Sanke Keg Washer build

[marcb]

Whats the process flow for the signle vessel system? Are you celaning all kegs then dumping the vessel and filling with sanitiser?

Yes, this is really just an adjunct to the main washer. I will rinse, clean, rinse and purge with air then, two at a time will go on the second cart for sanitizing with a co2 purge. What I'm thinking about is a three or four vessel system that is fully automated with pneumatic valves (I need air pressure on board anyways!) and do a water rinse, purge, clean, purge, hot water rinse, sanitize. I still have a bit of research to do as I haven't found a commercial version with more than two tanks so I'm definitely missing something with how commercial cleaners work....


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[joelrapp]

Why not just buy a commercial one? DME makes one almost exactly like this. Great product and easy to use. Though theirs is built on 220V.

 

[rvklein]

And theirs is $5000


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[marcb]

Why not just buy a commercial one? DME makes one almost exactly like this. Great product and easy to use. Though theirs is built on 220V.

I love building things! Cost was a factor. Ultimately I want to automate the whole shebang to cut down on labor. Automated two station washers/fillers can run up to 16k!


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[nvrstck]

Not very many : (

It goes like this: two on at a time, 20 min PBW wash cycle, 20 min hot water rinse. I use compressed air to purge the kegs before I wash, after the wash and after the rinse. Repeat this 45 min cycle for each pair of kegs to clean (regardless of size) I usually wash 8-16 kegs per session so 3-6 hours and am usually tooling around the brewery doing other clean up or work on the brewhaus, fermenters etc. The next day prior to kegging I sanitize all of them which is another 20 min saniclean cycle with a co2 purge which is 6 per hour. Actual labor is 5-10 minutes per pair total....

Mark, Have you switched to caustic instead of PBW in new brewery? I'm wondering how many you could do per hour using commercial caustic & sanitizer vice PBW and water. I want to build something similar for a new brewery project.

 

[marcb]

Mark, Have you switched to caustic instead of PBW in new brewery? I'm wondering how many you could do per hour using commercial caustic & sanitizer vice PBW and water. I want to build something similar for a new brewery project.

Not yet, but I need to look into it. Pbst has a fully automatic keg washer that uses 4 steps, I'm still not sure how the caustic works as last I checked it needed a rinse as well before sanitizing. The pbst model rinses with city water, cleaner, filtered water rinse and sanitizer. That's a boatload of steps depending on length of each cycle it seems like it wouldn't be too many per hour.


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[ClaudiusB]

Thank you for sharing your process and build.

I have to say very nice and you used my favorite color, "Stainless".

I am currently monkeying around with a similar issue using 2 Igloo Cube coolers and 2 sump pumps, from Home Depot (1 PBW, 1 Starsan), garden hose and a C02 Tank. Shocked once and I get soaked every time I wash Kegs.

I cannot wait to see how your build turns out.

/s Tufftoad

I went with two 12 V DC pumps from Harbor Freight, one for soap and one for sanitizer.
Those little pumps have a great suction and no priming required.
For water wash and rinse I use only city water pressure.

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

[nvrstck]

What I'm thinking about is a three or four vessel system that is fully automated with pneumatic valves (I need air pressure on board anyways!) and do a water rinse, purge, clean, purge, hot water rinse, sanitize. I still have a bit of research to do as I haven't found a commercial version with more than two tanks so I'm definitely missing something with how commercial cleaners work....

I saw one last night that was a single pump, single tank but had city water rinse connection and also a sanitizer connection. For the sanitizer it was water line with a venturi that drew suction on a bottle of sanitizer.

I also saw what you're looking for yesterday at another brewery. Premier makes a "Master Keg Tech 3A" automatic, 3-head, 3-vessel, 3-pump pneumatic system www.premierstainless.com/ThreeStationSemiAutoKegWasher.pdf. Hope that helps. I'd love to see you make one of these so I can borrow your design

 

[marcb]

Testing out a couple of additional steps today, added an additional pre-rinse with 185 degree filtered water prior to the first PBW cycle. I did this by adding a three way valve on top of the pump out valve.

I also added a separate sanitizing station so that I can sanitize while cleaning/rinsing the two kegs. If this works out I will make another small cart for the sanitizing setup and incorporate a shelf for the new, quiet air compressor.




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[marcb]

Cleaning 2, sanitizing a third!


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[ClaudiusB]

View attachment 186279View attachment 186280

Cleaning 2, sanitizing a third!


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Looking great!

 

[marcb]

Looking great!

Thanks! So my test run was 10 kegs yesterday with a 2min pre-rinse, 25 min PBW, 25 min host water rinse, 15 min Sanitize - CO2 purge. It took about 3.5 hours total. I can save significant time in this process but it was a great first run. After washing 10 kegs with the pre-rinse the PBW was so clean (and still at 180 degrees) so I used it to soak the coils for one of my fermenters afterwards. This now allows me to wash as many kegs as I want on cleaning days where my limit was about 8 before the PBW was past the point of re-use. I also stripped and cleaned all valves, pumps and tanks yesterday in prep for brew day next sunday!

 

[ClaudiusB]

Thanks! So my test run was 10 kegs yesterday with a 2min pre-rinse, 25 min PBW, 25 min host water rinse, 15 min Sanitize - CO2 purge. It took about 3.5 hours total. I can save significant time in this process but it was a great first run. After washing 10 kegs with the pre-rinse the PBW was so clean (and still at 180 degrees) so I used it to soak the coils for one of my fermenters afterwards. This now allows me to wash as many kegs as I want on cleaning days where my limit was about 8 before the PBW was past the point of re-use. I also stripped and cleaned all valves, pumps and tanks yesterday in prep for brew day next sunday!

It takes me 18 minutes to wash a Corny keg inside and outside. This includes water prewash, soap, water rinse and acid sanitizing.
Bad part is manual loading/unloading

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

[marcb]

It takes me 18 minutes to wash a Corny keg inside and outside. This includes water prewash, soap, water rinse and acid sanitizing.
Bad part is manual loading/unloading

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

I've been using the PBW recommended CIP time, what are your cycles? I'd love to dial down the keg washing time to 18 minutes per pair as in the near future per batch I'm looking at 20 kegs...

 

[ClaudiusB]

I've been using the PBW recommended CIP time, what are your cycles? I'd love to dial down the keg washing time to 18 minutes per pair as in the near future per batch I'm looking at 20 kegs...

Water pre-wash: Outside of keg and dip tubes 1 minute
Inside of keg 2 minutes

Soap wash: Outside of keg and dip tubes 2 minutes
Inside of keg 6 minutes

Water rinse: Outside of keg and dip tubes 1 minute
Inside of keg 2 minutes

Acid sanitizing pH <3: Outside of keg and dip tubes 1 minute
Inside of keg 2 minutes

Plus over head for valve motion and pump delays.
Total cycle time is 17.7 minutes as per controller.

The kegs look like new on the inside, no beer stone.
Only time will tell.

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

[marcb]

Water pre-wash: Outside of keg and dip tubes 1 minute
Inside of keg 2 minutes

Soap wash: Outside of keg and dip tubes 2 minutes
Inside of keg 6 minutes

Water rinse: Outside of keg and dip tubes 1 minute
Inside of keg 2 minutes

Acid sanitizing pH <3: Outside of keg and dip tubes 1 minute
Inside of keg 2 minutes

Plus over head for valve motion and pump delays.
Total cycle time is 17.7 minutes as per controller.

The kegs look like new on the inside, no beer stone.
Only time will tell.

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

I'm going to reach out to a few of the commercial keg washer vendors to see what their total program time is for their automated washers or kegs per hour cleaned as well as their recommended cleaning agents. It would be great to be able to clean/sanitize 6-8 kegs per hour. Ideally my rate would be 10 kegs per hour for a two hour keg cleaning session with another hour for set up/teardown for 3BBL batches.

 

[ClaudiusB]

I'm going to reach out to a few of the commercial keg washer vendors to see what their total program time is for their automated washers or kegs per hour cleaned as well as their recommended cleaning agents. It would be great to be able to clean/sanitize 6-8 kegs per hour. Ideally my rate would be 10 kegs per hour for a two hour keg cleaning session with another hour for set up/teardown for 3BBL batches.

They have a short cycle time per keg.
You could purchase a White Labs test kit, run different cycle times and let the lab tell you how well you did.


Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

[marcb]

They have a short cycle time per keg.

You could purchase a White Labs test kit, run different cycle times and let the lab tell you how well you did.





Cheers,

ClaudiusB

So they didn't disclose the cleaners recommended but I presume caustic. 4-5 minute total cycle per head (typically two cleaning heads on the unit) so I'm guessing my cycles are ridiculously long at this point....


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[leginx]

Yeah. Was reading this recently, http://www.birkocorp.com/brewery/white-papers/keg-cleaning/. They recommend a Nitric/phosphoric/detergent rinse which cleans and eliminates beer stone. You'll definitely want the nitric acid for beerstone removal. Not sure if you could use PBW and Acid#5 together at a certain ratio, rinse, and then finish with a no-rinse sanitizer. Cycles are usually 5 minutes, sometimes less. Depends on setup and chemicals.

 

[marcb]

Yeah. Was reading this recently, http://www.birkocorp.com/brewery/white-papers/keg-cleaning/. They recommend a Nitric/phosphoric/detergent rinse which cleans and eliminates beer stone. You'll definitely want the nitric acid for beerstone removal. Not sure if you could use PBW and Acid#5 together at a certain ratio, rinse, and then finish with a no-rinse sanitizer. Cycles are usually 5 minutes, sometimes less. Depends on setup and chemicals.

Sweet! Great info, thanks!


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[mattd2]

Yeah. Was reading this recently, http://www.birkocorp.com/brewery/white-papers/keg-cleaning/. They recommend a Nitric/phosphoric/detergent rinse which cleans and eliminates beer stone. You'll definitely want the nitric acid for beerstone removal. Not sure if you could use PBW and Acid#5 together at a certain ratio, rinse, and then finish with a no-rinse sanitizer. Cycles are usually 5 minutes, sometimes less. Depends on setup and chemicals.

Don't quote me but I don't think you would want to run nitric + PBW together. From memory I thought a beer stone cycle was to do an additional acid wash prior to the caustic wash as if you do it the other way round the cuastic can actually "set" the beer stone harder. And I think the recomendation was not every washing cycle needs to have the acid wash, something like every 3-5 times maybe.
How's that for indecisive

 

[ClaudiusB]

Don't quote me but I don't think you would want to run nitric + PBW together. From memory I thought a beer stone cycle was to do an additional acid wash prior to the caustic wash as if you do it the other way round the cuastic can actually "set" the beer stone harder. And I think the recomendation was not every washing cycle needs to have the acid wash, something like every 3-5 times maybe.
How's that for indecisive

You are remembering the traditonal method.
Birko has been preaching for years an alternative method.
Something to read during TV commercials.
http://www.birkocorp.com/brewery/wh...stone-a-look-at-alternative-cleaning-methods/

Cheers,
Claudius

 

[marcb]

Ok, just to throw it out there to you all.... Has anyone thought about or played with Ozone for this application? I've seen some academia on the subject but would like to know if anyone else has considered this.


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[mattd2]

You are remembering the traditonal method.
Birko has been preaching for years an alternative method.
Something to read during TV commercials.
http://www.birkocorp.com/brewery/wh...stone-a-look-at-alternative-cleaning-methods/

Cheers,
Claudius

Sooooooooo... yeah that is the exact article I remember reading a couple of years ago, so it looks like I remembered a bit wrong

 

[ClaudiusB]

Ok, just to throw it out there to you all.... Has anyone thought about or played with Ozone for this application? I've seen some academia on the subject but would like to know if anyone else has considered this.


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I have never thought about using Ozone with my toy setup but read about it.

Here is an write up about Ozone use in the wine industry and OSHA.

http://www.practicalwinery.com/janfeb00/ozone.htm

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

[marcb]

A couple of other interesting ozone related reads is anyone's interested.

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/lif...eousozoneforcleaningoperationsinbreweries.pdf

http://www.cwtozone.com/uploads/Sal.../Technical Papers/Ozone Used in Breweries.pdf



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[PacificNWBrewer]

I'm sure it's In this thread somewhere... But what pump are you using? Is it strong enough for a CIP ball?

 

[marcb]

I'm sure it's In this thread somewhere... But what pump are you using? Is it strong enough for a CIP ball?

March ac5 nano pump, yes it works fine and drives a 20gpm sprayball from glacier tanks fine for CIP applications. I've since moved on to larger pumps and vfd drives but we use the ac5's for several applications.

 

[dolemike]

Hi Marc,
Do you have a parts list for this build. I have the time and the money now to buy the parts and put it together

 

[marcb]

Hi Marc,
Do you have a parts list for this build. I have the time and the money now to buy the parts and put it together

Hi Mike, I believe it's in the thread somewhere... Check it out and if you can't find it let me know and I will dig it up. Also take a look at my other 3bbl thread as I'm building a CIP cart that will also double as a 3 keg washer as well.

 

[skelley]

could you use a third input to the pump which is water directly from in line hot water heater. Would the flow be adequate or would you need to fill a third vessel and drain by gravity? You could have a combination or 2 three way valves into the pump thus supplying caustic or rinse water or sanitizer.
Great build

 

[marcb]

could you use a third input to the pump which is water directly from in line hot water heater. Would the flow be adequate or would you need to fill a third vessel and drain by gravity? You could have a combination or 2 three way valves into the pump thus supplying caustic or rinse water or sanitizer.
Great build

I actually added a three way valve after the pump out that is the direct inlet from the tankless and at muni pressure does a great job for rinsing after initial purge and post pbw/caustic

 

[skelley]

Do you just leave the pump running while you are running the tap water or do you shut it down? If left running have you had any problems with the pump?

 

[skelley]

I am looking to use as cip for tanks as well and think the pump pressure would be needs for the tanks. This is why I want to add the hot water rinse supply prior to the pump inlet. Does that make sense?

 

[marcb]

Do you just leave the pump running while you are running the tap water or do you shut it down? If left running have you had any problems with the pump?

No need, I do one keg at a time 45 second hot water rinse. With both keg valves open it is weaker, I don't know how the pump would react with that kind of pressure on the inlet....

 

[skelley]

I get that but it certainly would not be enough pressure to use as cip for big tanks. I am designing mine for dual use.
Anyone have any ideas on this?

 

[marcb]

I get that but it certainly would not be enough pressure to use as cip for big tanks. I am designing mine for dual use.
Anyone have any ideas on this?

I have a design and build for a CIP cart/3 head keg washer I am happy to share.

 

[skelley]

That would be great. Could you just email be [email protected]

 

[maierhof]

Ok - I thought I would share what I just learned:

I just got off the phone with Five Star and they are saying that 90% of their clients are doing an Acid #6 wash, then burst rinse, then SaniClean wash nowadays. Acid Wash #6 has a detergent effect to it and is specifically made for a co2 environment too - which is what I am doing. Apparently this is also cheaper than doing what I have been talking about...

There are others still using a PBW wash, rinse, then Acid#5, rinse, then SaniClean method. Or even just a PBW, rinse, SaniClean method as a base line and doing an Acid#5 wash every 6 months. With Acid #5 - they said you have to wait for the keg to drain and purge completely - and with Acid #6 you don't and can purge with co2.

 

[tjbrewer00]

Hey Marcb, I work at a 1.5bbbl brewery in Pinellas and absolutely love your keg washer design! Would you consider sharing your design plans/blueprints for this system? As one of the guys who has to clean the kegs, this would make life so much better as we're still pulling rings and spears. Cheers!