First Kegging; Question about Temporary Picnic Faucet Set-up

Have my NB Irish Red Ale all kegged, cooled, and carbed, and loving it already! Unfortunately I’m behind on my keezer build, since my job has me home only about 1 day a week right now, so I just went with this basic set-up from my local homebrew shop just to get things rolling.


My concern was keeping the faucet clean and not allowing the beer to dry and get crusty in the spout, short of running sanitizer through it every day. So my first though was just to dip it in sanitizer, but I’ve read that it can damage the plastic. So What I’ve settled on is a jar of water for rinsing, which can obviously get replaced easily. The other jar has a bit of sanitizer, which I can attach to the lid on the beer line and give it a quick shake to clean, yet the faucet will still hang out of the sanitizer to avoid the aforementioned damage.

So I’ve had this set-up for only about a week, and it seems to be working so far. Do you think this will work for a while? Any comments/suggestions are much appreciated, thanks!

It should work just fine until you get your keezer finished. Keep in mind that those pesky picnic taps have a tendency to catch on things and flow when you don’t want them.

My picnic taps are about a foot long. I used to disconnect it from the keg when I wasn’t hitting it alot. I seemed to loose carbonation, and well, flat brew just isn’t my thing. Now I leave it attached, open my frees-mentor and tap… I’ve not had any problems. After every I keg I swap out with another one that has been thoroughly disassembled and cleaned. I use a wooden dowel with a wad of paper towel to push through the hose to clean it. Sneezles61

Geez, I haven’t done anything other than give them a good shake into the glass after a pour and hang 'em back up on a ring I’ve rigged up. How big a deal is a bit of dried beer on the picnic tap? I do clean them well later before the next keg fill and run starsan through the Ball lock, beer line , and picnic tap prior to use.

3 Likes

Pretty much my MO when using one. I’ve got one in my lagering chest that’s had beer in it for about a year now…pushed out and cleaned by the next beer I want to sample…

2 Likes

I think I will have a similar set up for my first kegging. How short can the picnik tap line be? I thought I was reading on a different thread that if your beer line is too short you may get too much foam ? Maybe I misunderstood. I would like to keep it short if it will work ok.

Tom

1 Like

I wouldn’t go any shorter than 5 foot, and that may be too short depending on your system. My system required 10 foot to balance and get a nice pour. YMMV

I posted this link in a prior thread, but it is a good discussion of line length and balancing:

Mine probably required more line because I use a psi for both serving and set it and forget it carbing(13psi)

I use a 5’ line and never have any issues with foam. Only time I have issues with foam is when the psi is too high in the keg. Keep mine at 10ish

5’ would not, and would never work with my system. Again, YMMV.

1 Like

Oh boy, If I can take a picture shortly, I think my picnic is about 8"… Works great. Sneezles61

They make a bigger diameter one that allows a shorter length without any foam.

How do I explain this… Pressure in the keg maybe should be a bit lower for the shorter picnic tap… For so many years I’ve not had much for problems… I’ll get the camera out now and try get the pictures… Sneezles61

Well nuts, I wasn’t very accurate …


And about 2 minutes later… Sneezles61

2 Likes

Looks like a nice pour, Sneezles…what is your psi, 2 or 3?!? The OP desires a short line so this looks great for him.
I, OTOH, have a 4x manifold with serving and slow carbonation going on simultaneously so…

Oh, I took that keg out of my freez-mentor, Sunday. I have the gas disconnected, yet, when I do hooked it up, 10PSI… That keg has been sitting with gas on for quite a while… a month? It is a very nice pour, If you were here Voodoo, we’d quaff many! Sneezles61

1 Like

It now sits in another fridge that is my beer/keg fridge… I have yet to build a keeper… Sneezles61

How in the hell.

jThis is what you need no hose just scrrw your faucet to it.

Works with a ball lock also