Who wants an easy way to clean kegs?

[2much2spend]

This is mine which I built earlier this year completely from stuff I had available around the house including a dirty water pump.
Quick disconnect goes into the beer out to give the dip tube a good blast as well.

The pump has some serious grunt and blasts the water through the attached hose right to the top of the keg.

Admittedly I have only used it once so far but have cleaned 10 kegs in that one session.
A few minutes with hot sodium percarbonate solution and another session with star san.

impressive!

 

[Black Devil Dog]

Lets re-invent the wheel...again.

Whichever non toxic, toxic, reef destroying, ozone depleteing, dugong extincting, cane farmer killing, keg cleaner you use, just make sure you run it through your lines and taps as well. Then everything will be ok.

 

[manticle]

If people didn't constantly reinvent wheels we'd still make them out of stone rather than titanium. Granite ronals anyone?

 

[Bomber Watson]

If people didn't constantly reinvent wheels we'd still make them out of stone rather than titanium. Granite ronals anyone?

Quoted for absolutely no reason other than to help put some thought towards the epicness of this post.

 

[Batz]

Seems the post has gone south so WTF.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

If people didn't constantly reinvent wheels we'd still make them out of stone rather than titanium. Granite ronals anyone?

FYI Titanium comes from stone.

 

[manticle]

Reinvented stone.

 

[Bomber Watson]

You cant cobble titanium.....

 

[MastersBrewery]

You cant cobble titanium.....

cheap skate

 

[Coalminer]

Those Aldi $40 pumps are only rated to 30C max working temp

 

[Pugdog1]

Probably not many pumps out there with enough pressure with a higher temp range for cheap

 

[S.E]

Those Aldi $40 pumps are only rated to 30C max working temp

That’s what I thought and exactly the reason why I abandoned the idea of building something similar with a Bunnings pump and spray ball a few months ago. Interesting if they do in fact handle higher temps though, I may have to re visit the project if so.

 

[Gosling]

I just learned that I really should flush my dip tube with something more than water from garden hose (I have been using a kitchen fork to press down the poppet and a concurrent squirt from the garden hose) and Yobs method of k2k assuming I'm doing multiple kegs looks the way to go. I don't have access to perc so napisan will have to do.


and today I also learned I can buy pure trisodium phosphate in bunnies for 15 bux a kilo.. :blink: . I am surprised it is legal down under actually, I know phosphate containing detergents are banned in Canada and concentrations are limited in some US states. Or down under are they banned in laundry detergents but industrial cleaners exempt ?

 

[2much2spend]

Those Aldi $40 pumps are only rated to 30C max working temp

yeah but you can still use percarb warm or cold.

 

[leighaus]

i moved to kegging because cleaning was easy... Lets just remember the bottle suckers for a minute.

 

[S.E]

yeah but you can still use percarb warm or cold.

But for the pumped keg cleaner to work fast and efficiently you would need it to be around 60c- 70c otherwise might as well just soak them overnight cold?

 

[Weizguy]

I hooked this setup together tonight, to test my magnetic pump.
I bought a few of these Junior kegs with D-type connector. Kettle's first use too.
Had to drain beer out of the kegs first, so I did it with the aftermarket D-connector with the one way valves removed, and emptied into a keggle, which I will the empty on the garden.
Mixed up about 60 litres of Coles generic percarbonate stain remover into the kettle and heated that while I drained 4 kegs and peeled off a load of stickers and sticky tape.
I connected the adaptor into the keg, and inverted it over the kettle on a couple of pieces of plastic square tube (to hold the keg above the kettle), and fired up the pump, and ran for 10 minutes per keg.


Photo 1 is an overview shot
Photo 2 shows the keg connector and the keg sitting on the square tube that was handy
Photo 3 is a side shot, with the tubing coming up from the pump, over the side of the kettle and up into the Beer Out connector
The hot percarbonate solution then pumps into the dip tube and up into the bottom of the keg across the bottom and down the sides of the keg and down out of the Gas In part of the connector.
The hot cleaning solution then returns to the kettle.
I hope a 10 minute cycle is enough for these kegs, as I do not know their history, but it looks like they made a few trips to a major commercial beer competition.
Will rinse with water and then recirculate some Brewsan sanitiser, which I would have done tonight, if I had enough time.

Will repeat with the other 4 Junior kegs and 3 30 litre kegs (2 X D type and 1 x A-type).
Hope this helps someone. Maybe I can post more photos when I finish the job.