Do commercial brewers purge kegs of oxygen?

[Nate R]

No, you're reading into it too much. The homebrewer normally uses corny kegs and is meticulous with closed transfers. He need to ship a keg and opted to ship a Sanke Sixtel because it's more robust for shipping. When I use the term sixtel, I mean Sanke. I don't call 5 gallon corny kegs sixtels, which is possibly the source of confusion.

Got it. I re-read your post and missed the "sixtel" completly. Got it now.
I guess my real question should have been... how does one ship a sixtel, and how much was that? Lol. Bummer the beer was skunked after all that work and money.

 

[Bobby_M]

You put it in a box and ship it UPS like any other object. The cost was less than expected.

 

[Brewer Mike]

A Sanke keg is a closed system. When in comes back to be cleaned, it is filled with pure CO2. The keg was fully filled with beer and then the normal serving process "purged" the beer out and left the keg filled with CO2.

The keg is then cleaned while maintaining a pure CO atmosphere. The final triple purge is to fully remove any sanitizer that may be in the keg.

What if the Sanke was used at a picnic with one of those hand pumps? The empty is now filled with regular air. How do you purge that air? Just by the volume of co2?

 

[Wayne1]

I never had to deal with that problem as we never sold kegs for retail.

If I knew a keg had been used with air, I would rinse it, fill it with water, and then run it through the keg washer.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

According to Box Office Brewery, in Strasburg, VA., they use an automated keg washer with a controller that measures Co2 levels during the cleaning cycle—eliminating the need to fill the cleaned kegs with SaniClean while purging O2 from them before filling.

 

[doug293cz]

According to Box Office Brewery, in Strasburg, VA., they use an automated keg washer with a controller that measures Co2 levels during the cleaning cycle—eliminating the need to fill the cleaned kegs with SaniClean while purging O2 from them before filling.
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I don't think that would be very effective. You really need to monitor the O2 levels, as that is the contaminant that you are trying to get/keep out of the kegs. 99.9% CO2, is still ~200 ppm O2 (assuming whatever isn't CO2 is air.) You can't measure ppb levels of O2 by trying to subtract the CO2 % from 100%.

Brew on

 

[AlexKay]

I don't think that would be very effective. You really need to monitor the O2 levels, as that is the contaminant that you are trying to get/keep out of the kegs. 99.9% CO2, is still ~200 ppm O2 (assuming whatever isn't CO2 is air.) You can't measure ppb levels of O2 by trying to subtract the CO2 % from 100%.

Brew on

Beer in equilibrium with 99.9% CO2 / 0.1% air has ~9 ppb O2 in solution.

 

[doug293cz]

Beer in equilibrium with 99.9% CO2 / 0.1% air has ~9 ppb O2 in solution.

Is the O2 ever really in equilibrium, or does it react with components in the beer, thus reducing the local, instantaneous concentration, and allowing more O2 to dissolve into the beer? One of the parameters commercial brewers measure is Total Packaged Oxygen (TPO.) The TPO tells you how much O2 is in the package, and that's the limit of what can eventually react with the beer.

Brew on

 

[AlexKay]

Is the O2 ever really in equilibrium, or does it react with components in the beer, thus reducing the local, instantaneous concentration, and allowing more O2 to dissolve into the beer? One of the parameters commercial brewers measure is Total Packaged Oxygen (TPO.) The TPO tells you how much O2 is in the package, and that's the limit of what can eventually react with the beer.

Brew on

Depends on the headspace volume, of course. I don't know off the top of my head how much headspace is typical in a 15-gallon keg. Call it half a gallon, and 0.1% air where the oxygen totally dissolves in water gives you (order of magnitude, and if my math is correct) an additional ~7 ppb of DO.

 

[Nate R]

Ugh.
All this science is why i drink.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

I have yet to meet a local craft beer brewer who owns or regularly uses a TPO meter. Although most say, it is something they hope to use in the future.