Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Sanke to ball lock conversion

    When I started homebrewing I envisioned bottles neatly stacked in cases with great looking labels. As I brewed more the mountain of bottles grew with it. This problem forced me to look more at kegs rather than bottles and what a difference it has made! I started with the standard corny keg which worked but in time the large gasket would fail and ruin my beer. As I kept looking for answers I found the sanke keg is a far superior keg but very inconvenient to fill and dispense, let alone when I took a keg of awesome brew to a friends house and they couldn't get it thru their kegerator. How disappointing for everyone. So with some thought, determination, my metal working background and desire for design I came up with the easiest way to convert a sanke keg to homebrewers favorite the ball lock. Its simple, works and looks great!


 
Its completely self contained has liquid and gas quick disconnects along with a 60lb pressure relief valve. These are a necessity so the keg doesn't get over pressured and can be depressuried before opening for filling. basically its a safety feature!
Cleaning these kegs just take a keg cleaning tool found anywhere on the net. I bought mine from a link I found on homebrewtalk.com. It works great and seems to last forever.   
 Once my brewing buddy's got a look at this they wanted some so I started building some for them. They showed their friends and they wanted some, so everything started to snowball. Now I make and sell them pretty steady. It always amazes me when I get to send one somewhere new.