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Sanke Keg - Carbonation

Kguer029

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Hey everyone,

I recently brewed two 5gal batches (ESB and Blonde) and I've purchased 2 Sanke Kegs (20L each, got a good deal). Now I have all the equipment required to keg and carbonate, but I have a few questions. First, I don't have the option of carbing at colder temperatures. I will need to carbonate at room temperature. I understand that this will require more pressure and more time. Is there a guideline for time? Once I'm ready to drink it, I will bring it down to colder temperature and adjust the pressure to serving PSI that corresponds with the new temperature. Is this correct?

I have a D coupler. It comes with a small blue cap that covers the beer line. does this stay on while carbonating, or do I connect the beer line while carbonating?

Thanks!
 
  I have no experience in carbonating with sanke, only dispensing commercial brews from them. My experience  with the sanke coupler is that once the keg is pressurized there will be beer wanting to come out of the beer line side of the sanke fitting, making it impossible to isolate the beer flow out. To  remove the blue cap and connect beer lines under pressure will be  impossible with beer flowing out . That is why most homebrewers prefer ball or pin lock kegs as there are separate gas and beer connections allowing for higher pressures of carbonation. The outlet ball lock is simply not connected until beer is carbonated and pressure brought down to 10 psi.

Since you must have your beer line connected before carbonating, you will need to carbonate at 8- 13 psi which is normal dispensing pressure. Doing this warm will take a long time, probably the same as bottle conditioning- 10- 14 days.
You don't want to expose your beer line, sanke fitting and beer tap to pressures higher than 8-13 psi, they cannot handle the higher pressure.

Sanke, "D", or other one connector systems are designed to dispense ready to serve beer. I have two different  sanke fittings, one for dispensing purchased american beer and one for euro lagers(steamwhistle-"D") , but I use ball lock kegs to carbonate and dispense homebrew. You will have to improvise and experiment to get good results, these guidelines should help; good luck - CHEERS
 
Add a ball lock conversion kit like this https://www.kegworks.com/sankey-to-ball-lock-disconnect-conversion-kit-1 to the sanke coupler with ball lock disconnects on your gas and beer line and it can be done.  I have a few sanke kegs that I use in rotation with my ball locks and they work fine.  The biggest issue with a sanke keg is removing the locking ring that holds the valve and post so you can fill them.
 
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