Keg cleaning chemicals

[johnnymax]

I am about to start filling sankey kegs and I was told to clean them with caustic, then acid, but I am not sure exacly what to get and how much to use. Any help on procedures and a source will be appreciated.

[BrewinLou]

Pump hot caustic 170+ through the spear for 3-5 minutes. Purge, rinse, pump sanitizer through the spear for 5 min. We use dioxychlor, which takes acid to activate. Then rinse and purge with CO2. You certainly can throw an acid wash into that cycle with no problems. You should follow the chemical manufacturers guildlines for proper mixing concentrations.

[johnnymax]

Has anybody used Sterox?

[gitchegumee]

I don't mean to be negative here, however keg cleaning is so very important that you should have someone who is an expert give you hand-on training if (as your post suggests) you haven't done this before. Learning from this board is insufficient, IMHO. There must be another brewery that you can volunteer at for a few days to learn this important job. Using NaOH solutions and purging with CO2, for example, would be disastrous. Leaving residual cleaners in the keg will contaminate your product, also potentially disastrous. Ditto for spot-checking kegs by removing the spear and forgetting to relieve pressure. So many things to get right--each and every time. Like the old adage goes; "you never make beer better by packaging it". Good luck!

[johnnymax]

This is a test run on a small 1 barrel batch of Cream Ale I brewed Friday.
I am not sure we will be kegging our mead, but it sure would be nice. The taxes double if it is carbonated. It must be because of the mega breweries lobbying to put laws in place that keep the small guy from making a profit....

Thanks guys. Hey where can I get a good deal on the tool to remove the O-ring?
GW Kent did not have it?
Oh, and I know to releave the pressure before trying to remove the spear. You don't want the spear to become a spear! :eek:

[Coast]

Try St. Pat's of Texas. Lots of SS stuff. I think 75$ for the removal tool.

[johnnymax]

I did see St. Pat's tool to release the pressure and the Sanke Knives. I really need the Sanke Knives I guess.

I remember the first time I released the pressure on a sankey keg. It was about 5 years ago and I was being coached. I pushed the ball down with a srewdrive and I had the keg upright and it was half full of beer and it had been in the sun... Yes I took a bath in hot stale beer!:(

You need to pick your coaches carefully...

[troybinso]

Micromatic has a pretty good selection of keg-related equipment as well.

[johnnymax]

I found the Sankey Knife used to remove the o-ring at St. Pats for $30:eek:
I copied and pasted the image of the sankey knife into Word, scaled it up to about 6" then printed it out.
I then took the picture, trimmed it out with a pair of scissors and used it as a template. I marked the shape of the blade on an old butter knife (accuired with the wifes permission).
I took my hand grinder and ground it to the marks in about 2 minutes. I went over to the Sanke with my new "Sankey Butter-knife" and popped out the o-ring in about 30 seconds and I did not ruin the o-ring either. The inside looked good, but it smelled sour of course. I should be ready to key this weekend

Thanks for all the help guys.

[johnnymax]

Pictures of my "Sankey Butter Knife":D
http://beertribe.com/forum/index.php?topic=2018.0