Keg to Conical

Has anyone out there thought of converting a regular 15.5 gallon sankey keg into a conical fermenter by chopping out the bottom, welding on a cone with some fittings and then drilling a hole in the top for an airlock?

I'm a total welding/fabrication nooblet, but how do you get a sanitary weld on the inside? I mean, if you put a cone on the bottom of a sanke wouldn't you have to cut out the top to make a weld on the inside? Would it be possible to make a sanitary weld from the outside?

TwoHeadsBrewing said:

I'm a total welding/fabrication nooblet, but how do you get a sanitary weld on the inside? I mean, if you put a cone on the bottom of a sanke wouldn't you have to cut out the top to make a weld on the inside? Would it be possible to make a sanitary weld from the outside?

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I'm not sure, you may have just killed this idea. How do they go about making a sanitary weld from the outside when they originally make the keg? Just throwing this idea out there.

Cut the top off as if you were making a keggle, do your welding and figure out some kind of gasket edge to the lid. Then put a bar across like they do on the commercially sold conicals.

Seems like a lot of work -

I have thought about turning a keg over, so that the top is facing down. Then drill a hole in the bottom to fill by and to blowoff from. Then you just use a 2" tri-clover clamp into a valve in the bottom. Perfect.

I just need to find a keg that is for sale at a reasonable price.

Matt Up North said:

I have thought about turning a keg over, so that the top is facing down. Then drill a hole in the bottom to fill by and to blowoff from. Then you just use a 2" tri-clover clamp into a valve in the bottom. Perfect.

I just need to find a keg that is for sale at a reasonable price.

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I think the problem is that you need a 60 degree angle at the bottom to dump trub and not wort.

If you a good welder and all your joint butt up nice, you can Tig weld it. You have to purge the inside of the keg with argon. That's how we weld stainless pipe at work. It would help to cut the top off and weld on a 6" tri-clover ring on top. This way you could clean up your welds if you do have a any boogers on the inside.

There are several threads here about using Sanke's as fermenters. Not as conicals but as a giant bucket, only a bit snazzier.

I'm not a welder but I don't see how this would be a problem for someone that can weld stainless. An airtight cone is an airtight cone, no matter how you shake it. Look at Yuri's threads about converting a corny to accept a sanke tap and his thread on his diy conical. He puts the top to a corny on the conical and then either used one of the holes for the airlock or cut a hole for one. He also constructed the conical with ss sheet. Here's what I'm guessing your steps will need to be.

1. Remove the dip tube from the sanke and cut the top to fit the oval shape of the corny top. See Yuri's keg conversion video for removing the top with a plasma cutter and bobby's keg conversion video to do it with an angle grinder.

2. Cut the bottom off and weld on the sheet in a cone. I have no reference for cutting the bottom but I think it might be similar to cutting off the top. See Yuri's diy conical thread for fabricating the cone.

3. Either cut the hole for the airlock, or use one already in the corny lid.

Sounds simple, but if you are the type of diy guy I am you will screw it up a thousand times before you get it right.