Chugger Pumps are not powerful enough to clean sanke kegs.

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headwall

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Not that I expected them to be. I've been looking for a pump to buy for a keg washer, but decided to test out the Chugger pump just to see what would happen. I had a keg spear lying next to the sink after I disassembled a keg so I used a coupler to connect it to the pump. I pumped water from my HLT into the spear with the pump and the sanke coupler at the same height, so the water only had to travel the length of the spear. It barely made it out the top. I had seen a post where someone claimed that a 1/25 HP motor was adequate for keg cleaning. Chugger pumps are 1/25 HP (.04 HP) and it's not enough. Just wanted to post this in case anybody was looking to see what kind of flow you could get through a keg spear. If you are building a keg washer, you'll need to go bigger.

IMG_00000011.jpg
 
I'm not sure what flow you consider "enough" but that said, your spear is inverted and believe it or not that 30" of head is makes a huge difference in flow rate.

Ultimately, corny or sanke, mechanical (scrubbing) cleaning is the ONLY way to be certain. But if you start with a clean sanke keg, with hot PBW and that flow rate (and some time) you should clean it just fine after say one batch has been pushed through it. If it's not comfortable enough though, again, mechanical cleaning is the only way to be sure.
 
Well the spear is inverted to simulate the conditions of a keg washer, where the kegs are cleaned upside down. I hope my post didn't sound like I was complaining, because I'm not. It's just that I had never gotten a good sense of what a small .04 HP pump could push through a keg spear. I have not seen any other videos or pictures, so I just posted that picture in case anybody else was curious, as I was. I will be looking for a more powerful pump for my keg washer. If anybody feels like that flow rate would be enough for their purposes, that's great. Maybe it will work just fine given enough time. I don't plan to disassemble my kegs to inspect them after every cleaning so personally I will opt for a more powerful pump.
 
I think its more of a matter of compression as opposed to flow rate. If you could find something to taper the top of the spear where the water comes out, it'll be much more likely to clean by sheer force. Think nozzle on a garden hose as opposed to straight opened hose. Or pressure washer with a chisel tip.
 
The low pressure is a result of the large flow rate through the 1" keg spear. I believe if you capped the end and had smaller holes in the keg spear the pressure would increase.

Or simply try crushing the end of the keg spear closed, say down to an 1/8 inch.

Kind of like putting your thumb over the end of the garden hose will make it spray 5 X further.
 
As far as the comments of tapering the end of the spear... that will work, but I don't think thats what the OP is looking for. The entire concept of a sanke keg washer is that you do not disassemble anything. Scrubbing the inside of a sanke keg is very difficult and extremely time consuming. A proper washer setup with PBW or Acid #6 will clean it in 3 minutes. Homebrew pumps don't have nearly the pressure required to do this. I use a 3/4hp pump on our washer.
 
Yeah, sorry, I should have clarified that point. The spear is from a disassembled keg that I plan to ferment in. I am building a keg washer to clean other sanke kegs that won't be disassembled. Thus, modification of the spear is not an option. I only hooked it up to the spear and took the picture because I was curious. I haven't had any luck finding a cheap pump for the keg washer, so I couldn't help but wonder what a chugger pump would be capable of.

Demon, what kind of pump are you using?
 
headwall said:
Yeah, sorry, I should have clarified that point. The spear is from a disassembled keg that I plan to ferment in. I am building a keg washer to clean other sanke kegs that won't be disassembled. Thus, modification of the spear is not an option. I only hooked it up to the spear and took the picture because I was curious. I haven't had any luck finding a cheap pump for the keg washer, so I couldn't help but wonder what a chugger pump would be capable of.

Demon, what kind of pump are you using?
Click to expand...

Oh...makes sense. Thanks for the clarification :mug: Will be curious to hear what you end up using.
 
On second thought looking at your picture in the OP, it looks like the water is about 1.5 inches above the spear, the distance to the bottom of the keg from the bottom of the spear is only about a 1/2 inch...perhaps the chugger pump does have enough power to adequately circulate the cleaning solution.

OR, maybe you could run the cleaning cycle with the kegs upright...it would take a lot more cleaning solution, but it might work fine.
 
Eh, I'd call it an inch if I was being generous. What the picture doesn't really convey is the way the water exits the spear. By the time it reaches the top there is so little pressure that it doesn't so much shoot or even flow out of the spear so much as "flop" out, if water was capable of flopping. I don't think there is enough pressure there to push the liquid to the sides of the keg or create enough splashing to clean the spear.

The sanke keg washer design that I'm familiar with requires an inverted keg so that the cleaning solution can shoot out of the spear, hit the bottom of the keg, and flow out to the sides and down to the top of the keg wherein drains out of the gas-in port of the coupler. I'm not sure how it would work if the keg were upright. I'm always open to suggestions though, especially if there is another technique out there I'm not familiar with.
 
Same concept, except the keg is upright and you need tubing on the gas out back to reservoir. Keg will be full of cleaning solution and circulating with pump. Invert keg to drain when done.

Should work.
 
Oh, I see. That would require a keg full of solution which is something I'd like to avoid. But i see how that would work. The benefit of the inverted method is you can clean the keg by circulating a fraction of the total keg volume.
 
The real bottleneck is the barb on your coupler. Of course you're not going to get much volume through that. What you'd need to do is connect to some 1/2" NPT pipe that runs up into the keg and maybe put a cap on it with holes drilled to spray the water. I think the title of the thread is a little provocative.

Anyway, here are two pictures showing what the chugger inline can do. On the left, I'm pumping out of my kettle into the chugger sitting on the floor then through 8 feet of silicone hose and then into 3 feet of 5/8" OD stainless tubing. As is, the water is reaching 12" higher than the opening of the tube.

The right picture is the same setup with a simple nozzle reducing the opening to 1/4" down from about 9/16". Now it's shooting out at least 7 feet high.

chuggerpower.jpg
 
Even so, the first place to start would be to remove the tiny barbed tailpiece and replace it with a 1/2" barb and that would get you a little closer to the 12" fountain I show.
 
I would think a small sump pump would work fine because they are designed for a large volume of water. Sit the sump pump in a large barrel with the keg hooked up that way it recirculates the cleaning solution.

I use all sanke kegs and don't find them any harder to clean then my carboy. I just pull the spear and use a carboy brush to do a quick scrub of the sides and bottom.

If you don't remove the spear how are going to fill the keg with beer?
 
harry_the_face said:
I would think a small sump pump would work fine because they are designed for a large volume of water. Sit the sump pump in a large barrel with the keg hooked up that way it recirculates the cleaning solution.

I use all sanke kegs and don't find them any harder to clean then my carboy. I just pull the spear and use a carboy brush to do a quick scrub of the sides and bottom.

If you don't remove the spear how are going to fill the keg with beer?
Click to expand...

Sanke kegs are filled through keg couplers usually. That's what I plan to do.
 
The solutions provided will not work. Filling a keg upright and cycling will not clean it, not even close actually. The upside down cleaning process works because of the cascade of acid/pbw over the surface of the keg. The 1/2" barb won't help either since it unloads into a much larger spear which is where the pressure drop is.

Bottom line is that this pump cannot adequately clean a sanke keg.
 
That picture was taken using a 1/2" barb actually. And yes, of course as the diameter of the tubing decreases, the pressure will increase and the liquid will travel further. A keg spear is cavernous compared with 1/2" tubing.

The thread title wasn't meant to be provocative at all. Clearly a chugger pump was not designed for such purposes as it does not produce enough pressure. But I was curious and wanted to see what would happen. I figured others might be curious as well. The thread title was meant to be informative, that's all. I have two chugger pumps and they are great for their intended applications. I hope nobody misinterprets this thread as disparaging toward chugger pumps.

I got a pretty decent deal (I think...) on a 1hp pump and I'll update once I receive it and give it a try.
 
Bobby_M said:
Even so, the first place to start would be to remove the tiny barbed tailpiece and replace it with a 1/2" barb and that would get you a little closer to the 12" fountain I show.
Click to expand...

Agreed...that would likely do it... Spot on Bobby
 
Wow, 1HP is pretty intense. You may have trouble keeping the hose from blowing off the barb. I recently put a 1HP sump pump in and that thing scares me when it runs. Then again, it's running through 2" pipe so the backpressure through 1/2" might be less aggressive.
 
Bobby_M said:
Wow, 1HP is pretty intense. You may have trouble keeping the hose from blowing off the barb. I recently put a 1HP sump pump in and that thing scares me when it runs. Then again, it's running through 2" pipe so the backpressure through 1/2" might be less aggressive.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm not sure what to expect really. When looking for a steal of a bargain, it's hard to be choosy. If I have to I'll look into a VFD to control the flow. But I would like enough power to clean 4 kegs at once ideally so I'd rather be overpowered than underpowered. This is an experiment for me and I expect it to be a learning experience.
 
Reviving an old thread, one has to consider wetting the entire inside of the spear to clean, and reducing the inlet to achieve pressure to spray a stream at the top is not ideal. You want to be able to raise the column of water over a distance (length of tube). Gallons per minute and PSI are functions of HP.
 
So, i'be bee reading a lot about CIP systems and have read that the sweet spot for GPM (not GPH) should be 50 - 60 GPM. The temp of the PBW needs to be between 100 and 140 for it to not foam. Has anyone used or know anything about this pump?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-HP-Swim...0bd9fec&pid=100167&rk=2&rkt=2&sd=351461311650

It says warm water.... How warm is warm?
Thanks

UPDATE... DON'T use the pump above.. It doesn't have enough head pressure to push as much water as advertised. Back to the search for the perfect pump!
 
Last edited:
wschauberger said:
So, i'be bee reading a lot about CIP systems and have read that the sweet spot for GPM (not GPH) should be 50 - 60 GPM. The temp of the PBW needs to be between 100 and 140 for it to not foam. Has anyone used or know anything about this pump?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-HP-Swim...0bd9fec&pid=100167&rk=2&rkt=2&sd=351461311650

It says warm water.... How warm is warm?
Thanks
Click to expand...

I'm sorry . . . 60 GPM? That's a gallon per second. (Hold your applause; I'm a math teacher.) That's gotta be a mistake. The safety shower in my science lab can only do 20 GPM and that's from a 2" or so pipe.
 
Perhaps one wants a pump that is rated 50-60 gpm at lower pressure, which is 5-6 gpm at high pressure.

A 1/2 keg at 15.5 gallons doesn't seem like you need to fill it 4x per minute to clean it. Well unless your BMC and need to clean a keg every 27 seconds idk?
 
So, I went a head and ordered that pump and it was delivered today. Now I have to design and build the piping and fittings on to my conical. I'm going to also included a valve. I'll look again for the articles that i read 50-60 GPM but can't look right now.

Before I put anything in my fermenter, I'm going to test it just to make sure it doesn't shoot off the end of the pipe and put a giant hole in the fermenter.
 
Here's just one of a few.

Required Delivery - Gpm: The required pumping capacity will be determined by the size of the transfer lines and tanks to be cleaned. If a single CIP recirculating unit is applied to clean lines and tanks, the tank CIP requirement for the largest tanks will generally establish the maximum delivery rate. Tanks less than five feet in diameter require a supply of 40 Gpm; tanks of eight to twelve feet diameter will require 80 to 100 Gpm. Detailed criteria for spray flow rates are provide in a subsequent section.

* Delivery Pressure - Psig: The CIP supply pump discharge head must exceed the headloss through the longest piping circuit, and supply the sprays in the largest and most distant tank at the required pressure. However, since most commonly applied sprays operate at relatively low pressures of 25-30 Pig, and since the approximate head loss through sanitary tubing is in the magnitude of 5 feet per 100 feet of length, delivery pressures are normally in the magnitude of 50 to 80 Psig, well within the capability of a centrifugal pump of sanitary design.

http://discussions.probrewer.com/showthread.php?17635-GPM-and-PSI-for-pump-size

looks like I need 40 Gpm or probably less.
 

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