LMAO . . .
Reminds me of the story of a fellow who bagged a deer with a civil war howitzer loaded with grape shot and then pretended he used a shotgun and buckshot.
I haven't brewed in a couple of years. Seems one day I lost my round tuit.
Yes, there are special tools. I have seen someone use a clamp from Harbor Freight with a bushing and small screwdrivers. The keg spear is pushed down a bit to relieve pressure on the lock ring so it can be pried out.
After my first few batches I really wanted kegs. When I was comfortable with kegging I tried racking from secondary to a keg, adding priming sugar to the keg and using a picnic tap on the keg to fill bottles. My original bottle filling setup was clumsy and problematic.
Could have been worse. Couple of years ago I bought 5 rhizomes, 4 were delivered and 3 started growing like gangbusters. I was reading about how tasty the young hop bines were and sure enough when I checked on them the next day there was just bare ground where they had been growing.
:-(
If your mash really is 148 to 152 *C* (centigrade or Celsius ) that will be WAY too hot and will wipe out
the enzymes that convert the starch to sugar.