Rubber Coated Kegs

Anyone have any idea how to cut the rubber off the rubber coated kegs without making a mess or inhaling a load of rubber dust??? i tried using my grinder to cut a hole in the top and that made a HUGE mess.

Maybe a dremel would work. I used that when I was cutting plastic for new speakers and it wasn't all that messy.

I have a keg that used to have a rubber coated top. What a pain in the ass it was to remove that rubber coating. From now on, I all avoid rubber coated kegs.

I just got a new corny this week and took it to work to spray and clean the hell out of it. my hands are still black from getting the rubber wet.

I would suggest trying to trade it for a regular keg from someone going electric. I use my rubber coated keg for an electric hlt and the rubber makes great insulation.
It was no fun dealing with getting the rubber off just where I put my element and valve in. I would not want to do the whole thing.

Throw it in a fire?

so the 2 kegs i have are 1/4 barrel kegs with only 1/2 a rubber coating (top and bottom coated in rubber and middle section is just straight stainless). I'm trying to cut the rubber off the top so i can get the keg open, the side holes for vlaves and stuff will be easy. I'm going all electric again on this smaller version of my original system and would love to be able to use the rubber coated kegs for their insulative properties.

sounds like a mess, i would just get another keg

I just cut it open like normal with an angle grinder, mask, eyes and ear protections and gloves, went like butter. I cut the bottom out and use both of mine as bottom drain vessles. I went all electric as well. Everything else is still coated in rubber and seems to work great, the maiden voyage was last weekend so I still have tweaking to do.

From what I have seen on my kegs and other threads on the subject the handles are not stainless under the rubber so if you remove all of it you'll be left with an egg shaped vessle, which could be really cool depending on your design and skill level.

Good Luck.

dont even waste your time hours and hours of it. the result will be less than satisfactory. trust me!!! if you dont, try a sawzall it seemed to work best

yup, HUGE pain in the arse. But i got it done anyways. Used my dremel tool at low speed and cut through the top in such a way that i was able to peel off the whole piece. After this i just used my grinder like normal to cut through the SS. still made a bit of a mess but not nearly as bad as before

Can yo post pictures of what you did?

hey Huaco sorry for the slow response man. unfortunately i didnt take any pictures while cutting the rubber off. the stuf makes a HUGE mess so i just left the camera inside. basically what i did was cut through where the handholds were with the dremel tool. i also cut ridges into the actual rubber which was on the top of the keg. i then used a large flat headed screw driver to pry it all of slowly. if i couldnt pry any more i would cut it away with the dremel tool.

i wouldnt recommend doing this on a keg which is fully rubberized. the ones i had looked like corneys and only had rubber on the top and bottom

My rubber-coated keg project is here and here.

Thought I'd add my experience with the rubber coated keg prep.

I initially used a hole saw to remove most of the rubber and then used a step bit to enlarge the holes as required.

After that I used a dremel (to start the cut)/box cutter (to finish the cut)to trim the little triangles around the edge of the top to finish the circle.

after that it was cutting the to out of the Keg as normal. and to finish it off i used a small sanding bit on the dremel to clean up the rubber edges. I left a small metal lip for the lid to sit on and help prevent any wort from coming in contact with the rubber. Here are some pics:

Nice. How well does it hold temp?

I used it with a HERMS system so I can't really say how well it holds temps. I have let it sit without recirculationg for a few minutes and it looks like it holds pretty good.