electric sanke keg sanitizer idea

[mcflyfisher]

I have been fermenting in sankey kegs for a few months now. For my proposes they work well, but the same problem exists. I can't see into the keg to be sure it is clean. I do an oxy soak, and use drill mounted carboy cleaner, but still I am never sure. I have accidently made an oatmeal sour, and wonder if the problem was the fermenter. I sanitize with iodaphor, as star San doesnot play well with my super hard water. I would really like to heat sanitize the fermenters but am an all electric brewer. I have a couple heat sticks of werper design, but they won't fit into the spear opening. I think a naked heating element would fit, as the compression nut I'd what is keeping the current sticks from fitting. Do you think it is possible to build a safe heat stick that doesn't have the compression nut? I was thinking of soldering a piece of wire to the element base to use as a ground and then wiring the element to a section if water proof wire/cord of some sort, and doing the pvc jbweld potting trick. when completed I should be able to add a couple gallons of water to the keg, drop the stick into the keg, plug it in and have a heat sanitized fermenter in a few minutes. If am feeling really ambitious a am sure a pressure cooker could be cannibalized to provide a means to safely pressurize the unit, but that is a future project that will require alot of safety consideration. So will my skinny heat stick idea work?

 

[horseinmay]

In a word, no. It may work to heat up the keg, but it's not going to clean it. What you need is a method to recirculate an actual cleanser like PBW through the keg at high temps until it comes clean. Then sanitize it. I stood next to a keg cleaning machine for thousands of cycles. It goes something like this: Purge stale beer; hot water rinse; recirc cleanser; hot water rinse; purge. The recirc only took about 10 seconds, but it was about 100 psi. Short of that kind of pressure, which would peel nasty krausen off the interior of the keg, you are going to need time on your side. Invest in a sump pump or something, and build a keg cleaning apparatus that sprays into the keg and run it for 20-30 minutes before rinsing and sanitizing.

 

[wyzazz]

You could try to find a Cartridge Heater and make a "slim heatstick" out of that. Check out the below thread for an idea of how this would look.

http://www.homebrewchatter.com/board/showthread.php?t=7575&highlight=electric%20kettle

 

[mcflyfisher]

Sorry. My rambling post was not more specific. I will continue to clean the fermenters with the oxy and carboy cleaner method. I just want a way to heat the fermenter with out having to resort to combustion. The cartridge heaters look cool. I may have to look into that design. Thanks for the tip.

 

[horseinmay]

You could also heat up some water and pour it in through a funnel. Keep in mind that you will need a really long element to heat the water at all unless you either fill the keg to the top, or invert it so that the water is touching the element.