Cleaning a sanke keg

[Rob2010SS]

Hey everyone. Acquired a couple of sanke kegs today from a fellow HBT member. Looking to come up with a plan to clean them. I have yet to take them apart and these are our first 2 sanke style kegs. From my understanding of how they work...

1. Cleaner will have to be run through the spear, and then the spear will have to be removed to run cleaner through the main body of the keg, correct? I can't imagine just running cleaner through the spear will get the main body of the keg clean...

2. Anyone have any good diy sanke keg cleaners that are reasonably cheap to make?

I have an SSBT Corny keg cleaner which I might be able to use once the spear is out... but gotta piece that together still.

Any tips appreciated.

 

[Wayne1]

DO NOT TRY to pull the keg spear unless you have the correct tools. There are lots of comments and videos showing to use a screwdriver to pull the ring. DO NOT. The keg could be pressurized and it is possible for the spear to impact and penetrate your chest.

MicroMatic keg spear removal tool plus spear removal knife are used to remove the

Locking Ring When the ring is removed, you can rotate the spear to pull it out.

The correct way to clean a keg is with a professional keg washer, This uses a heated bath of cleaner and a fairly heavy duty centrifugal pump.

This two head keg washer is what the brewery I will be working for just purchased.

Pick up a copy of Tom Hennessey's Brewery Operations Manual The Affordable Brewery and Standard Operating Procedures They will help you understand how to operate a small brewery SAFELY. In S.O.P. he shows how to DIY build a manual keg washer.

He also has a good video

 

[Rob2010SS]

Ok, so another question. I've been talking with someone who built their own little setup for cleaning sankes. He told me we needed a coupler with valves on both the gas line and the beer line, like this...

He hasn't gotten back to me on why yet so I figured I'd post it here. Why would you need these valves for cleaning and sanitizing these kegs?

 

[Wayne1]

There is a special MicroMatic cleaning/filling coupler that is all stainless and has larger bores.
Micromatic Filling/Cleaning coupler

Depending on how the washer is set up, you might want to have the valves closed when connecting and disconnecting the keg from the washer. Open the valves to purge the keg and then close them after the cleaning and pressurizing cycle is finished.

It can also be used for counter pressure filling a keg.

 

[Wayne1]

Here is Tom Hennessey showing off his DIY keg washer that he describes in his B.O.M book

 

[franknbeans]

I've recently picked up a few out-of-business sanke kegs too hoping to rid myself of the gas leaks that seem to creep in when I'm gone for work and drain co2 tanks. Good info here! I have one of those clamps to press down on the spear and pull the ring out. @Rob2010SS I just saw @Nikolnikov has one for sale if you haven't picked one up yet. Definitely need one of these Sanke spear removal tool

 

[Climb]

All the above is great advice for the commercial brewery. Following are some of my solutions as a home brewer for edification of other home brewers.
As a home brewer that uses Sanke kegs exclusively and that doesn't have the resources nor tax write offs of a commercial brewery, I have removed the need of a locking ring removal tool by grinding down the locking ring a bit more so that I can remove it with two small screw drivers. See picture of modified locking ring. The trick is to be sure to install the locking ring so that the ground down lip of the locking ring aligns with the space/gap in the neck of the sanke keg. See other photo.
I still manually clean the serving kegs and the half barrel sanke fermentor after removing the spear. Cleaning and sanitizing the serving kegs isn't bad, but cleaning the fermentor is a PITA. Sanitizing the fermentor is done with StarSan followed steam by boiling a quart of water in the fermentor when it is on a gas burner.
One detail that I didn't see mentioned in Tom Hennessey's keg washer video is that he must have removed the check valve on the beer out port and the duck bill check valve on the gas in port of the coupler as his setup uses the normal beer out port as the input and the normal gas in port as the output. Also his one cycle CO2 purging is doubtfully enough to do a great job of removing sufficient O2.

 

[Rob2010SS]

All the above is great advice for the commercial brewery. Following are some of my solutions as a home brewer for edification of other home brewers.
As a home brewer that uses Sanke kegs exclusively and that doesn't have the resources nor tax write offs of a commercial brewery, I have removed the need of a locking ring removal tool by grinding down the locking ring a bit more so that I can remove it with two small screw drivers. See picture of modified locking ring. The trick is to be sure to install the locking ring so that the ground down lip of the locking ring aligns with the space/gap in the neck of the sanke keg. See other photo.
I still manually clean the serving kegs and the half barrel sanke fermentor after removing the spear. Cleaning and sanitizing the serving kegs isn't bad, but cleaning the fermentor is a PITA. Sanitizing the fermentor is done with StarSan followed steam by boiling a quart of water in the fermentor when it is on a gas burner.
One detail that I didn't see mentioned in Tom Hennessey's keg washer video is that he must have removed the check valve on the beer out port and the duck bill check valve on the gas in port of the coupler as his setup uses the normal beer out port as the input and the normal gas in port as the output. Also his one cycle CO2 purging is doubtfully enough to do a great job of removing sufficient O2.

so I’m a Sanke newbie. Cleaning the inside of the keg with the spear removed is easy. I can rig up a spray ball for that.

What is inside the spear? How would one go about manually cleaning that?

 

[Climb]

Admittedly my process is weak when it comes to doing a great job of cleaning the spear. My process, again for the home brewers, is to shake the keg with cleaner or StarSan with the spear installed and with only half the lock ring fully installed. Best is to clean the keg without removing the spear as shown in the above video. It shouldn’t be that that difficult to modify your SSBT keg washer to connect to a sanke coupler. The larger bore coupler might be useful here, but I would try it with a regular coupler and see if it worked satisfactorily first.

The other option is to disassemble the spear for cleaning. This is challenging a guy my size at 146 pounds. With the spear assembly removed from the keg, I use a section, about 15 inches, of 1 inch schedule 80 pvc pipe that I slip down over the pickup tube of the spear when the spear is inverted on a workbench. Pressing down and twisting on the pvc pipe allows me to compress the spring and twist the clip/fastener that holds the spear assembly together.

You should take a spear apart for yourself so you can see how the parts work together. It’s a good exercise to do at least once. Or you might be able to find an assembly diagram on the internet.

 

[franknbeans]

I just got down to cleaning the two sanke kegs I have this afternoon (there was some years-old sludge in the bottom and spears). I have one of those Mark II keg washers that I used for the kegs after I got what I could out with a brush. 15 mins with the washer spraying a jet up and splashing down the sides (hot water/PBW) was plenty to get everything else off and clean. I rigged up a little thing that was shotty, but worked, for the spears. I took the check valves out of a sanke d coupler and attached to the spear. I had a barb onto the liquid port of the coupler with a foot long piece of old gas line from the keezer and plugged that onto a barb adapter onto the Mark pump. It pushed enough velocity to pump the PBW solution verticle and out the spear and cascaded down the sides of the spear back into the basin. It worked ok, and got everything clean on both of those spears. I had used a long brush and ran that inside the spears beforehand as well to get most of the gunk out. Running it through the pump got the inside of the spear with the BB and seal clean. Less hands on work for me and it did a pretty good job. I'm waiting for another coupler and some ball lock adapters for the shanks so I can do a co2 flush from one to the other.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Admittedly my process is weak when it comes to doing a great job of cleaning the spear. My process, again for the home brewers, is to shake the keg with cleaner or StarSan with the spear installed and with only half the lock ring fully installed. Best is to clean the keg without removing the spear as shown in the above video. It shouldn’t be that that difficult to modify your SSBT keg washer to connect to a sanke coupler. The larger bore coupler might be useful here, but I would try it with a regular coupler and see if it worked satisfactorily first.

The other option is to disassemble the spear for cleaning. This is challenging a guy my size at 146 pounds. With the spear assembly removed from the keg, I use a section, about 15 inches, of 1 inch schedule 80 pvc pipe that I slip down over the pickup tube of the spear when the spear is inverted on a workbench. Pressing down and twisting on the pvc pipe allows me to compress the spring and twist the clip/fastener that holds the spear assembly together.

You should take a spear apart for yourself so you can see how the parts work together. It’s a good exercise to do at least once. Or you might be able to find an assembly diagram on the internet.

I would love to be able to use the SSBT keg washer for these. However, I want HOT cleaning water. That pump maxes out at 140F and I want it hotter than that for sure. Thinking of using one of the chugger pumps I have and hooking something up that way.
In all these videos, I haven't seen anything depicting how much pressure is behind the cleaning agent as it's pushed through the spear. I would think you'd want a spray ball, no? Is pushing the cleaner through the spear sufficient enough?

 

[Wayne1]

You will need something a bit more powerful than a chugger. Tom Hennessey is using a 1/2 hp pump. A chugger is 1/20 hp.

When used with a proper pump, just pumping through the spear will create enough of an impact to clean the bottom and sides of a keg. You would use a valve to reduce the flow to just a trickle to clean the outside of the spear.

In the old Golden Gate and Hof-Stevens kegs, they had side bugs that would be removed and a pipe with spray ball would be used to clean them through the bung hole. The Sanke was devised to be a closed system and all cleaning is done through the spear.

 

[Rob2010SS]

You will need something a bit more powerful than a chugger. Tom Hennessey is using a 1/2 hp pump. A chugger is 1/20 hp.

When used with a proper pump, just pumping through the spear will create enough of an impact to clean the bottom and sides of a keg. You would use a valve to reduce the flow to just a trickle to clean the outside of the spear.

In the old Golden Gate and Hof-Stevens kegs, they had side bugs that would be removed and a pipe with spray ball would be used to clean them through the bung hole. The Sanke was devised to be a close system and all cleaning is done through the spear.

Looks like I'm in the market for a new pump! Looks like a sump pump might be the easiest solution. Although struggling to find one that can handle high temps. Any recommendations?

 

[franknbeans]

I've been looking for one too that can handle some hot water

 

[Wayne1]

For Pro brewery work, CPE Systems has some of the least expensive pump carts I am aware of.
CPE Systems Transfer Pump
They offer other pumps with variable speed control and other features for more money.
For just a pump CPE C 100 Pump
The pump head should be sanitary stainless steel and the motor should be washdown capable.

 

[superiorsat]

Any recommendations?

Used dairy pumps are usually my choice. I've got 2 used 1 HP dairy pumps off market place that are beasts. I built a stainless pump cart for one and the other I mounted to an old pressure washer cart. I think I paid $100 for one pump and $140 for the other.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Follow up question here…

We ripped apart the kegs and opened them up, using basic tools. Checked out the inside of them to make sure nothing nasty was in there. Rinsed, 155F cleaner, 155F rinse, sanitized and put them back together.

How do people purge these kegs to make sure they’re free of oxygen?

The videos I’ve watched of people cleaning these kegs, there’s no way what they’re doing is purging these kegs of O2. On 5 gallon kegs, we’d fill with sanitizer and push out with co2. With these half bbl kegs, That’s a lot of sanitizer and co2 which I’m fine with. I guess I’m just making sure there isn’t a better/cheaper way to do it.

 

[AlexKay]

I believe commercial keg washers sterilize and exclude oxygen using steam. That’s probably not practical, and CO2 may be your best bet.

 

[grampska]

I believe commercial keg washers sterilize and exclude oxygen using steam. That’s probably not practical, and CO2 may be your best bet.

The one at the brewery I work at fills with CO2 and there’s an air compressor and air filter hooked up as well so oxygen is involved as well.

 

[Climb]

How do people purge these kegs to make sure they’re free of oxygen?

I use CO2 from fermentation, 10 gallon batch size, to purge two daisy chained sixtel serving kegs that have been sanitized. Might as well get some use out of the CO2 generated by fermentation. It is pretty easy to connect the three sanke couplers in a daisy chained fashion. I connect the output of the last serving keg in the chain as a blow off tube or to a KegLand BlowTie spunding valve.

 

[Rob2010SS]

I use CO2 from fermentation, 10 gallon batch size, to purge two daisy chained sixtel serving kegs that have been sanitized. Might as well get some use out of the CO2 generated by fermentation. It is pretty easy to connect the three sanke couplers in a daisy chained fashion. I connect the output of the last serving keg in the chain as a blow off tube or to a KegLand BlowTie spunding valve.

Makes sense. When I was kegging half bbl batches, like I said, I would fill to the absolute brim with sanitizer and push out with co2. That’s just a lot of co2 for full barrel batches and doing that with (3) full bbl batches, just was trying to see if there was a more cost effective way. Perhaps I’ll do that on the next ones.

We’re brewing this weekend so maybe I’ll hook up the kegs and use fermentation to purge those and see how it goes. Just hope we don’t get blowoff

 

[apache_brew]

I ferment and occasionally serve from sankeys. Rather than invest in a high output pumping/heating/multi product commercial style cleaning system, I really like the tri clamp ball lock adapters with floating dip tubes. Basically turns them into a corny.

Sankey ball lock adapter