Homemade keggle

I got very lucky this weekend and my brother in law came over with three kegs and said I could have them for free. I obviously took them thinking I could make an all grain system finally a little cheaper than I had thought. Question is I just had the welder plasma cut the tops and he said that they were aluminum. If these are aluminum I can still use them just not sure on what to clean them with because I heard that you can't use star San on an aluminum kettle.

 

I've never heard of aluminum sanke kegs.

Pic?

 

I really didn't either man. So I am wondering who to believe I guess. I have always brewed in a ss kettle but are these ss or aluminum.

 

How experienced is your welder? It is possible to identify the base material when plasma cutting by the color of the sparks, but aluminum cuts the same as mild or stainless steel when plasma cutting especially given the thinness of the material. I have never heard of aluminum sanke kegs either, but I feel like you would be able to tell the difference in weight alone if were able to compare the weight of the supposed aluminum keg to a stainless one.

 

Back up a minute though - even IF the kegs were aluminum, why exacly would that be a problem? So you can't use Star San on them? Why exaclty would you want to waste relatively expensive Star San on anything that touches your wort pre-boil or during the boil process? The boil does all the sanitizing you need.

If you were going to use the kegs to ferment in, then yeah, you'd have a concern right there. But as HLT, MLT, or BK? Star San never needs to touch any of them.

 

maybe he was referring to PBW?

 

Take a file to an edge of the keg, then compare to a piece of aluminum ...

 

Even that I'd say would be overkill... Use some cheap unscented dish soap to clean up - PBW's expensive stuff! Dish soap and a scrubby work wonders!

 

Take a grinder to it. If sparks fly, it's stainless. If they don't, it's aluminum. Or so I'm told. I had a shower of sparks cutting my keg with an angle grinder.

Either way, aluminum is fine for a kettle. I use aluminum pots unless I'm doing a big batch.

 

Weigh it. A sankey weighs 30+ lbs

Probably ss since alum kegs haven't been used in decades.