1 hour Keg/carboy/cornie cleaning station

[Randar]

I have been thinking about building a cleaning station for my sankes, cornies, and carboys for a few days and decided to put it together during the tOSU vs Arkansas football game last night. I usually have copper and fittings around, so I used 1/2" tubing and fittings for the whole thing and a home depot bucket.

This is what the parts look like individually and then assembled. I can take it all apart for storing/cleaning/whatever and left a threaded attachment to change out the vertical piece alone at a later date if I need to swap it to clean other equipment

Sorry if the image quality is poor. Carboys and cornies sit on the lid or a support and sankes rest very nicely on the rim of the bucket. Fill the bucket half way with water and oxyclean and you're good to go. Cheap and easy build if you are competent in using a torch and copper but I would bet it is really easy to do with PVC as well.

 

[Randar]

I took the following 2 videos showing it set up and running.

I drilled several holes in the cap and then a series of holes the length of the spear to try to get full coverage for all the vessels I am trying to clean. Also, the pump I am using is a TE-5.5-MD-HC, so it's a bit more powerful than the average March pump, but I think you can do something equivalent with an 809 or chugger pump.

I am not kidding how ridiculously easy this was and it did only take me an hour to cut, drill and assemble this thing. Pretty amazing since it would have taken me that long to clean the 2 sankes and one 6.5 gallon carboy that I ran through last night after putting it together.

I am sure similar things are out there, so feel free to tell me about all this being old news. Just thought it would show a really quick and easy solution to the problem all brewers share... too much crap to clean.


Video of the set-up

Video of set-up in action

 

[woodstone]

Nice idea, I like.

 

[maida7]

So you use sanke kegs to ferment? I just got one and plan to use it as a fermenter. Any tips? What is your process for cleaning? Oxi then rinse? Do you soak them?

 

[Randar]

yep, I ferment in Sankes. I have one of the Brewer's hardware kits and then a bunch of orange carboy caps (it does take some muscle to get them on there, but they will still hold pressure to Xfer with CO2).

I do a rough rinse to the gunk/yeast/trub out and then throw it on this bad boy with the oxyclean mix. Same process with carboys for my split batches.

 

[Hogcrewer]

I do the same thing. I like your idea of having the couplings up top instead of down low. I have had to improvise...

 

[Randar]

Couplings up top present the issue of priming the pump, but I have a strong set of lung, so not a big issue...

 

[FSR402]

I like the idea. Thinking maybe do this to an old or new 7 gallon kettle so that I could put in on a burner and run hot caustic thru it.

 

[vonZwicky]

The simplicity of this is certainly charming. I may have to build something similar if I can't make the closed keg cip system work. Thanks for the videos!

 

[Randar]

The simplicity of this is certainly charming. I may have to build something similar if I can't make the closed keg cip system work. Thanks for the videos!

Over a year later it still works like a charm. I will run a cleaning session when I have a few vessels set aside for cleaning so I can reuse the PBW solution. I switched to PBW because a) I can get it in bulk and b) it doesn't foam up like oxyclean does.