BeerNexus.com presents
ALE-CHEMY
      by Jay Eichberger

"ALECHEMY"
the ancient
practice focused
on changing base
ingridents into
liquid  gold also
know as
BEER
                         What Got Into Me??

A friend of mine recently came to me with a question about his kegerator. “Why
are there little black flakes floating in my beer?” he asked. As a conscious friend, I
felt it necessary to investigate this matter first-hand, after all, he had a sixtel of
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap.

Upon tapping a pint I noticed that something was out of the ordinary. Having
drunk many a pint of the “old standby”, I knew that the quality control department
of Sierra Nevada would never allow black flakes to compromise the quality of
their fine product. In order to fully understand the cause of the problem I
pondered my friend’s predicament over several more pints of pale ale. Being the
gentleman I am, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that I knew the source of
problem prior to inspecting his kegerator. The fact of the matter is, I have had the
very same problem with my kegerator, but that was before I replaced the draft
faucet.

Several months after I purchased my kegerator while cleaning the beer line and
faucet, I noticed small black plastic flakes falling off the inner workings of my
factory provided draft faucet. Obviously, I found this to be unacceptable. After
conducting some research online, I came across the Perlick brand faucets.
Advertised to be the most sanitary faucets available on the marker and being
constructed completely of stainless steel, I felt confident that Perlick was the
correct brand for my needs. Several years ago, the current model offered by
Perlick was the 425 SS model. The 425 SS offered some distinguishing factors
among other draft faucets.

1. Forward sealing (this means there is a gasket at the front of the beer faucet
rather than towards the back. Instead of allowing air and beer to be left in the
faucet, the foreword sealing faucets eliminate this problem, making for more
sanitary conditions and eliminating faucet drip.

2. The stainless steel screw off nozzle
This feature allows you to wash the end of the nozzle without having to
completely remove the faucet from the kegerator, which would also require you to
disconnect the keg. Once and a while I’ll invite someone over who touches their
dirty glass up to one of my tap faucets. This feature allows for quick cleaning of
the draft beer faucet nozzle with ease.

Once I replaced the faucet there were no more black plastic flakes appearing in my
beer. Getting back to my friend, I recently recommended that he purchase a
Perlick brand draft beer faucet from two either BeverageFactory or MicroMatic.
Both are reputable draft beer equipment suppliers.

The Perlick 425 SS model faucet has recently been replaced with the Perlick 525
SS model faucet. Both faucets are vast improvement over the standard faucet(s)
that are provided even when purchasing commercial quality kegerator; however I
prefer the 425 SS because of the screw off nozzle feature. On a side note, the 425
SS model has recently been offered with a plastic screw off nozzle. Given the
chose between a 425 SS with a plastic screw off nozzle and the new 525 SS, I
would choose the new 525 SS as it is construction completely of stainless steel. If
you feel that your particular about your draft beer components like I am, then you
may want to search for the Perlick 425 SS on e-bay. A detailed drawing of the
Perlick 525 SS can be found on page four of Perlick’s tapping catalogue.





             Stay tuned for a new Ale-chemy by Jay Eichberger next month!

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The Six Kegerator Commandments

Seriously Sessionable Beers
To contact Jay click HERE