Today's project: The Cornanke / Sankelius

[Yuri_Rage]

I've been wanting to do this for a while now. I have a handful of cut off Sanke keg tops and the spears to accompany them. So, I figured I'd make a dual use keg or two. Here's what I have so far:

It's tack welded on top so I could more easily cut the hole on my lathe. The bottom is fully welded. I'm about to go out and finish it. More pics to follow!

 

[Dude]

I friggin love it. Please put me down for one!! I could use something like that!

And I think you should call it a Cornankesankelius. :rockin:

 

[Kevin Dean]

I'm sure this will be another inventive project from Yuri...

Now, to expose my ignorance of Sanke kegs... What purpose does this serve?

 

[Dude]

I'm sure this will be another inventive project from Yuri...

Now, to expose my ignorance of Sanke kegs... What purpose does this serve?

He has friends that have commercial kegerators with sanke fittings (commercial beer kegs), so when Yuri brings his homebrew to their houses, he can't serve from his kegs because of the corny keg's different fittings. This will allow hime to swap out the lid on the corney and utilize the sanke fitting. It is genius actually.

 

[Spyk'd]

I'd like to see the opposite done as well: A corny top and poppets installed on a Sanke half barrel.


The purpose? Why primary fermentation of a complete 10 gallon batch, of course!

Simply ferment in the half barrel keg and them pressure it up and transfer to a couple of cornies for secondary. The dip tub would be cut to leave the yeast behind and you'd need a pressure relief valve to keep things in check, but I'd love to have this setup.

I have a source now for free kegs, but no one to weld SS, so this is where I am with this project idea.

:cross:

 

[Dude]

I'd like to see the opposite done as well: A corny top and poppets installed on a Sanke half barrel.


The purpose? Why primary fermentation of a complete 10 gallon batch, of course!

Simply ferment in the half barrel keg and them pressure it up and transfer to a couple of cornies for secondary. The dip tub would be cut to leave the yeast behind and you'd need a pressure relief valve to keep things in check, but I'd love to have this setup.

I have a source now for free kegs, but no one to weld SS, so this is where I am with this project idea.

:cross:

That has been done, sorta:

 

[HenryHill]

Another direction to consider, Yuri...

Having just put 13 gallons of stout in a 15.5 yeast brink-basically a sanke container with a tri-clamp fitting on top. The ones I saw was with the large style fitting, like maybe 3", instead of the more common smaller one that is the usual size for HB'ers. Breweries have a modified sanke spear with the same size fitting that is used with the tri-clamp and washer to keg wash it on the keg washing system. If you were to modify a sanke spear to dispense with a sanke tap, you could have a multiple use 15.5 gallon container. Just make an adapter that goes from large tri-clamp (clover?) to sanke...

With a tri-clamp fitting and valves, we pitched yeast right into the brink, from right under a huge conical fermenter, on top of the wort, and then used a hose with another tri-clamp to serve as a 1/2" blow-off hose...

You wouldn't have to have the tri-clamp valves, but just use those fittings on standard valves, you'd have a versatile piece of equipment.

I think on Brewboard there is a guy who welds sanitary SS for a living, and started selling nice tri-clamp kits for way cheap. Can't say who it is....

Sorry, don't know how to directly post a hosted image...

 

[boo boo]

Looks good but how do you lock it in place on the keg?

 

[HenryHill]

Found it-but you probably already knew about it...

He's Swagman: http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=79589

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Done!

My first thought was to do what Dude suggested - just make a Sanke lid. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like being inventive enough to find a way to lock it down, so when I mentioned doing the finish welding...I meant I was welding the lid permanently to the keg. I know, there are drawbacks. However, the big advantage is that I get to share my beer with more people now!

Someday maybe I'll get more ambitious and find a way to make a swappable lid.

 

[Spyk'd]

That has been done, sorta:

Sweet. What's the source of this mod? I'll need some pictures to show some welders to see if they can handle it.

 

[McKBrew]

However, the big advantage is that I get to share my beer with more people now!

With all of these cool projects, when do you have time to brew?

 

[Yuri_Rage]

With all of these cool projects, when do you have time to brew?

I brew a lot. I have pale ale (recipe courtesy of Dude) and pumpkin ale on tap. 10 gallons of my winter warmer is aging in the brew closet. There's a 5 gallon batch of Scotch ale that's just starting to clear sitting next to a 1 gallon batch of hard cider. My big fermenter is empty, but I'll be brewing again soon enough.

 

[Dude]

I brew a lot. I have pale ale (recipe courtesy of Dude) and pumpkin ale on tap. 10 gallons of my winter warmer is aging in the brew closet. There's a 5 gallon batch of Scotch ale that's just starting to clear sitting next to a 1 gallon batch of hard cider. My big fermenter is empty, but I'll be brewing again soon enough.

Plus he brews at some really odd hours!!!!!

I was half in teh bag drunk one night, and he was mashing in!

 

[Drunkensatyr]

Genius. Simply Genius!

 

[Yuri_Rage]

Transferring beer into the new keg:

I just CO2 purged the project keg and pulled the relief valve then pressure transferred under about 5 psi. It took about 5 minutes to completely transfer 5 gallons.

EDIT:
BTW, Dude, that's Lake Walk being transferred into the new keg.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

The best part: I get to share my beer with others, and the keg gets mostly drained. But the Sanke spear doesn't quite reach the bottom of the keg, so there are still a few pints left if I hook it up to a ball lock setup when it gets home!

 

[Flyin' Lion]

Sweet project Yuri. I have a buddy that has a Sanke tap and I've been debating how to go about dispensing from a corney.

Any plans on selling these?

 

[IrregularPulse]

These are what I have for kegs. I bought 20 of them a while back from a brewery. Sold 15 and kept 5 for myself.

 

[gwood]

These are what I have for kegs. I bought 20 of them a while back from a brewery. Sold 15 and kept 5 for myself.

So there are commercial examples of these then? I really don't have any issues with folks that have sanke set ups and don't tend to transport beer all that much anyways but it might be nice to have.

 

[Damonic]

I'm not even sure I fully realize what I'm looking at... going back to re-read...

 

[IrregularPulse]

So there are commercial examples of these then? I really don't have any issues with folks that have sanke set ups and don't tend to transport beer all that much anyways but it might be nice to have.

I don't know if it was so much commercial. It was a local micro brewery/restaurant.

 

[nathan]

any reason why you couldn't have just sealed the lid by pressurizing the cornie like you normally would, so that the sankey setup was removable? If you are transferring beer into it under pressure, then it would work. You might have to bend the sankey tubes to one side to allow the lid to tilt for removal. If you could do that, though, that lid would be able to be popped onto any keg you had at any state of full and tossed in your car to go to a party somewhere. Got half a keg of XYZ left? Take it along to your buddy's house.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

any reason why you couldn't have just sealed the lid by pressurizing the Corny like you normally would, so that the Sanke setup was removable?

That was my original thought, but it would've required a complete rework of the bail that secures the lid. At the point where I had to completely remove the brackets and bail, I gave up on the removable lid.

 

[calpyro]

Another direction to consider, Yuri...

Having just put 13 gallons of stout in a 15.5 yeast brink-basically a sanke container with a tri-clamp fitting on top. The ones I saw was with the large style fitting, like maybe 3", instead of the more common smaller one that is the usual size for HB'ers. Breweries have a modified sanke spear with the same size fitting that is used with the tri-clamp and washer to keg wash it on the keg washing system. If you were to modify a sanke spear to dispense with a sanke tap, you could have a multiple use 15.5 gallon container. Just make an adapter that goes from large tri-clamp (clover?) to sanke...

With a tri-clamp fitting and valves, we pitched yeast right into the brink, from right under a huge conical fermenter, on top of the wort, and then used a hose with another tri-clamp to serve as a 1/2" blow-off hose...

You wouldn't have to have the tri-clamp valves, but just use those fittings on standard valves, you'd have a versatile piece of equipment.

I think on Brewboard there is a guy who welds sanitary SS for a living, and started selling nice tri-clamp kits for way cheap. Can't say who it is....

Sorry, don't know how to directly post a hosted image...

If anybody needs a Sanke keg already modified for he Tri-Clover clamp setup, a good supplier is The Complete Winemaker: http://www.tcw-web.com/HomePage.html They modify new Sanke kegs with the correct Tri-Clover fitting on top. They also make a gas-in and pickup tube assembly with the same Tri-Clover fittings. This makes it handy to use the Sanke keg as a fermenter and use the pickup tube assembly to transfer the fermented beer into Corney kegs
See page 56 in their catalog http://www.tcw-web.com/TCW_Catalog.pdf

 

[nathan]

That was my original thought, but it would've required a complete rework of the bail that secures the lid. At the point where I had to completely remove the brackets and bail, I gave up on the removable lid.

I have some with brackets out by the sides. I bet you could cut the bail into two parts, and flip them one at a time, taking apart the cross-piece that must be getting in the way...

Or just go without it. I sometimes do not flip mine closed. The keg pressure keeps it closed just fine. I actually close them by pressurizing and then if I'm going to I flip that over to the locked position.

If you lived close I'd apply beer and force you to put those welding skills to work I'll just have to wait and see what happens when the itch takes hold again.

 

[nathan]

Okay, I don't know why I didn't mention this back when I was posting on this thread last time, but my kegorator has the ball-lock fittings set up so they can be unscrewed, and I got a sankey tap that I can screw the tubing onto, so I can just bring in a sankey or cornelius and change some screw-on fittings and tap it. Maybe encourage your friends to make at least one gas and beer tube set utilize screw-on fittings so you can bring ball-locks with you (or they can buy a set, they are cheap).

My brother has the same thign going on as I do, and he gets all kinds of wierd kegs from europe that require special taps, so he's set.

 

[missing link]

Yuri,

What if you were to approach this from the other side? If you were to take an extra spear from a Sanke, could you make that attach to the gas in and liquid out posts of a Cornie? Then any of your Cornie kegs could be used on a Sanke tap system.

Or just buy yourself some threaded tailpieces and use them to retro fit the sanke set-up at your buddies house as a previous poster said. I have one local brewery that refuses to fill cornies so I have to get 1/6 barrels with Sanke tops from them. I just unscrew the hoses from the ball lock fittings and screw them on to the Sanke fitting.

Linc

 

[springer]

So there are commercial examples of these then? I really don't have any issues with folks that have sanke set ups and don't tend to transport beer all that much anyways but it might be nice to have.

responding to an old post but these are called pubkegs and a lot of small breweries use them I have 4 .All they do is plug up the gas and liquid corny ports with epoxy and cap them I am converting the ones I have to be like Yuri's so i can use both .