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Bartenders and staff should tap kegs at the bar with confidence. How they handle the need to change bar kegs may impact service speed, customer satisfaction, and the true quality of beer pours.
If you’re new to bar work or just double-checking your technique, review these six steps in the keg-changing process. As you learn how to change a keg, you’ll see how these steps prevent downtime, cut waste, and help beverage programs maintain the perfect pour for beer lovers.
See how you change all the beer poured from kegs at the local, luxury, or dive bar beer spot with these expert tips for refreshing chilled, quality beer kegs. Explore BinWise tools as a way to extend your precision and efficiency even further.
Key Takeaways
Best practices while replacing and changing new kegs will ensure the draft system continues to operate at high-quality efficiency. Make sure you are following the essential needs for learning to change a keg in your bar:
- Keg Preparation: Always ensure the new keg is properly chilled and the workspace is clean and organized. This reduces foaming, maintains craft beer quality (like gluten free beers), ensuring a smooth, safe keg change.
- Safety First: Turning off the gas supply before disconnecting the coupler is essential for preventing accidents and maintaining a safe bar environment. Proper lifting techniques and sanitization also protect both staff and customers.
- Cleanly Maintenance: Regularly inspect, clean, and sanitize couplers and connections. This prevents contamination, preserves the flavor of your beer for food pairing perfection, and extends the life of your draft system.
- Quality Testing: After tapping the new keg, always test the pour for clarity and carbonation. Adjust gas pressure as needed and monitor for leaks or off-flavors, ensuring every pint served meets your bar’s standards for freshness and taste.
Prepare Keg Change
After ensuring the freshness date to rotate the stock without using expired beer kegs, start by chilling your new keg in the cooler for up to 24 hours if possible. Before your Super Bowl beer party, this should be the most intuitive step, and throughout the year this first phase will help as it minimizes foaming.
Check, clean, and sanitize areas around the keg valve by having cleaning supplies ready to keep the work area clean and clear.
Suspend Gas Supply
Cut the gas by locating and closing off the gas valve connected to the prior keg. By making sure that gas is stopped and the working area is safe will mean gas is not released when you next disconnect the coupler to the keg.
Untap Empty Kegs
Raising the coupler handle will disengage it. Pull out the handle and twist counter clockwise before lifting off the coupler completely. You should avoid standing immediately over the keg in case there are reserves of residual pressure—when lifting off the coupler could cause accidental injury.
Inspect, Check, and Clean
With the coupler in hand, wipe and sanitize the device, preparing the new keg’s valve to remain free of contaminants and ready to deliver its own unique flavors.
Check your system for debris, stickiness, and proper sealing so that you can ensure a proper fit for the new keg’s content.
Reset New Keg System
Attach the sanitized coupler onto the new keg, twisting clockwise until the fit is close and snug. Then, press the handle down in order to lock the gas feed back on. Reset your FOB detector (Foam on Beer) if you are using one to ensure the proper flow of alcoholic or non-alcoholic beer once you're finished with the keg.
Test, Adjust, and Watch
From the new keg, pour a small sample amount of beer to check its clarity and carbonation. Change the pressure as needed as you inspect for leakage and flush lines if switching beer styles—like IPA to keto beer.
Moving forward, keep the keg cold and sanitized at every contact point to protect the quality of traditional or coffee beer pouring.
Beer Kegs with BinWise
Efficiently changing kegs connects to using BinWise inventory management systems for your beverage programs. By streamlining the process of tracking kegs, the program can reduce costly errors that slow down service, interrupt stock, and challenge staff.
The outcome could be more elevated beer and food pairings and intriguing, new beer offers for Thanksgiving beer needs, St. Patrick’s day beer flights, or Memorial day beer menus.
Using BinWise, breweries and bar management can watch as keg levels change in real time. From here, they automate idea inventory counts and track purchases across multiple platforms. By eliminating the guesswork and results of missed pours, BinWise’s integration with POS data makes quick work of calculating variance, flagging inefficiencies, and generating reports to help managers optimize operations.
- Automated alerts notify brewery staff when kegs are running low and need replacements.
- Barcode scanning and digital logs speed up the issue of record-keeping for keg swaps.
- Analytics and reports keep insights up and draft keg beer profit optimized.
Use BinWise in your mission to create a culture and ecosystem of insight, speed, and sales efficiency. Schedule your custom demo of powerful beverage inventory management tools to transform your bar from checking par levels to changing kegs.
People Often Ask: How to Tap Kegs
Empower your teams to change beer kegs of any weight quickly to maintain beer quality and make better order decisions.
Better customer service, higher bar profitability, and more efficient beer service is on the other side of frequently asked questions about changing a keg.
Why do you chill the new keg before tapping into it?
If service allows you to chill kegs for 24 hours before tapping them, bars can reduce unnecessary foaming and inconsistency when pouring high-quality drafts.
Chilling the keg for at least 24 hours before tapping reduces foaming and ensures a consistent, high-quality pour. Warm kegs can cause excessive foam, making it difficult to serve beer efficiently and potentially leading to waste and dissatisfied customers.
What steps ensure staff safety before changing kegs?
It’s crucial that gas supplies from the dispensation system are disconnected and stopped to reduce the possibility of accidents, especially from the effects of gas leaks.
Always turn off the gas supply before disconnecting the coupler to prevent gas leaks or accidents. Use proper lifting techniques to avoid injury, and never stand directly over the keg when removing the coupler to protect yourself from residual pressure.
Can you prevent contamination when changing the keg?
Only by sanitizing your beer coupler, keg valve, and all the smaller connections before attaching them to your new keg will it be possible to eliminate the issue of contamination when changing kegs.
By performing regular cleaning and inspection of beer keg equipment, staff can present on-brand beer flavors, preserve beer quality, and ensure the draft system’s longevity.
Is beer supposed to foam after tapping a new keg?
It is normal for a little foam to be produced on the first pour from a new keg, but persistent foaming may indicate the keg isn’t cold enough or the gas pressure needs adjustment.
Always make sure to check the temperature and gas settings on your new keg. This way you can avoid over-pumping if using a manual system to pull drafts.
Should I test the pour after changing kegs?
Testing your keg pour ensures that the fresh beer flows directly, clearly, and has the right level of carbonation.
Checking your pouring after changing kegs helps you catch any issues like leaks, off-flavors, or incorrect pressure before serving customers, guaranteeing every pint meets your bar’s quality standards.
