Many thanks to IslandLizard for this thread - it has been a huge help for improving my process!
I saw this thread several months ago and decided to give this process a try. The first 3 attempts worked - in the sense that I was able to get the beer into the kegs without ever removing the fermentor bucket lids - but they were pretty much a disaster. My basement floor was just covered in Star San and slopped beer, I had little segments of tubing and QD's scattered about, tripping over half-full buckets of this and that… just a total disorganized mess. Plus, it was taking waaay too long. I realized that if I don't streamline the process, I'm going to start talking myself out of doing it.
To that end, over the weekend I built a little stand for holding the fermentor at an appropriate height above the floor. The surface where the bucket sits is a board that has hinges so I can tilt the bucket forward as it drains. Tall wooden stops prevent the bucket from sliding off when I use the hinges. Wooden posts on each side of the bucket platform provide supports for me to clamp the gas and liquid tubing so I’m not putting too much strain on the bucket grommets and encouraging leaks. These posts tilt with the bucket so the strain relief is always maintained - see photo.
I also built a wheeled cart (barely visible in lower left of photo) with a self-priming diaphragm pump on it that I use to draw Star San (or water or PBW, etc.) from a bucket. This cart will primarily be used for pumping cleaner through my draft lines, but it also comes in really handy for this packaging process.
For liquid purging the kegs, I dump Star San into them through the open lid using a funnel, until they are about 85% full or so. Then I seal them, open the PRV, and use the pump to push star san into the kegs until it starts to spit out of the PRV.
The pump has a little pigtail of 3/8" ID tubing on the outlet, and my racking cane is fitted with 3/8" tubing and a liquid QD. To top off the kegs with Star San, I insert the suction end of my racking cane into the pigtail coming off the pump, and connect the racking cane's liquid QD to the keg. This way, I kill 2 birds with one stone - maybe 3, actually: 1) I top off headspace of keg with star san; 2) I sanitize the racking cane for the upcoming transfer of precious beer; and 3) I prime the racking cane for siphoning.
When the star san starts spitting from the keg PRV, I quickly switch off the pump, disconnect the QD, pull the racking cane out of the pump pigtail, and carefully set the racking cane assembly aside, still full of Star San.
I always do 10gal batches so I always have 2 buckets of beer to keg. At this point, I use CO2 to push the star san out of keg #1 into keg #2, until I see it start to sputter, at which point I disconnect the jumper between the 2 kegs. I invert keg #1 and use the residual CO2 pressure inside it to push the last bit of Star San out of the gas post and through a length of tubing, which also provides me with a purged CO2 line. I connect that line to the fermentor airlock.
Then, I take the star-san-filled racking cane, attach the little black nub thing on the suction end of it, and insert it into the bucket lid using the drilled stopper. I use a pen to open the QD and start the siphon. Then, I attach the QD to the keg and the beer starts to flow, pushing CO2 out the keg and into the bucket headspace.
I place a little LED light face down on the bucket lid, which illuminates the interior just enough for me to clearly see the level of beer in the bucket. When it starts to get low, I tilt the bucket toward the racking cane using the hinges. I used to do this tilt manually and just hold it there, but I'd always inadvertently jostle the bucket and kick up trub. The hinge makes it easy to gingerly tilt the bucket and stick something under it to hold it in a fixed position.
This worked amazingly well… I might have had 3 ounces of "wasted" beer left behind, tops. It wasn't even enough to fill a hydrometer tube more than half way.
) clamped to the cane - and to the threads of a standard 1/4" MFL style QD (you can literally screw the QD into the tubing then clamp it tight). This provides much less resistance than standard 3/16" ID beer line - and actually fits without any adapters.
