kegging with sankey kegs

My advise. Use Corny kegs. Cheers.

 

I don't have any advice, other than using punctuation and capitalization.

 

This will probably get moved to the homebrew forums. While I can't help, I just want to say welcome to BA. Never mind the snarkiness above, most BAs are friendly.

 

Yeah, welcome to the BA site, Paul. We're all a bunch of nice people here, so don't worry about short-answer replies. Everyone is always in a hurry.

The thread will get moved, probably to the homebrewing forum since your question involves a homebrew transfer procedure, but there is also a Home Bar forum too that might be helpful. You can browse either forum to see if an answer is available, or post your question again in the homebrewing forum.

I did a search of the homebrewing forum looking only at thread titles and used 'sankey' as the search word. Only one thread came back in that search, and it's a closed thread from 2012:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/packaging-homebrew-in-a-sankey-keg.40620/

I did the same search of the Home Bar forum and there were two threads there:
https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...&t=post&o=date&g=1&c[title_only]=1&c[node]=43

There could be additional discussions without that word in the thread title, so you could give that a try too.

 

It's actually spelled "Sanke" (no "y" at the end). Searching on "Sanke" should bring back a lot of posts. Beyond that, I don't know much about using Sanke kegs, but I do know that about 99% of people that buy or find them are in possession of stolen property, even though they may not be the original thief. @pauldog welcome to BA indeed! Hope yours are legal.

 

To do it right, and without trashing your keg. You will need about $100 dollars worth of extra stuff in your toolbox. Namely a spear, or two, and a valve remover. I recommend getting two spear removers, because the first couple times are a bitch.
I have to do that with the barrel aged beer we have at work. Not my favorite method. But. Put a blanket of c02 in there, and go to town.
Protip: Wear long sleeves, and try to not stab yourself with a spear. You will discover that brewers seem to enjoy designing things for the express purpose of torturing themselves. Because it's kind of easy to have a swipe at yourself if the ring is seated deeply. It really hurts, and will definitely leave a scar if it hits you.
You'll probably want to wash, and sanitize that keg once it gets pried open as well.

 

Paul, I work a decent amount with both sankeys and cornys. My advice for kegging is to just use cornys, because removing the lids just makes cleaning a lot easier.
If you have access to a professional keg cleaner like this one, then you can use the sankey.

If not, you can jerry-rig a cleaner with a pump, a bucket, and a coupler and some tubing. But it will be a pain in the ass, way less effective than a pro one, and you’ll never know if it’s truly clean unless you dissemble it.

If you can clean then without taking them apart, I would highly recommend it. You can easily fill them without taking them apart. All you need is a coupler and some tubing (and a couple of barbs, nuts and gaskets). It’s how pretty much every small pro brewery fills kegs.

Now, as @MostlyNorwegian said, you can disassemble them every time you need to clean them, but without special tools it will suck every time, and they are NOT built for repeated breakdown. Eventually you start to wear out parts.

Finally, you mentioned you have 8 gallon kegs? Never heard of these. Are you talking about 1/4bbl kegs? Those are 7.75 gal.

IMO, unless you have access to a professional keg cleaner, sankeys don’t make sense in kegging homebrew. HOWEVER, they are useful for other things. Personally, I have a couple of de-speared 1/4 kegs that I use for fermenting 10 gal. batches when I don’t want to make full batch for the conical. They are also great for bulk aging and lagering.
There are attachments you can buy to convert the tops to pressurizeable fermenters. Also, the quick and dirty way is to use an orange ‘carboy cap’.

As @VikeMan said, please check the legality of your ownership of these before you do anything to them. All my kegs are from breweries that have closed, so my conscience is clean!

And it goes without saying...DON’T REMOVE THE SPEAR UNLESS YOU ARE 100% SURE THERE IS ZERO PRESSURE!
Seriously...you can die.

Good luck!

 

Actually, he’s right. It is “Sankey”. Named after then-named GKN Sankey Ltd. which manufactured parts for many industries, and developed the Sankey from a concept designed by the now-closed Flowers Brewery.
They are now GKN plc and focus on automotive and aerospace.

 

Homebrewers have no use for Sanke kegs. They solve a problem you don't have. Corney kegs are a much better option.

• Be very careful removing the spear. You can easily lose a tooth or an eye. Really. No joke. It's not something you do casually without some knowledge.
• Don't steal kegs. The karma is incredibly bad. And it makes you a criminal. Like the people who go to jail.
• You don't have a keg cleaner. Sanke kegs are difficult to clean without the proper equipment.

Sanke = Sankey = Sanitary Key. Micromatic manufactures the vast majority of spears and bungs available. Many keg manufacturers but the actual hardware is mostly Micromatic. That's just interesting is all.

The collective wisdom of a few thousand homebrewers is telling you to use Corneys and to avoid sanke kegs.
Good luck.

 

I would recommend getting a keg coupler and driving your beer over with c02. It's a lot easier, and more practical than spending several minutes nearly stabbing yourself with a spear to get an enclosed environment open.
Keg couplers are a lot easier to work with than your hands in this case, and also to use for cleaning kegs with than manually ripping it open. You already have a small workstation to clean on with with your kegs. Just get a 5 gal bucket that can handle temps above 140ºf. Oh, and a CIP pump. Those aren't cheap.
For a significant reduction of costs, and risk of injury. I also recommend a corney keg that is modded.

 

Not to mention, he’s going need a couple of couplers (no pun intended) to serve anyway.

 

Pretty much all of this. Except for the ‘sanitary key’ bit. Sankey = Joseph Sankey & Sons.
It’s a long and pretty uninteresting story.

 

Well. If you got the valve removal and spears in house already. Safety third, and go to town. Depressurize and get ready to stab yourself.
I personally am looking forward to the day I can lose those two pieces of equipment. I can't stand using them.

 

Interesting. I wonder why so many people spell it "Sanke," at least here on BA. I learned something new and it's not even lunchtime. A good day!

 

It’s a super common beer misspelling. I’ve even seen ‘Sanke’ in parts catalogues! I’m a huge beer pronounciation **** so I just had to say something.
I swear I’m fun at parties! Unless I hear someone at said party say their beer has some ‘die-ass-ee-toll’ in it, then they are going to hear it!

For any soccer fans, GKN Sankey F.C. was a team for about 25 years and even competed in the Premier League for a few years! This was back when most clubs were ‘work teams’, just the factory workers playing together after hours against other factories..


Sankeys ‘83-‘84 team photo.

 

My instructor at Micromatic told me the story.
I would not put it beyond MM to advance their brand at any cost. Very good equipment. 800 pound jackholes of the draft equipment biz though.
Cheers.