keg and bottle cleaner

[lael]

I'm thinking about building a rig for cleaning kegs and bottles. Anyone done it before and want to offer any advice?

Something like: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=381452 or http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=5149905&postcount=164

I'm looking on ebay and thinking something like:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/1000W-16500LPH-Water-Pump-Stainless-Steel-Submersible-Dirty-Clean-Garden-Tank-/271473576799?hash=item3f35160b5f or

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/231653146112?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

would be way overpowered, but kind of awesome for cleaning power. The only thing is both pumps say they are good to 30C... it would be nice to pump up to 60C for Sod. Perc. /PBW etc.

Any thoughts / comments?

 

[shaunous]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ41A4qJ8zE&feature=youtu.be

Wouldnt be a bad idea, I just soak in a massive esky with hot water straight from the tap and ALDI DiSan. Works a treat, but a rig like this would probably be quicker.

 

[nala]

I made a keg and fermenter cleaner from a small pond pump, a plastic chopping board and a piece of plastic conduit.
Works really well and can be used with only 6 litres of your prefered cleaner/sanitizer.

 

[parktho]

I've done something similar. However, What's the plastic thing in the end?

 

[lael]

Looks great nala. What volume pump are you using? Ever run it with warm/ hot water?

 

[nala]

I made a keg and fermenter cleaner from a small pond pump, a plastic chopping board and a piece of plastic conduit.
Works really well and can be used with only 6 litres of your prefered cleaner/sanitizer.

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The plastic thing in the end is an inverted plastic nozzle from a caulking cartridge.

 

[nala]

The pump is a Weipro 1000...230v/27W...1200 litres per hour @ 1.6 mtrs.
I have run it with warm napisan, also with a bleach dilution of 10 mls of bleach to 6 litres of water,going strong for almost 3 years.

 

[lael]

OK, built the bottle washer! Seriously amazing to put 20 bottles on and rinse with little more effort than turning the hot water tap on... Haven't built the keg washer yet or gotten a pump. That's next.

The bottle washer was designed with the riser spacing to go through the holes in the bottom of the Hacker Pschoor crates. The aim is to slide a full crate over the top of the washer, hit go, pull the crate off and presto - washed and dried in the crate. Of course... the risers aren't that rigid and I didn't drill the holes all that straight, so it is virtually impossible to get all 20 risers through all 20 holes for the moment. Next Steps: find some small gauge stainless tube and drill the cross members in the drill press. Hopefully then the 'in-crate' washing magic will work....



The larger ring around the outside equalises the pressure so all risers get the same amount of flow/pressure. The outside ring is 3/4"/20mm, the inside cross-members are 1/2"/15mm. The risers are rigid irrigation risers. Everything is press-fit together; no glue. No leaks when using mains pressure so it is likely to stay that way. Without bottles on the washer the hot water tap will give about 15cm of 'fountain'. On cold water on the garden tap, around 2M-3M of height, completely even. At low pressure some of the risers are slightly uneven lower - I think I might have pushed them in slightly further.



The washer is running here, though it is hard to tell from the photo. The water flows over the cross member and straight into the sink. No mess, no fuss.



The T pieces are 3/4"/20mm, with a push-in reducing bush for the 15mm cross-members.


The risers are 20cm poly irrigation risers. 7.2mm OD appx / 2.5mm ID appx. I couldn't get a neat hole drilling into the PVC using the 7mm drill on the test piece (the drill bit kept wandering off the pipe into my fingers), so drilled pilot holes with a dremel on high speed @ 3mm. Worked a treat. The 7mm hole was then easy. The pressure fit works brilliantly.


Parts List:
Masters was cheaper by around 50c / $1 on each pressure pipe fitting, which adds up quick.

10x 1.49 https://www.masters.com.au/product/900004837/hr-products-pvc-tee-20mm

10x 0.80 https://www.masters.com.au/product/900004845/reducer-bush-connector-20x15mm

4x 1.05 https://www.masters.com.au/product/900004863/hr-products-elbow-pvc-joint-90-degrees-x-20mm

2x 2.10 https://www.masters.com.au/product/100229013/pipemaster-pressure-pipe-15mm-1m

1x 2.40 https://www.masters.com.au/product/100229021/plascorp-pressure-pipe-20mmx1m

1 x 1.65 https://www.masters.com.au/product/900004843/dura-faucet-tee-pvc-20mm

1x 1.65 https://www.masters.com.au/product/900004672/hansen-reducing-poly-bush-20x15mm

20x 0.50 - rigid riser 200mm. I got mine from an irrigation store - so you will need to measure what you get. You can see the brand above. The OD was 7.2mm appx - hole was 7mm. Worked really well.
https://www.masters.com.au/product/100911565/hr-rigid-riser-200mm if you want to get it all from the same store.

1x 1/2" stainless barb - from brew kit.
1x 1/2" silicon hose - from brew kit.

Total: $37.10

Of course... I spent more on other parts because I was thinking of building more than one (one to fit a 25 bottle batch of 330ml bottles in a milk crate... slide into the 5x5 grid of bottles, invert the crate, wash. I'm not convinced this is as good as you will still need to rack to the bottle tree to dry). I'll see if I can get this one to work with the Hacker Pschoor crates before I do that, but I will say - 20x 330ml bottles worked a treat on the current one which is making another unlikely (more likely to build another the same... run one for recirculating washing fluid, another for rinsing from tap).

Worth the money? - absolutely! If you are bottling... just build one. So easy and so satisfying.

Spacings if you are interested in the layout I used:
- 19mm Joiners between T pieces - 43mm (and between elbows) x12
- 19mm end cross member - 300mm x1
- 19mm end cross member to faucet T - 135mm from memory ( (300-30)/2 ) x2
- 15mm cross members - just under 300mm - I cut these so they 'just' fit the bottom lip of a Hacker Pschoor crate between the insides of the T pieces. x 5

Total time building... 3hrs? I lost my plans with measurements I had drawn up, so included a lot of messing around. I cut all the pieces with a stainless cut-off disc on the angle grinder which worked really well, but I didn't cut straight most of the time. As long as the largest width of each piece is the same length (mostly 43mm), that isn't really an issue. I had to re-do two of the spacers between T's because the spacings didn't match the crates the first time. Otherwise it is super simple to put together.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

******* AWSOME :super:

 

[lael]

update on this:

- Picked up a submersible dirty water pump from aldi yesterday marked down to $50. looks like it does 14000L/hr. insanely powerful. I'm changing the input T join on the bottle washer to be a 25mm faucet T connection, and putting in 20mm bushes on each side. Allows a greater input from pump and then hits the T and splits two ways.

- Realised I picked up 2 racks (cooling?) from the kitchen section in IKEA made of tubular stainless $5ea (compared to $10/m from ebay store - cut around 6x400mm pieces per rack). Hit them with the angle grinder with stainless cut off disc. They've become the new risers. 7.5/6 mm OD, 1mm wall thickness, just under 200mm long each. I'm planning on pinching the tops with pliers to give turbulence and back pressure. I bought a 7.3 and 7.4mm drill bit off ebay to try. The plastic worked well with 0.2mm difference (hole smaller than riser). Still waiting for the drill bits to arrive to test and finish the new idea.

- planning on making the keg washer soon - I've ordered some 1/4" stainless barbs to thread into some end caps for gas and beer disconnects.

 

[user 36151]

For your keg washer google keg king spray ball if you haven't already seen them,they need a lot of flow to work correctly a dirty water pump ect is needed . connected to a hot water tap with ok pressure hardly any pressure from the jets of the ball and no spinning.

 

[lael]

Looks great osprey. I wasn't planning on spending that much lol

 

[lael]

OK, rigged up the pump tonight. Its awesome. Put some bottles onto test. You can feel the jets hitting the tops of the bottles. I took one off to see how high the jets go out of each riser. It hit the ceiling. Lol.

I used a capful of sodium percarbonate, it foamed like crazy, but worked well. I had to run two rinses to clear off the residue, so I might use less sod. Perc. next time.

Very happy. Super easy to clean. The plastic risers bent over. Keen to try the stainless risers when the drill bits arrive.

 

[professional_drunk]

Got any crusty mouldy bottles to try your washer on and report time taken to clean it?

 

[lael]

Nope. I keep mine pretty clean. The ones I ran today were some ones that a friend was returning. They had a clean once through already and had some stuck bits. I ran them for around 5mins each cycle. One bottle has some stuck gunk on a side. The rest are sparkling.

 

[lael]

Got tired of waiting and replaced the risers with the stainless ones. The I just picked up some bottles today that were 'clean'. they had some gunk inside them. The risers were cut from: http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/40176455/ which is $5 for around 16 200mm stainless tube risers + some effort with an stainless cut off disk on an angle grinder. Bargain.

I used the dremel to widen the holes a little. Some are a little too loose (I'll replace the cross members when the drill bits arrive), so I decided to try without pinching the tops of the tubes. The water pushes to a height of around a half a meter (around a 5.5mm ID). That's some impressive water volume. By comparison mains gets around 3mm. lol.

Might have to get that cleaning head

For your keg washer google keg king spray ball if you haven't already seen them,they need a lot of flow to work correctly a dirty water pump ect is needed . connected to a hot water tap with ok pressure hardly any pressure from the jets of the ball and no spinning.

Osprey - do you use one? Any one have one and have some feedback.

I'm loving this rig so much I'm thinking about buying another pump - have one running cleaning agent and one running rinse water.
Speaking of which - the foaming from the woollies napisan is crazy in this setup. Any recommendations?

 

[user 36151]

Yes i got one for my keg washer which is a work in progress i have a commercial glass washer i will cut the top off and utilise the hot water pump and sump to run the spray ball even has a chemical dosing bit i may use . The spray balls need a lot of pressure as i mentioned before they are also to big to fit in a commercial sanke keg i had to machine a few mm off the diameter i guess they are made for the keg king kegs.heres a pic of my bottle washer i find the pink powder does not foam.Ive also noticed when using sanitiser iodophor it gives off fumes when pumped around the washer.
Sits on a sink and runs out plug hole back into pump bucket i taped a thick plastic bag to the sink outlet to allow easy removal of the bucket like the temporary down pipes used these days in construction.

 

[lael]

That looks cool! I'd like to see your keg washer design.

Which cleaner have you found to be the most effective? Are you cleaning hot / warm / cold? What pump are you using?

Did you play around with the crimping pattern for your risers? What length did you make the risers?

Lots of questions for you!

 

[user 36151]

I use the pink stain remover in 70 deg water i use an old mash tun style cooler for the pump bucket as its insulated and less temp loss.the risers are 240mm about 30mm short of the bottom of long necks. I crimped the risers in the middle as to increase the pressure it seems to be a fork pattern now. The pump is an old style stainless steel grunfoss submersible not sure of the temp rating on it but have not had an issue yet. Not 100% sure but i think most of the temp ratings on them have a bit to do with duty cycle/cooling of the motor windings so short runs at a high temp normaly wont hurt them unless the seals pack it in.here is the glass washer it need a good clean up but they basically have a sump and element a pump and a detergent solonoid fully automated wash then rinse drain ect mechanical timer like a old washing machine.
I plan to replace the sprayer arm with the spray ball and cut a hole through the top panel to sit the kegs in upside down.

 

[booargy]

I have a bigger march pump it doesn't have enough flow to spin a spray ball fast enough but it is good for just normal cleaning. Boiling caustic and sodium perc clean well. I also use it to sanitise kegs before filling by pumping boiling water through them for 20-40min. This was just slapped together.