[hopfenundmalz]

Good luck on the opening, and may the taps keep flowing! Have fun.

[morticaixavier]

looks great tom. break a leg!

[micsager]

Very cool Tom.  We'll be over that way in a couple weeks.  Gonna have to stop by and try some.......

[Thirsty_Monk]

Looking good. Thanks for sharing. If you have any questions, let me know.

[euge]

We're having a short happy hour from 5-7 to launch, it can't be a huge event due to the size of the space.

Cheers all!

What- you've never seen Tampopo?

Looks great. Lots of hard work and your experience and skills will surely pay off. Congrats!

[boulderbrewer]

couple questions, How is your water vapor evacuated on the boil kettle? (serious question) and do you got a lock on that pannel that supplies the taps?

[tschmidlin]

Whew.  Launch was a big success, the place was packed and we sold lots of beer, soda, and ice cream, many floats, growlers, shirts, etc.  Good times.  As it turns out we can fit a lot more than 15 people.

couple questions, How is your water vapor evacuated on the boil kettle? (serious question) and do you got a lock on that pannel that supplies the taps?

The lid on the kettle is hinged, so I take off the smaller part of the lid and the vapor floats out the top of the kettle.   I tripped the breaker for the lights the first time I brewed on the system, but I moved the lights and my batches of soda haven't tripped anything since so I'm hopeful it won't be a problem for the next beer.  I also started using fans to blow the air out the open window/door, which is right next to the kettle.  It is not ideal, but it's functional so far.

Yes, there is a lock on the panel   Top right corner in the pics.  And it is covered with posters now, so it's a lot less obvious that it is an access door.

What- you've never seen Tampopo?

No, and it's 2 hours long so I'm not watching it   What is Tampopo?

Looking good. Thanks for sharing. If you have any questions, let me know.

Thanks Leos - I want to pick your brain about keg cleaning rigs, pulling the spears out is a PAIN!  I was thinking I could just do one like my corny cleaning setup, a bucket with a sump pump in it.  The coupler I use as a keg filler is already set up to vent from the gas fitting, so I'm thinking if the outlet of the sump pump goes to the beer in side of the filler it should shoot liquid up the spear and drain out with no problems.  It should be easy enough to go from the sump pump outlet to PVC/hose barb/hose/tri clamp fitting, which can then clamp on to the filler, invert the keg and let it drain back into the bucket.  Wash a bunch of kegs with caustic, switch to water to rinse, call it good.  For sani, fill the first one, then use CO2 to push from one to the next.

So my questions are:
1.  Can a sump pump handle sitting in caustic?
2.  How much liquid do you think I need to have in the system to run one keg at a time?
3.  Will it actually drain effectively?
4.  Is there a better way to do this for cheap?
5.  Am I missing something?

This seems like an easy and cheap solution, so I'm concerned about missing some obvious reason this won't work.  I figure I can even build it with swappable fittings, so I can do cornies or sankes just by switching the rig at the pump.

[euge]

Whew.  Launch was a big success, the place was packed and we sold lots of beer, soda, and ice cream, many floats, growlers, shirts, etc.  Good times.  As it turns out we can fit a lot more than 15 people.

^^^That's pretty much analogous to the end of Tampopo- except it's noodles not beer and ice-cream. If you want to learn how to make noodles watch this movie. It's funny too.

I tried to warn ya! Double congrats Tom!

[majorvices]

Keg cleaning is a fairly steep curve from the jump of homebrewing. You will want an air compressor for blowing out rinse and caustic/acid/cleaning. If you are using new kegs you will want to passivate them first with acid. Of course with plastic kegs you wouldn't need passivation.

Pulling spears is a ridiculous waste of time. You should be cleaning kegs upside down with a keg filler/cleaning head. You probably won't get enough pump pressure with a submersible pump (if I understand you correctly) for caustic, though I do use one for  sanitation.

Basically you need a set up that you can have the o2 (AC) and the Co2 plumbed into a line with the rinse water, caustic, and sani. You rinse first, blowing it out with compressed air, run caustic, blowing it out with compressed air, run rinse again, blowing out with comp. air, then sani and blow out with co2, then charge keg to 10-12 psi after purge. You should leave the air and co2 on to imcrtease pressure and effectiveness during all stages.

I will take a picture of our keg cleaner (home made 3 head) and show you how it is set up later today.

[anthony]

Depending on how many kegs you're going through, what your margin is now, and if you have any pricing flexibility, you may be able to get away with something like http://pubkeg.com. The shells plus one insert are about $24 a piece (including shipping). Replacement inserts are around $10. So you're looking at adding $0.25 per pint but saving space, need of an air compressor, use of caustic, etc.

[majorvices]

Here's a frontal veiw. You can see the rinche line coming from my HWH on bottom right, hot caustic recirc on middle right, and sani recirc on top right. Also you can see where the o2 and co2 come in. on the bottom you can see the levers that control exaust flush, caustic recirc and sani recirc.

]

Here you can see the bucket with sani behind rig and caustic hot CiP tank connected to pump and how most of the hoses recirc.

[euge]

Here's a frontal veiw. You can see the rinche line coming from my HWH on bottom right, hot caustic recirc on middle right, and sani recirc on top right. Also you can see where the o2 and co2 come in. on the bottom you can see the levers that control exaust flush, caustic recirc and sani recirc.



Here you can see the bucket with sani behind rig and caustic hot CiP tank connected to pump and how most of the hoses recirc.



Takes about 4 minutes to clean/sani and purge 3 kegs on this system

Fixed it for ya!

[majorvices]

Thanks! Not used to working in Tapaptalk. I got it fixed right after you did! I f'ing hate tapatalk!

[denny]

Thanks! Not used to working in Tapaptalk. I got it fixed right after you did! I f'ing hate tapatalk!

I think you'll love it once you get used to it.

[majorvices]

Well, I didn't like how everytime I loaded the forum on safari on my iPad it logged me off and prompted me to buy Tapatalk - which I finally did because it was so annoying being prompted and kicked off so there is a major strike against it.