15 Gallon Fermenter made from Sanke keg

Its still a work in progress....



I'll have pictures soon, Its full of fermenting goodness at the moment.


I used a 15 gallon Sanke Keg. I removed the stock valve and stem.

Useful Tutorial:
http://www.physics.arizona.edu/~workman/homebrew/Sanke.html


Install lid on bottom for easy cleaning & access:
I flipped it upside down and cut a whole the same size as a corny keg lid.
On the test keg I used a dremel and a jigsaw with a metal blade. It came out "ok". On the second keg I only used the dremel with a reinforced cut off wheel. It took a bit longer, but came out much nicer.


I cleaned the keg out really well (!*NASTY*!), and installed Corny lid in the bottom of the Sanke.

I temporarily reinstalled the stock stem and pressure tested for leaks. Tested with and without pressure. Passed tests, removed stem.

Sanitized. (wee-bit heavy to empty) I’ll have to give that some more thought.

Brewed 12 gallons of porter, chilled, and transferred into sanitized Sanke fermenter. Pitched yeast.

Stuck a sanatized #10 rubber stopper with a blow off tube in the top of the Sanke keg (where the stock valve and shaft once resided.)

It is fermenting nicely this morning!


I don’t know if I want to attempt to fabricate a racking arm or not.

Originally, I just wanted to be able to ferment larger volumes at once.

I still plan to build a second one for the secondary.


I would like to figure out how to install the corny keg tubes and poppets onto a sanke. It would be nice to use one standard connector (Like QD's) for everything transfer under pressure, filter, serve, ect.


I'll keep playing with it.



edit note: the stopper was a #10, not a #15 ;-)

How did you lay-out the Corni lid hole, prior to cutting?
Template and scriber?
Template and tape?

thats a pretty sweet deal!!

I wouldn't worry about doing a seconday with that fermenter. Its stainless, so O2 won't be an issue. If you are going to rack from there I would just leave it for 2 weeks in the keg for clearing and then rack to cornies, or whatever you are serving from. It might be a neat trick to put the corny lid on the bottom for cleaning purposes and use a normal sankey set-up for serving. You've got enough beer!

How did you lay-out the Corni lid hole, prior to cutting?
Template and scriber?
Template and tape?

Click to expand...

Scribe paper is a good idea, but didn’t have any at the time.

But I did have the latest gas bill sitting on the table. I ripped apart the envelope until I had a sheet larger than the corny lid hole. If I did it again, I would just use printer paper. (At the time I couldn’t locate that, had to work with what I had.)


I just set the sheet of paper over the lid hole and firmly ran my finger around and around the rim (trying not to move the paper) until a crease had been formed on the paper in the shape of the lid hole. Then I traced over that crease with a pen.

Cut the inside of the oval out from the sheet of paper. Now I have a template for drawing the, to be cut hole on the Sanke.


Once I figured out where I wanted it on the Sanke, I taped the template in place and drew my oval with a sharpie marker using the template.


Not the most elegant approach, but it was effective.

I would love to see a picture!

If I am sure in my head about what you did, is that you left the sanke keg dip tub assembly intact right? Well if that is the case, you can use it as your blow off. It is about 1/4" off the bottom (or top in your case), you get a keg tap connector and use it as a "fermentap" style fermentor.

If that makes any sense!

John

If you want corny connections on the top, you can weld a corny top to the top of your Sanke keg. Take a look at my conical fermenter thread for an example (in my signature).

How well did this workout? Got any pics yet? It's only been 4 months

How does the lid fit? What I am wondering is the curvature of the bottom of a sanke. You said you pressure tested it so I assume it seals well, but without pictures I wonder.

Too bad you couldn't just go get a 2 or 3 inch long section of 10 inch SS pipe, weld that to the top and get the right sized clamp to do it up right. Like the clamp on THIS fermenter. BTW, what kind of clamp is that? What is it called?

Grimsawyer said:

BTW, what kind of clamp is that? What is it called?

Click to expand...

V-band clamps. I have ordered them for custom tanks we design at work. They can be expensive (especially custom sizes) and the two mating rims usually need to have a tapered profile which means expensive machined parts. But a resourceful homebrewer should able to rig something up. The vendor we use is clampco.

Without pics this thread is useless!~

No updates to this, I see.

I'm wondering if a combination of what this guy did - adding a corny lid to the bottom of the keg, and using Derrin's Sanke fermenter kit would make it work nicely. I'm itching to ferment in something other than buckets, but am leery of being able to clean the thing effectively in between batches, without some form of access.

We clean glass carboys with no different form of access than kegs. I thought about taking a heavy chain and wrapping it with scrubbing pads (zip tied?) and giving the keg a good spinning with a gallon or two of oxyclean, rinse, sanitize. Piks please.

2007 thread woops

Yup, old thread but still a great idea!

The thing about the carboys tho is that it's glass - easy to see what you're doing with the carboy brush. Shorter too. With the keg I have, you can't see a @#$# thing in there, even through the neck using a flashlight, when the carboy brush is through the opening.

After PBW and rinsing, I put a few gallons of water in my Sanke and boil it on a turkey fryer for 15 minutes, cool, drain, and then cap it off with aluminum foil. As long as its visibly clean first, 15 minutes of boiling with scorching steam shooting out the top should kill anything thats left.

Someone else on here recommended boiling the keg. I think it works great.

My only problem with boiling a keg... is if you plan on using it for a pressurized serving keg again. Heating it may cause a hot spot crack to occur you can't see unless with a microscope. I wouldn't want to chance any of my high pressure kegs to a gas flame, but it is just a concern not backed by anything other than my being scared to do so.

WortMonger said:

My only problem with boiling a keg... is if you plan on using it for a pressurized serving keg again. Heating it may cause a hot spot crack to occur you can't see unless with a microscope. I wouldn't want to chance any of my high pressure kegs to a gas flame, but it is just a concern not backed by anything other than my being scared to do so.

Click to expand...

hmm. I hadn't thought of that, I'm not sure if its a legitimate concern or not. However, I have no plans to use the keg for anything other than a fermenter.

Then no worries, and a very good way to sanitize a keg!

Not sure if anyone is still monitoring this but Im a bit new to brewing. Someone mentioned that the advantage of using the Sanke is that you dont have to use a carboy as a secondary. As I understand it, part of the reason to transfer from your bucket to a carboy is to get rid of a lot of that nasty sludge in the process. If you did everything in the keg, wouldnt all of that sediment still be there?