Help with Sanke

I have a legally obtained Miller Sanke that I'm turning into a keggle. It does not have the spring clip like the rest of the Sankes do but does have the "stubs?" and seems to just unscrew. The problem is I cant get it to turn. Pressure has been let off. Has anyone else seen this and what am I doing wrong. Thanks

Hammer and a screw driver. Give it a nice hard counterclockwise tap. should do it.

Did that yesterday and got unscrewed now it seems that something is holding it in there. Tried spinning it to see if there is some sort of notch but couldn't find it.

I searched and can't find a link for you. i remember reading a post I believe that described the method. If I recall there is a tab or key that must be depressed on the stem to facilitate removal.

You could just cut it as is and worry bout it later.

Mike

I had similar issues with a keg, I eventually just cut the top out and found the tab that hangs out to keep you from removing the spear. I still don't know of a way of removing it without drilling a hole in the keg.

If you really want to remove it and don't mind drilling, then drill a hole where the collar connects to the keg and see if you can push the tab in through that hole to get the spear out.

Weird. I have never seen American breweries use anything but type "D" Sanke or the old Hoff-Stephens kegs with the bung and weird tapping arrangement. Could you take a picture and show me, I really want to see what you are talking about.

just start cutting your hole. There isn't enough pressure in the keg to cause any damage to you. I did this with mine and only got puff of air when my grinding wheel finally breeched the keg.

I'm getting a second tonight to use as my HLT.

Hey missing link, why not buy a cooler for a HLT and then use the keg for serving beer? Or as a fermenter? Just throwing it out there, as I wish I had only cut a boil kettle keg and left the other two for servers. Now I am in desperate need of serving kegs and had to insulate the hell out of the HLT keg to make it work good. Cooler would have been pre-insulated, lol.

My Heineken keg was this way. I had to do a combination of pushing in the spring and feeling around with a long screwdriver for that tab and then holding it back. It took awhile to figure out. When I'm home, I may be able to take pics for you.

My cooler I use as an HLT now develops a leak when my sparge water hits 180 or so. I'm using an electric element in the cooler and recircing with a pump until I begin sparging. The coolers are nice but the connections just isn't robust enough to hold up to pumping at high temps. I was using 2 coolers but I am going to switch over to keggles for all 3 vessels.

Linc

i had a miller keg, it does have the ring, just hard to see

I would post a pic but really all you see is the thread from the tube. I can't get it to go any higher. But as suggested I'll just cut it since there is no pressure. Thanks guys!!

You can press the ball to let the pressure off but position the keg sideways so you don't get stale beer in the face.

+1000 on WBC's advice. I had a old keg of Miller someone gave me. Like 2 years outside after party pump and only draining 3/4 of it. I went to release the pressure and couldn't get the ball down due to it sticking with old beer and high pressure behind it. Finally put a tap on it only to have it explode covering me in nastiness that made me puke in the front yard, lol. I couldn't even finish the job that day it was so bad.