How to clean a sankey tap?

[Teddlet]

Howdy,

So I've got a dumb question, at least I assume it's dumb as it doesn't seem to have been asked before (though I suck at making forum searches return much) How do you clean a sankey tap? I was going to just dump it in a pan of PBW then rinse off and spray with Starsan but then I started to freak out about the rubber parts and the handle. I kinda got in hot watter with the wife for getting the tap setup in the first place so I don't want to find out down the line that "oh why'd you clean it like that, it messes up the XYZ" Any help you good folks can provide is appreciated!

[ajdelange]

There are several things you can use to clean a Sankey coupler. Plain old caustic is good (but a little dangerous to handle) and, unsurprisingly enough, the various beer line cleaners are fine for this job. Depress the handle so that the probe is down and place the coupler in a bath of cleaner for a soak followed by a thorough rinse with clean water. If you really want to get into the guts you can simply pull out the gas check valve and the pea (remove the plastic retainer) and soak these parts (checkvalve, pea and retainer) in the same bath as the coupler itself. Removing these bits lets cleaner access the interior a little more easily.

Another option is get line cleaning equipment to which you attach the coupler in the same way to would attach it to a keg. This cleans the beer path adequately but not the gas path (In which, of course, there should be no beer anyway).

[ApresSkiBrewer]

If you only have one coupler to worry about... I highly recommend completely breaking it down and soaking it.

As ajdelange said, definitely pull the thomas valve (gas check valve) retainer and pea, but then I would go on to removing the handle so that you can remove the probe. This way you can also inspect the probe gaskets and lube it all back up when you reassemble.

Most couplers may require you to pop the coupling gasket off of the bottom of the probe to remove it. Simple though.

<rant> I fucking HATE how even the best suppliers probes are all fucking tin/nickel plated. I've had a brand new coupler, used on one beer, with beer contact for 2-3 months, corrode the plating and exposing the nickel. The body is fucking stainless... make the probe stainless... at LEAST micromatic finally started selling 100% stainless body/probe couplers. </rant>

[Teddlet]

Cool, thanks for the info! I didn't think I could disassemble it that far, so thats a nice tip, and I totally forgot about the lube aspect on the reassembly!