Corny ball-lock to Sanke Tap

[docdonnyb]

I have an unusual situation - brewing beer for my daughter's wedding. The venue will not allow CO2 to be brought in regardless of the size container so jockey box setups aren't an option, nor are small CO2 chargers. I've used the small ball lock hand pumps - and they're all POS's - plus I can't risk having gallons and gallons of beer that can't be poured. Without getting into a ton of details, my only options are buying a few 1/2 kegs or finding a way to adapt a ball lock, corny to a Sanke tap. Going the other direction is simple - but I can't find any way to go Corny >> Sanke. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Donald

 

[day_trippr]

Are we to assume that the facility is willing to let you use their dispensing system if you brought Sanke kegs or something that can be attached to their lines?

With this fitting you remove the beer and gas lines from their Sanke tap(s), screw these fittings onto their lines, then screw on your gas and a beer ball lock QDs (with MFL stems), and snap them onto your ball lock keg(s).

https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/fflxbeerthread.htm
Note the description: the price is for the adapter, period. You supply the QDs, and your facility supplies the lines with attached swivel nuts (and as the description states, the Sanke line ends will have beer washers but it would be wise to pick up some of those as well).

Cheers!

 

[docdonnyb]

No gas allowed - at all!!
So the only option is to hand pump - like an old school frat party.

 

[Broken Crow]

I'm trying to understand how a venue can have a sanke tap but no CO2... am I missing something?
Failing being able to bring any CO2, why not just bottle it? You can make up nice labels just for the occasion.

 

[day_trippr]

[so confused]

I'm wondering what all those words about Sanke adaptation were about. Was the goal to find a way to use a "trusty" Sanke style hand pump on ball lock kegs? Also, does the venue typically sell adult beverages and isn't interested in enabling competition from home brew? Did you know about all this before you signed up to supply the beer to the party?

 

[Bobby_M]

Reading between the lines here. The OP is FAMILIAR with sanke taps that have hand pumps and would like to adapter that CONCEPT to ball lock kegs. In other words "how can I hand pump my cornies?".

It's a real unfortunate abomination that's about to go down but it is what it is. Some ideas before the beer gets defiled like that.. Do you have any extra sanke kegs laying around? How about charging a couple half barrel sanke kegs with 50psi of CO2 and using them as a reservoir to pressurize the corny kegs? If you were to use a secondary regulator on the output, you can feed a constant 8psi to the cornies. I'm not smart enough to know how much can be dispensed.

 

[day_trippr]

Not a bad idea - and you could go a lot lower on the pressure for dispensing than 8 psi to stretch the stored gas.
But, given what's been related so far I suspect the OP would have to sneak the gas filled kegs in and somehow not expose their function even while using them...

Cheers!

 

[mac_1103]

You could bottle the beer.

 

[Bobby_M]

If all else fails, just use a bike pump to feed into a splitter for all the different kegs. I highly recommend using a pressure gauge so you can keep the pressure at 8-10. I'd still recommend including at least one empty keg into the system to act as a pressure buffer when all the other kegs are still very full. Prepare to dump any leftover beer on the ground at the end of the event.

 

[IslandLizard]

That's a big conundrum!

You could fill the corny kegs half way, pressurize the headspace (with CO2) to 15 psi. That will dispense all the beer. Starting at 15 psi and ending at 7.5 psi. You may be able to start the pressure even a little higher. Do a thorough test before committing.

Make sure there's enough resistance in the jockey box lines/coils/cold-plate to get enough back pressure. That, to prevent excessive foaming at the higher pressure. You could use flow control faucets as well. Again, test it out first.

 

[Bobby_M]

That's a big conundrum!

You could fill the corny kegs half way, pressurize the headspace (with CO2) to 15 psi. That will dispense all the beer. Starting at 15 psi and ending at 7.5 psi. You may be able to start the pressure even a little higher. Do a thorough test before committing.

Make sure there's enough resistance in the jockey box lines/coils/cold-plate to get enough back pressure. That, to prevent excessive foaming at the higher pressure. You could use flow control faucets as well. Again, test it out first.

In theory that would work, but I think some of that 15psi would be absorbed into the beer before it naturally dropped from the increased headspace volume. Too bad you couldn't install a piston with orings into the keg so that the headspace "air" would just push the beer out physically without any air/beer interface. A big EVA bladder bag installed inside with a port connected to the gas diptube. Now you can inflate the bladder with an air pump and no ruined beer.

 

[ITV]

Bring in your kegs pre-charged with CO2, when they need a recharge wheel them out to the parking lot and charge them back up.
Similar to smokers having to go outside for a smoke.

 

[day_trippr]

That would definitely recommend short-filling the kegs by a gallon or so otherwise the first few pours from each freshly tapped keg will send them promptly to the parking lot

Cheers!

 

[mac_1103]

Uhh, guys, it's his daughter's wedding. Do we really think he wants to spend the day running kegs back and forth to the parking lot?

I think the best choice among all of the suboptimal options depends on how many kegs we're talking about.

 

[day_trippr]

No doubt this dilemma has the OP vexed as there doesn't appear to be an optimal solution...

Cheers!

 

[pvpeacock]

Just object to the wedding at the appropriate time in the service and forget needing any beer at the cancelled reception. Better that than pumping air into a corny keg with homebrew in it.

 

[khannon]

What about cutting open a spare keg, and hiding a 5# CO2 in it?

 

[ITV]

What about cutting open a spare keg, and hiding a 5# CO2 in it?

Or figure a way to adapt a CO2 fire extinguisher to top off a keg.

 

[IslandLizard]

Uhh, guys, it's his daughter's wedding. Do we really think he wants to spend the day running kegs back and forth to the parking lot?

When planning an event like these, I hope the OP is recruiting a team of "nephews/nieces" to serve and handle the beer. Gives them something useful to do and hopefully stay out of bigger trouble.

(Speaking from a history of my brother and I being put in charge of "the music" arrangements during the band's offtime. That always included setting up and running the needed audio equipment.)

 

[ITV]

Uhh, guys, it's his daughter's wedding. Do we really think he wants to spend the day running kegs back and forth to the parking lot?

I think the best choice among all of the suboptimal options depends on how many kegs we're talking about.

But maybe the smokers wouldn't mind?

 

[IslandLizard]

A big EVA bladder bag installed inside

Do they make those?

 

[day_trippr]

I looked for "big" PET or EVA bags and drilled a dry hole. Even looking for large metallized mylar bags (which would be unacceptable for this project but I wanted to make sure my search technique wasn't broken) the largest bags I found were roughly one gallon capacity - not enough to fit the OP's compressor. Large O2 resistant bags apparently are not in high demand or my Google Fu is on the fritz...

Cheers!

[edit] I definitely "crossed the streams" with this post, as I conflated it with this other interesting thread.

 

[OakIslandBrewery]

Serve the kegs with a hand pump, not ideal but that way the venue won't have a cow about it. It's supposed to be a special day, no sense in ruining it with sneaky ideas.

Good luck, enjoy your daughters wedding!

 

[Closet Fermenter]

How about dropping a pack of Voss Kveik in a corny of sugar water, connect with a jumper to dispensing keg. If it blows through that like it does my stout, it will push all the beer you need!

 

[beren]

I would fill a few cornies with gas as high as a Duotight secondary co2 reg can take and just pretend they are beer. Put some 2l bottles filled with stones in to make them plausible heavy. That or get some 2l German growlers that can take pressure or bomber bottles and bottle from keg. Hell, even some water in the bottom of the kegs would work, if anyone questioned slosh it and say they are just low on beer. Gas to gas, beer to mouth.

 

[day_trippr]

Given this actually is for a wedding party I would not want to risk a huge blow-up with the venue that could cause the newly married and everyone that loves them to hate me for the rest of my days

Keep things honest...

Cheers!

 

[beren]

I mean, a pressurized keg with liquid in it is not a co2 tank. never will be. It just happens to be higher pressure than the other keg. If they don't allow this then they shouldn't allow any carbonated beverages to keep things consistent. If they won't allow you to chain kegs, half-fill with an adjustable flow ball lock and overpressure a litte to make sure you can serve to the bottom of the keg. @docdonnyb "easiest" solution might be to buy a couple used sanke kegs and close-transfer your beer to them, unless you mean by "buy a couple 1/2 bbl kegs" they want you to buy directly from them...

 

[IslandLizard]

The venue will not allow CO2 to be brought in regardless of the size container so jockey box setups aren't an option, nor are small CO2 chargers.

Just for accuracy, did you get this information first hand from the venue operator/contact?
If not, and you got them through he said, she said channels, get the skinny from the establishment, directly.
Have you asked why they don't allow CO2 to be brought in? Are there alternatives they offer, such as buying or "renting" from them?

You can keep those kegs cold/cool there, such as placed in a plastic tote or cooler with some ice in it, and a bag of ice on top?

And to be clear, you are allowed to bring your own (alcoholic) beverages and serve them there? Including kegs and and such. Just without a CO2 dispenser.

I think the suggested bicycle pump or a small (battery operated) compressor may do the job for that day. It's easy to connect the air supply to a piece of tubing with a gas QD on the other end. And drink up.

 

[apache_brew]

Congrats on the wedding dad. I brewed for my best friend’s wedding and brought 9 sankeys and he rented out a mobile bar that supplied gas/taps/pouring. It was awesome and all I had to do was bring cold beer the day before and then enjoy the party. I would consider packaging all the beer to bring if you’re up for it given your venue restrictions. Invest in a bad ass canning system (sell it after if you won’t need it), maybe bottle via 1L or 1.75l champagne bottles to cut down quantity needed to bottle. Do what you can to limit the attention you have to spend on beer that day. Cheers.