Carbing for Sanke kegging?

A friend asked me to brew for her wedding, so I figured I'd brew and take my keezer. However, I ran into a deal with a friend for a Sanke keg with hand pump and coupler (and even trashcan) for about 60 bucks.

I was thinking of brewing 11 gallons or so of BM's Cream of Three Crops and kegging it and serving it with the hand pump. Seems a lot easier than taking my keezer no?

So if I do this with a Sanke, what method of Carbing would I use? Prime and keg without C02 maybe? Ideas?

Just hook your kegging reg to it for gas, dont use a hand pump & oxygenate it !!!

But then I'd have to connect it to my keezer right?

No, you can just use a picnic (cobra) tap !! Just haul your co2 tank and reg with it, or spend the $40 and get the paintball tank adapter & a paintball co2 tank - then you can leave your big tank at home! (I do it and it works great, more than enough gas for a sanke)

My C02 is only 5#, easy to haul. I'll look into that, thanks joeybeer! Easy to clean and sanitize sankes?

Cacaman said:

My C02 is only 5#, easy to haul. I'll look into that, thanks joeybeer! Easy to clean and sanitize sankes?

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Yep, remove the spear and rinse, then put about 5 gallons of water and oxiclean in there and put it on your burner until it boils that will get it clean. Then rinse and sanitize as normal, then re-install the spear. You can even sanitize by throwing a few gallons of water in there and putting it on the burner again.

if you dont want to drag around a CO2 tank and regulator (although if its not a big hassle, its probably the easiest thing to do), you can pressurize a few spare corney kegs and use them to dispense it.

15psi in a 5 gal corney keg will let you empty the sankey and have 3.75 psi by the the last few cups of beer poured. its not a constant pressure, but i would do that before pumping oxygen into my beer.

Great suggestions guys! But how about actually Carbing the beer? Do you all just connect your CO2 and set and forget?

Lots of people set and forget and it works fine for them, less so for me. I generally force carb over night. I switch out the beer and gas lines on the coupling head so that I'm forcing gas in through the spear and the other port is capped. I set to 20psi or so overnight and give a bit of a shake in the morning. I have carbed beer by the evening.

That sounds like the shake and carb
method used in corny kegs. Does it work for Sanke too?

Cacaman said:

That sounds like the shake and carb
method used in corny kegs. Does it work for Sanke too?

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All the methods used for carbing a corny keg can be used for carbing a sanke keg. If I need mine carb'd quickly I set the regulator to 30psi and roll it on it's side for 5mins, then I pull a pint and check the carb level. Lather, Rinse, Repeat...