Which Pump for Beer Line Cleaning

[mbg]

I have a four tap keezer. I used my Riptide brewing pump with jumper fittings to clean all four lines at the same time. Pain with this method was I needed to prime the pump. I recently purchased a Mark II keg cleaner so tried that yesterday. It has a 40W 520GPH pond pump. I hooked up two lines but only got a trickle on the outlet so had to scale back and do one at a time.

So I'm looking at two options:

1) Use the brewing pump with a bucket with a bottom mounted spigot to aid priming the pump.

2) Purchase a higher output pond pump.

Appreciate help from others on their solution for cleaning multiple lines at a time.

Thanks
Mike



(Also, I noticed by blowing through a line there is quite a bit of restriction. Could be from the hoses but I have these BrewHardware ball-lock liquid line couplers so you can daisy chain them. These fittings only have two small drillings in them to let the liquid pass through. Wondering if this could be the issue?)

 

[brew703]

I use a pond pump from HF but the output isn't that great. I have a 3 tap keezer and I clean each line separately. Amazon or HF has a submersible pump that has high output which is probably what you will need if cleaning all 4 taps at one time.

 

[eric19312]

I use my Mark 2 pump one line at a time too. I usually do it on a brew day when I'm doing other stuff near the kegerator so not that big of a deal to let it run line by line for 10 minutes or so.

 

[Deadalus]

Did you have the pump level with the lines? It would boost it some vs having the pump in a bucket on the floor. From what I learned in a basic pumps course, it's usually the fittings that cause greater loss than the lines, but if you could shorten the loss from the pump's outflow line by shortening the length and using and a larger diameter line if possible. Not sure if that will help you much either.

I usually try to find something else to do as well while cleaning lines with the pump.

 

[matt_m]

I have a small pond type pump which has a short length of hose that terminates in a male ball lock connector. Works great for one tap at a time with a couple 1 gallon pitchers for clean and dirty if I'm not circulating BLC or 1 if I am. I wouldn't say its high flow but plenty sufficient to do the job.

 

[LarMoeCur]

Are you planning on recirculating it for a long period of time? I bought a cheap gallon pump sprayer. I unscrewed the spray tip and threaded on a corny keg post. I fill the sprayer with BLC and hot water, pump it up, connect the liquid fitting, open the tap, collect the first few ounces in a pint glass, the rest of the BLC in a pitcher to run back through the next line. I've never had to run more than 1 gallon of BLC through a line. Heck I've never mix more than one gallon to clean four lines. It takes me like 5 minutes to clean a four lines.

 

[kitr]

Ok so I havent named it yet but here is my solution. I have a small square container (originally purchased years ago from the Container Store) that fits under my taps. Inside I have a small submersible 120 (new one is 220V just because I am currently overseas but its the same small pump both purchased cheap on Amazon). It doesnt need to be primed and is perfect for this. It had one liquid post on the old version that I cobbled together from spare parts. The latest version goes from a male CAM lock which now works to both clean a piece of tube with cam locks, or I attach my 4 way 1/2 inch NPT connector that has 1 female CAM on it, and three liquid posts (Credit to Bobby from Brewhardware on those parts - he rocks). I can then clean all 3 taps at once into the bucket. I take the lines out of the fridge, plug it into the 3 liquid post outputs with the pump running inside the bucket with BLC. Let it run for 15 minutes and all three taps are clean.

Disregard the attached output on the old square bucket. That was part of another prototype. This setup doesnt need or use that currently for tap cleaning. It is for when on brew days I use the same bucket for keeping o-rings and other small parts sanitized and if I need to quickly sanitize another pickup line or something I can use the same pump and put one end on the pump and the other end back in the container (or on that output I was experimenting with).

Also line markers on the paper label on the bucket help with measuring the right amount of BLC and/or starsan so I dont make huge matches and have to google the proper ratios when I only need a small amount. I use a small medicine syringe to measure out smaller amounts of cleaner.