Boston Looking for assistance converting corny keg Washer to Sanke

[Rackerman]

Hi, I purchased a custom corny keg washer a couple of years ago and want to convert is to Sanke. Looking for help in the Boston area in order to make sense of the process. Anyone in Boston (Quincy) with appropriate knowlege feel like helping out. Or anyone here have any advice, specifically with regards to venting Sanke kegs and how CO2 will work into the design? Thanks.

Important info: it washes one corny keg at a time. Two basins: one for chemical and recirculation. Has heating element, float switch and drain. You can use a ball lock connection to cycle through the dip tube (you'll see the posts welded on the machine). the other basin is for the rinse. The basics are all there, Ive just never worked with sanke and Im weary of being the architect behind the addition of CO2 into the design. If I were to switch out the ball sprayers and posts for a sanke coupler how would the water/caustic drain out of the keg? the C02 purge?

 

[Rackerman]

And just renewed my expired membership. Nice to be back here...

 

[cfrazier77]

Wow, that is a great find. I don't know about setting up to clean a sanke but you may want to consider switching to cornies.

 

[sumbrewindude]

Sort of depends on if you're going to take the spear assembly out or not.

If you take the spear out, you can use the machine as it sits, you just won't hook up the gas/dip tube lines and run it with the spray ball.

If you want to keep the spear assembly in the keg, and clean that way, you'll need to get a Sanke coupler for each side, remove the existing spray ball attachment on the cleaner and put a barb fitting on it, and remove the check valves from the sanke coupler, and route the fluid from the barb fitting to the liquid out of the Sanke, and then put a dump hose from the gas in side of the Sanke to the basin.

That way the cleaner will go through the line, through the sanke coupler, up the spear, through the keg, and drain out the gas side into the basin and recirc.

You'd need two sanke couplers for each side (clean/sanitize), two barb/fittings to convert the sprayball arms, and 4 lengths of hose.

That way if you ever needed to clean cornys again, just swap the barbs out to the sprayball arms and you're good to go.

Hope that makes sense.

EDIT -

Just saw the question on the CO2 -

Well, that complicates things a little bit, but not overly so - if you want to make it easy, you could just add a third Sanke coupler with CO2 attached to the liquid line (no checks installed, of course) with a valve on the gas side, so that after rinsing you use the CO2 to push the liquid out, close the valve and pressurize, then disconnect the coupler.

If you want to make it harder, you'll need to build a 3 port manifold for caustic, wash, and CO2. It wouldn't be terrible, but it would add some fabrication to your system as well as some cost. You could do a "T" mated to a "T" with ball valves on all sides - that gives you three inputs and one output - with caustic coming from the caustic spray arm, wash coming from the wash spray arm, CO2 in from the tank, and the lone output to the Sanke Liquid OUT side. Put the Sanke gas in tube (your output) to whatever sink basin you want to drain to, then purge with CO2.

That would only require one sanke connector for the keg.

 

[Rackerman]

Hey, this is great. Thank you. Going to draw this out and look at a diagram to see if it clicks.

 

[DonH]

why not just keep it as is? if using the sanke just remove the spear (after properly releasing all internal pressure). takes me about 30seconds to remove a spear. about 45 seconds to replace and place the spiral spring. seriously. or get snap rings McMaster Carr pn 91580A246.

 

[maierhof]

Incredible find!

Take a look at youtube - there are a few vids available... just in case you haven't found them already.

Frankenbrew:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl6pxAV32t4[/ame]

Marcb is a forum subscriber here too - I don't want to talk for him but just maybe he can help you
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHaVctEklkA[/ame]

Wheely Washer - but is more about the product fyi
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLEzwqaE1cw[/ame]

Hope that helps!