Picture yourself sitting at the bar watching the bartender pour your beer. They grab a clean glass that was properly washed, rinsed, sanitized, and stored to air dry after its previous use. If you're lucky, they'll also give your glass a quick rinse to remove any residual sanitizer. Now imagine you're served a dirty glass with stale beer still in it from the last guy that wasn't properly cleaned after its previous use. Disgusting, right? Well, the same applies to your jockey box. You can protect the quality of what you're serving to your guests by following a few easy end of day cleaning procedures.

Whether you're unboxing a brand new jockey box or have one that's got some miles on it, we recommend the following cleaning procedure before a jockey box's initial very first use and immediately after every subsequent one. It'll not only keep your beer flowing smoothly, but because we can't see inside the stainless steel coils, we want to make sure that we're always dispensing fresh beer through a clean system.

Let's start by identifying the supplies you'll need. Then we'll walk you through the three-step process. This is a heavy duty dual head four gallon Coldbreak cleaning keg. You'll use it to flush your cleaner and your sanitizer through your jockey box. There are other options on the market, but if you use one like ours with sanky d connections, you can not only clean your jockey box, but also your couplers, your beverage jumper, and your faucets, all in one shot.

For you brewery people out there, this is essentially what we know as cleaning in place. No need to disassemble anything. Our cleaner is PBW. It's an environmentally friendly alkaline cleaner. It's particularly effective in cleaning the organic material that will naturally build up over time through normal use and it's safe on the components in your jockey box. You don't want to cut corners on cleaner. Never use dish soap or ordinary household solutions internally.

For a sanitizer, we use Star San. This odorless flavorless biodegradable acid-based cleaner is high foaming, which makes it great for penetrating all those hard to reach nooks and crannies. While we'll push it through our jockey box with our cleaning keg, it can also be put into a spray bottle to sanitize other surfaces like our coupler and tubing. Both the cleaner and sanitizer can be ordered from our website.

A clean jockey box system is simply good business. You never want to allow beer or any other beverage to sit idle inside the coils after a day's use. So again, to be really clear, jockey boxes should be cleaned immediately after every use. At the end of your event, close all CO2 valves, then pull the relief valve on your coupler to release any excess pressure inside the keg. Now, disconnect your coupler and your keg can go away while you begin cleaning.

Our cleaning keg is the workhorse in the process. It has two sanky d coupling connections, which allow us the ability to clean two lines at the same time. To add your cleaner, dissolve one ounce of PBW per gallon of hot water. This is obviously a small four ounce bottle. Larger sizes are also available. When diluting any chemical concentrate, it's important to add the chemical to the water, not the other way around. Attach and engage your coupler just like you would to a keg.

This allows our CO2 to now pressurize our cleaning keg. Then open your faucet and let the system run until you see PBW dispense. Once that starts to happen, close your faucet and let everything soak for about 20 minutes. While you wait, now's a perfect time to wipe down your gas and your beverage lines with your sanitizer solution in a spray bottle. We'll show you how to mix that solution in a minute as well. Quick side note, regardless of the cleaning can you're using, it's always important to make sure you depressurize it before attempting to open the lid.

Immediately after cleaning, step two is pretty simple. All we're going to do is rinse our entire system with hot water until it pushes all of the cleaner out. You want to make sure not to allow any alkaline cleaners to dry on or in any of your jockey box stainless steel components. For our last step, step three, we're going to sanitize and purge our system. Similar to cleaning in step one, we're now going to use our sanitizer Star San. But note, the ratio of sanitizer to water is more diluted than what it was for our cleaner, so we're going to add one ounce of sanitizer to every five gallons of water.

Keep in mind, we've adjusted that ratio to make just enough for our one tap jockey box. Depending on your model and its coil length, you may have to adjust the volume of your sanitizer solution as necessary. Open the faucet and let the sanitizer push out all of the water. Now, allow the sanitizer to stay in contact with the coils for at least one to two minutes so it can do its job. Since Star San is a no-rinse sanitizer, all we're going to do is let our cleaning keg run dry, leaving CO2 to purge our coils.

Now that cleaning is complete, all we have to do is dump the ice and prep for storage. Without thinking, it's going to be really easy to want to use the lid as a handle to dump the ice, but it's going to put unwanted stress on the hinges, so make sure to use the designated handles, and if you've got a second set of hands handy, it's always easier with a buddy. To keep the outside of your jockey box looking tip top, simply wipe it down with a common, gentle cleaner and a damp cloth for all of those beer rings and scuff marks.

If you're using one of our stainless models, they have great corrosion resistance, but that resistance is maximized and well-polished or buff condition. Lastly, when shelving your jockey box between use, store it dry with the lid slightly open. This will help prevent mold from any residual moisture inside the cooler. We like using the lid latches to prop it open to allow it to air dry completely. Pro tip, after removing your beverage jumper, cap your input to prevent contamination. We ship all of our jockey boxes with these handy little red plastic covers and inside them you'll notice is where we've put extra beer washers to help it set up.

Your beverage jumper also needs to be stored dry. Another pro tip is to attach both ends to a coupler to keep 'em nice and clean. By following the proper cleaning procedures, you're doing the right thing by setting up the next person who uses it for success. Taking care of your jockey box will protect your investment and provide a lifetime of reliable use. Subscribe to our channel for instructional videos, best practices, and the occasional outtake, and follow us on social across the board at Coldbreak USA. Have questions? Email us support@coldbreakusa.com or comment below. Until next time, cheers.

How to Clean and Store Coldbreak's Jockey Box After Each Use Video