me of course, would accidentally let the temp controller probe fall out of the freezer so that when they wake up they find their keezer is down to zero degrees with a keg trying to carb up inside.

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Of course not! Just like with taking apart a QD over the sink and missing a little gasket because it went down the drain and then having a QD that didn't work but not being able to figure out why would never actually happen. That's just all in theory, I mean.

Of course!