I'm an experienced mead maker with a couple of Micro-Matic Sanke D kegs I bought online over the pandemic. I finally got around to using one, and I'm stuck on the last part of the teardown: removing the CO2 valve from the down tube. I've watched a few YouTube videos and they don't really go into huge detail on this part. I even broke down and called Micro-Matic who basically said that this stuff wasn't designed to be regularly disassembled but instead pressure-cleaned with an expensive keg washer. I'm hoping someone out there has a clever tool or approach they use to handle this situation, even if it's something silly like "I hold it down over this widget with a bump which pushes up the ball and then I spray cleaner down the tube and follow it up with rinse water and I'm not dead yet".
Help?
Thank you for the detailed response! I’ve never looked that closely at couplers, but some quick browsing shows that the gas lines are attached with fittings that look to be removable, so that should provide access to the check valve. I’m cleaning carboys (and the spear-less keg) with a pump that has the carboy rest inverted over a tube with a CIP spray attachment. It sounds like I should be able to use the same setup to wash the keg without removing the spear, once I get hold of a coupler.