Draft System Shutdown

Friends, and purveyors of beer –

As a best-practices company for how your beer is stored and served in Minnesota, we wanted to give you a little guidance and some quick dos and don’ts for ensuring a practical, proper shutdown protocol for your draft system.

DON’T turn off your refrigeration or your glycol. Your glycol unit is already running around the clock and while it may seem logical to shut it down along with your beer lines, you are only inviting the potential for bacteria to grow into your draft lines while you’re away. The smallest trace of sugar in your beer lines will ensure that this happens quickly in warm temperatures versus just leaving it cold. Even if you’ve had your beer lines cleaned recently – don’t chance it.

DON’T leave beer in your lines. To ensure waste mitigation and a higher yield % on that keg, make sure that you are flushing, properly cleaning, and blowing out all liquid from your lines.

At this point, this is the best-recommended solution based on the timeline and uncertainties of how long we will be shutdown. Normally, we’d recommend adjusting your cooler temp to 40 degrees and leaving those lines packed with water but doing this for a long period of time can introduce bacteria and off-flavors due to its chlorine levels. No need to invest in new vinyl unless you have to.

DO turn off your gas supply. Gas leaks are extremely dangerous and deadly. One invisible enemy is tough enough right now. Don’t risk this. Also, if you don’t already have one installed now is a good time to think about investing in that CO2 detector. Minimal investment. Huge return.

DO untap your kegs.

Upon ensuring a proper last clean on your draft system, be sure to hang up your vinyl and couplers properly and away from microbial risk. In other words, keep them off the ground and hung up in a dry and sanitized area. Next, be sure to clean and dry those keg collars completely and avoid mold growth. Important — if you turn off your gas supply and don’t uncouple those kegs, they will go flat and you’ll be out a lot of money.

Lastly, please just know that you have a resource in us. If you would like to schedule a proper shutdown of your system, whether you are an existing BBS partner or not, feel free to contact us. We are just as affected by this as you are and rest assured, we’d rather be working, troubleshooting, and helping our industry friends.

Above all, we’re thinking of you during this extremely hard time. Please continue to stay safe and be well.

Better Beer Society is a service-driven best-practices company for how beer (and other beverages) are dispensed, served and sold throughout the hospitality industry in Minnesota. We specialize in efficient and custom draft system installation and ongoing maintenance. We are based out of St. Paul.

Rob Shellman can be reached at 612.226.7622 or via email at rob@betterbeersociety.com