Keg Cleaning

[brahn]

I forget where I was browsing the other day but I saw someone had fashioned a keg cleaner from a submersible pump hooked up to some keg QD's. Since I already had the pump I figured this would be cheap and easy so I gave it a try today. On the first trial it seems like it worked pretty well. It was certainly easy to build and use. The keg I cleaned wasn't particularly nasty since it had only been empty a week or two, so that probably helped.

Here are some photos I took while I was testing it:

http://www.brewcommune.com/coppermine/t ... p?album=52

Has anyone else tried something like this? Do you have any suggestions to improve it? I'm not sure what temperatures that pump can handle, but I think it would clean better with hot pbw.

Brent

[backyard brewer]

We didn't drink that much that day. That was mine.

I need a more powerful pump and some way to keep the cleaning fluid hot. The first keg i clean cleans ok, but once the PBW cools off, that's all she wrote. I think a dishwasher pump is the way to go, they develop a lot of pressure.

[JonGoku]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I'm loving the blue masking tape and sharpie label

[maltbarley]

The current issue of Zymurgy has plans for a keg washer: complete with heating element. Those elements are relatively cheap.

[jward]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I'm loving the blue masking tape and sharpie label

It's probably better to post it in the correct thread. I'm curious, why post in this thread and not the one about labels?

[JonGoku]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I'm loving the blue masking tape and sharpie label

It's probably better to post it in the correct thread. I'm curious, why post in this thread and not the one about labels?

Because Brahn posted the picture of the label (or at least a link to the picture) in this thread, I assumed it was not taboo to comment on it here. Sorry if I offended anyone.

[brahn]

No worries Jon, I knew what you meant. (and that's by far my favorite way to label things these days)

[backyard brewer]

Don't worry about it. JWard probabaly didn't look at the pictures and thought you were commenting on the label thread.

[dhempy]

Jon:

I think your comment was relevant to this thread ... after all, It was a comment about one of this thread's pics. If it really took the "conversation" in a different direction, then one of our admins would've split it off anyway.

Derrin: How is your keg cleaner project ... are you looking for a DW pump? Do you think a washing machine pump would work?

Dan

[gromitdj]

If you are interested in building this, I would check out the brewing network gadget show http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/The- ... adget-Show.

Doc talks about his Carboy & Keg cleaner. If you use the little giant pump that he talks about, you won't need the heating element, as the pump action heats the water enough after 20-30 minutes.

You can also find an alternative design on wortomatic.com. http://www.wortomatic.com/articles/Heat ... oy-Cleaner

I haven't finished it yet, but I purchased a used little giant 1/6 HP pump on e-bay for $30.00.

[jward]

Because Brahn posted the picture of the label (or at least a link to the picture) in this thread, I assumed it was not taboo to comment on it here. Sorry if I offended anyone.

I'm not offended and didn't mean to bust your chops. I just thought you figured you were hijacking but didn't mean to. I don't understand hijacking and thought I might understand it better. Of course, now I'm hijacking the thread.

[dhempy]

You can also find an alternative design on wortomatic.com. http://www.wortomatic.com/articles/Heat ... oy-Cleaner

Welcome gromitdj. I like that design on wortomatic ... nice find.

Hope to see you here contributing often.

Dan

[gromitdj]

Thanks for the welcome,

I joined quite a while ago and have only posted a few times. I imagine I will have quite a few questions once I "officially" start brewing. So far I have only brewed a few Mr. Beer batches. You can guess how well they turned out. It was enough to get me hooked though. Now all I do in my spare time is research brewing beer. I will contribute what little I can, but will probably absorb a lot more information than I contribute. The wort-o-matic website belongs to Push Eject from the Brewing Network forums and has a lot of cool gadget builds. It's worth checking out. I'm also going to build the 38DD mother of fermentation chamber on the site.

[brahn]

The wort-o-matic cleaner is interesting and fairly similar to the one in the latest Zymurgy but with the addition of the hookups for the keg posts. I didn't want to be bothered with drilling 72+ holes (from the Zymurgy article) in a pipe to get the spray head working if I didn't have to. So far in my one test the keg seemed to get clean just by pushing the solution through the dip tubes alone. Since I have no interest in cleaning carboys, I'm not sure the spray head would be necessary.

I do need to test in a nastier keg to see if it's still effective (Derrin, do you need a keg cleaned? ) I also want to test with hot water, but I'll admit that I'm a bit paranoid about building my own heat stick. I'll probably just heat it up on the stove and let it cool off as it cleans.

[maltbarley]

One big plus to the zymurgy plans was the temp control and a timer: nice additions for those of us with less-than-perfect short term memory.