I recently learned about Mark's Keg Washer, which I think looks great. But, even if I had an extra $100 to spend on brewery equipment, a keg washer would not be at the top of my list.

I realized, though, that -- aside from the fancy molded base -- I already own most of the parts I need to make my own keg washer. Last year I purchased a utility pump, (this one) which has proven to be a constant help. It also, you'll note, has a standard hose threading on the top.

So if you combine a female hose attachment, a short run of 1/2 ID tubing and a swivel nut, you get this:

Not much to look at, but combine it with the pump and a ball-lock liquid connector and you get:

Attach it to a keg's liquid dip tube, put the pump in a bucket of PBW, turn the keg upside-down and put it on top of the pump, like so:

Turn the pump on and PBW is pushed up through the dip tube, drains down the keg's walls and gathers at the bottom. You can open the lid or attach a gas connector to the other post so that the PBW can drain back into the bucket so that it can be cycled through the pump again. After about 20 minutes the keg is clean!

For carboys or buckets, instead of the hose I attach a hose nozzle to the pump and set the item to be cleaned on top. The rest of the process is the same.

Of course, if you put the pump in a bucket of water, you now have a keg/carboy rinser as well. A bucket of StarSan = keg/carboy sanitizer.

So far it works pretty well. The carboy had some caked on yeast bits that I had to scrub off. The keg had a lot of loose hop matter in it, so I needed to rinse it out before cleaning it.  But overall it's fast, efficient and uses a lot less PBW/StarSan that simply soaking the items.