Beer Forum

I have a half barrel US sankey keg which I am supposed to empty, clean, sanitize, and refill. I was able to safely relieve the pressure, get the spear out, and even built a little recirculating keg washer to push PBW around it for a while. I was a little surprised at how easy it all was after reading about people struggling to get the spears out.

Once I got it all clean and nice I put the spear back in and started winding the retainer ring back in. Oh Lordy. I had a total of 5 minutes invested in figuring out how to get the spear out, so far I have 2 hours invested in getting it back in and have no joy. It seems like the O ring that seals the bottom of the spear to the neck of the keg needs to be compressed to get the retaining ring to circle around, but I don't see how I am going to do that short of buying a $600 o ring compressing tool.

I found some youtube video of people supposedly putting the spears back in, but the bastiges leave out the O-ring to make it easier to demonstrate! Arrrgh!

So have any of you figured out how to replace a spear?

danny check this thread out http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/install ... keg-64128/

holy shit henning, you are a genius and a prince among brewers. Those pictures told the story that all the words I have read could not. 5 minutes after viewing those I had both kegs put together and holding pressure after HOURS of dicking around with it and getting nowhere.

Thanks henning - the army comes through again!

Awesome! I always wondered if someone came up with a way to do this at home. Now I know!!

Thanks Henning!!