John Guest fittings

[Midlife]

Hello, I have a query on these fittings, I was wondering how many times you could use them?

I tend to discard the 3/16 beer line, 1m loop, between my quick disconnect and tap shank and put a new piece in for the next beer. So basically wash and sanitise the JG fittings and re-use.

I figure if the seals are good and I pull the lock sleeve up to grab the line it's ok to use?

Cheers

Doug.

[BackO'Th'Shed]

Any reason you discard your beer line after each brew? I just put some cleaner and steriliser through the lines at the same time I'm cleaning my kegs and it's good to go for the next brew. I've been using the same lines for a few years and haven't noticed any ill effects. I usually clean the kegs with oxy clean then push this through my beer lines, give the keg and lines a good rinse, then push purple beer line cleaner through the beer lines followed by another good rinse and finally sanitise with starsan. Probably overkill, but does the job...

[Stoat on a rope]

I use JG fittings throughout out my system and connect and disconnect them LOTS. Never had any problems with them they've lasted years.


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[Fil]

according to the specs these fittings are good for something like 15-20x removal and reseal, having used 15mm fittings for a mashtun drain/valentines arm which was on/off the tun a few times each brewday i did wear one or two out and when they started to leak when inspected the orings inside the fitting were visibly frayed.

However what is often the cause of bad seals with frequently pulled fittings is the chewing up of the tube end being pulled out and pushed in. This if left unchecked can also increase the rate or oring wear n tear..

In both cases, worn orings and chewed up tube, a temporary fix until you can source replacement fittings/tube is to give the tube end a wrap of ptfe, it will both smooth out the outer tube surface for a seal and bulk the tube out a bit to stretch the orings a bit further for a seal too.

ideally if pulling the fittings , chopping down or replacing the beerline is also expedient.

[Kev888]

Yes, they can go on for years unless damaged. Cutting the beer line square and cleanly, and avoiding undue loads on the lines, are useful things to do.

The odd one can go now and again though, so a spare or two may be useful. The 3/16th ones are a little more fragile than the 3/8th size in my experience. The plastic female threaded adaptors used to couple beer or gas line to flare fittings (on some corny disconnects and taps etc) can be particularly prone to splitting with repeated tightening or slight over-tightening.

If discarding/swapping the line happens to be cheaper and easier than cleaning then that makes sense, but were it not (say longer lengths) then there isn't really any need to, you can just trim back the ends if they are badly scored. You'll probably also find that a great many people don't actually uncouple their push fits for routine cleaning, maybe just every once in a long while for a deep clean.