The Draft Wine System Cleaning Checklist

A draft wine system requires a caustic cleaning and acid cleaning every 3 months or after a product change. The Faucet cleaning and coupler cleaning should still be done every 2 weeks, and should be done by a professional or someone trained in house. I am going to talk about the cleaning steps below and how to go about it.  Here we go!

Draft Wine Cleaning Setup:

• Remove the cleaning container cap from the wine cleaner or caustic solution you will be using
• Mix warm water and cleaning solution in a bucket. Follow the instructions on the cleaning solution. Water temperature should be 80-100 degrees not any warmer. Use a digital thermometer.If you are using a cold water caustic disregard the temperature of your water

Wine Cleaning

• Disconnect the keg coupler from the wine keg
• Shut-off the Nitrogen, Argon, or Blended gas at the primary regulator.
• Put a bucket under the faucet to drain out the wine in the line at the faucet
• Grab a spanner wrench and take off your stainless steel faucet.
• Take your steel faucet apart and soak in a caustic solution 2-3 percent for at least 20 mins
• Hook up end from the out on recirculating pump to the faucet connection and duplex cleaning coupler nut to the end of the beer nut on top of the wine coupler.
• Put the end of the duplex cleaning coupler nut in a bucket, and the in from the recirculating pump into the bucket with the water and solution
• Turn the pump on until the cleaning solution is emptying out the end where the duplex cleaning coupler beer nut is
• Grab that end and put it in the same bucket of the solution. The duplex cleaning coupler nut and beer hexnut end off the coupler
• Recirculate the solution for at least 15 minutes
• During this 15 minutes use the time to scrub the outside of the keg coupler with a brush. Brush off any build-up on the coupler. Rinse the faucet soaking in the solution with fresh water. Put it back together

Draft Wine Rinsing

• Discard the solution in the bucket
• Use another bucket to fill with fresh cold water. Take the draft line with the duplex cleaning coupler beer nut and put into another bucket or if your close to a floor drain use this
• Put the inlet side of the recirculating pump into the bucket of fresh water and start cycling through the fresh water to rinse all the chemical out of your wine draft lines.
• Run this for 5-10 minutes. Then test with PH paper to make sure all the chemical is out of the line, or lines.

Re-attaching the Draft Equipment

• Take the duplex cleaning coupler nut off the beer nut and attach it back to the cleaned coupler.
• Re-attach the stainless steel faucet after putting it back together to your draft wine tower
• Turn your gas back on at the primary regulator. Next tap your draft wine keg
• Open your stainless steel faucet with a bucket underneath it until you get wine flowing
• Congratulations you've cleaned your draft wine system

Closing

Draft wine cleaning should be done every 3 months with a caustic and acid clean. You can follow the same steps for an acid and caustic clean above. The only difference is the cleaning chemical being used. After the caustic clean flush with clean water then do an acid clean right after. Wine dispensing equipment like wine faucets and keg couplers should still be cleaned every 2 weeks. Remember to only use stainless steel products that touch draft wine. Preferably 304 stainless steel.

If you have any other questions about wine cleaning, coffee cleaning or draft beer line cleaning. Feel free to get a hold of us here through email or give us a call. We look forward to speaking with you.

Cheers!