Ask Dr. Frankenbrew

11/5/23

R2

A good question on our keg cleaning system from alert reader Ryan this week.

Question: Do you have plans or a written description on how you clean kegs? I know there are a couple videos but I’m wondering about your R2 keg washer as I may have limited space to add an air compressor and a stationary keg washer.

Answer: We developed it over time as usual. When I started brewing back in the Stone Age, believe it or not, if I wanted to clean a keg, I removed the spear and soaked everything in caustic.

When I opened the Palisade Brewery, I bought a real turn key system from a defunct brewery in Santa Cruz California. It was a mono bloc 20 BBL brewhouse with a mash tun and rakes sitting on top of a hot liquor tank. It had the nice brewers platform with all the switches you could want. Everything was hard piped with lots of valves. It also came with a Steam Boiler, three 40BBL conicals, one 40BBL bright, A Meheen bottler, a five-ton Glycol Chiller, Malt mill, 40x40 sheet filter, and a keg cleaner that could do 4 kegs at a time. All this for the princely sum of $75,000.

I mention this because by the time I found my marbles again and got out of the packaging brewing business and back to brewpubs with Colorado Boy in Ridgway, I was thinking about that keg cleaner. It seemed to me I could do the same thing to clean one keg at a time with my pump that I already had and about $150 in parts. It worked great and we made a super professional video on how it worked.

But what Ryan wants to know is about our R2 unit we developed. Basically we just use a keg and build a keg cleaner set up attached to it. It’s also a grant, so with two uses it became known as (R2), but wait, then we realized it could also be used for a CIP tank (CIP3O), Oh shoot, we found one more use - adding a screen to the bottom (you get these at home brew supply houses to turn a keg into a mash tun - and voila! it’s also a hop back!

Here is a video on what it looks like.

Here is the procedure.

1. Attach pump outlet to middle TC

2. Attach keg filler to Product TC

3. Add hot Acid #6 to R2 and appropriate amount of water

4. Run keg filler drain hose to floor sink after attached to keg and placed upside down on R2

5. Open keg filler gas outlet to drain keg

6. Open keg filler product inlet

7. Turn on hot water to rinse keg. Rinse twice

8. Replace keg filler outlet from drain back into sink

9. Turn pump on. Set valve at 15psi and run for 2 minutes

10. Allow Acid to drain back into R2. Push with burst of CO2

11. Run keg filler drain hose to floor sink

12. Turn on hot water to rinse keg. Do this twice.

13. While final rinse is draining, turn CO2 on. When all water is rinsed from keg

      turn off drain hose valve and allow CO2 pressure to build to 10#.

14. Turn all filler valves off and remove keg.

If you watch the video and follow along with this list I hope it is clear. This covers cleaning, rinsing, and pressurizing a keg. Yes it’s true we don’t run a sanitizing loop. Our kegs (and we don’t use many because we use serving tanks) are only for in house. If you had keg accounts, then I would recommend you skip the pressurizing and instead drain and rinse your R2 then fill with sanitizer, run your sanitizing loop and proceed with set 13.

Easy Peasy? I didn’t think so, but if you are a brewpub and only need to clean 5 or 6 kegs a week it’s a great Frankenbrew way to do it. Here is a parts list. I’m not sure the links still work, but as smart Frankenbrewer’s you can figure it out.

Keg Washer Parts

Manifold http://www.gwkent.com/manifold-1.html

Elbow (2) http://www.gwkent.com/elbow-tc.html

Butterfly  http://www.gwkent.com/tri-clamp-butterfly-valves-plastic-handle.html

Sankey Tap http://www.gwkent.com/beer-keg-coupler-american-sankey.html

Beer Nut ball valve (2) http://www.gwkent.com/beer-line-ball-valve-stainless-steel.html

Pressure Guage http://www.gwkent.com/digital-sanitary-pressure-gauges-1.html

TC to make CO2 Adapter to Ball Valve http://www.gwkent.com/female-adaptor.html

Ball valve for CO2 http://www.gwkent.com/ball-valves-nptf.html

TC Hose Barb http://www.gwkent.com/hose-barb.html

Also need braided hose from hardware store to attach sankey valve to TC Hose Barb – use 5/16 hose. On the exhaust part of the sankey vale use ¾ inch braided hose

All of this and more is outlined in my International Best Seller, Colorado Boy SOP Standard Operating Procedures, link below.