Easy Keg 5L

[Simonh82]

Just thought people might want to know Hobgoblin Gold is on offer for £11 for a mini keg in Morrisons at the moment.

I picked up 4 earlier today. Pretty chuffed as it's a really good price and Hobgoblin Gold is about 100 nicer than the **** water that they sell as Hobgoblin.

Only downside is the bungs in Hobgoblin casks are a bugger to get out but I think that's the case for most of the commercial casks.

This will bring my stock of easy kegs up to 5 so will make bottling a lot quicker.

 

[MrN]

I assume you took your easy keg into a sams smiths pub and borrowed a glass before pouring a pint and returning the glass afterwards :whistle: (I'd never nick a nice glass tankard and two 330ml stem glasses that perfectly complement my 330ml bottles from a pub - oh, no.)

Haha of course I'd never do such a thing either... I actually bought that half pint glass off beers of Europe. I figured if I've got my beer on tap it would be sensible to moderate my intake somehow. Of course really it just means I'm getting up more often. It is a nice glass though.

 

[Fore]

Mine arrived. Equivalent of about 118 pounds. Considering the delux party tap is 70 to 80 quid, this complete unit with cooling seems pretty good value.

In my case, this purchase was all about 23 litres = 18 litres + 5 litres. The cornies are great, but I might have thought harder about going that path given the simplicity and comparative low cost in this mini keg approach. I hold my final judgment until I've used them a while.

The unit itself is obviously built to a price, built in China. But it seems pretty well thought out. I've yet to use it, but I'd say my only concern is that the CO2 might slowly leak as soon as I pierce a cartridge (it came with 3; I forgot to photo them).

 

[Chrissparky]

How much was that? And where from?

 

[MickDundee]

Mine arrived. Equivalent of about 118 pounds. Considering the delux party tap is 70 to 80 quid, this complete unit with cooling seems pretty good value.

In my case, this purchase was all about 23 litres = 18 litres + 5 litres. The cornies are great, but I might have thought harder about going that path given the simplicity and comparative low cost in this mini keg approach. I hold my final judgment until I've used them a while.

The unit itself is obviously built to a price, built in China. But it seems pretty well thought out. I've yet to use it, but I'd say my only concern is that the CO2 might slowly leak as soon as I pierce a cartridge (it came with 3; I forgot to photo them).

I've never had a leak in mine, I get less of a rush from the cartridge on piercing than with my PSD. On my 4th keg with it and love it. Keeps the beer fresh for as long as I need it too - the longest I've had is 3 weeks.


I did accidentally decide to take an unfinished cartridge out last night (I thought it was empty but it turns out my brand new keg was just fully pressurised, who'd have thought?) and it blew the piercer and rubber washed out. They are removable (you get one spare piercer and a few washers with it) so I hope I've put it back together right!

 

[MickDundee]

How much was that? And where from?

I paid £140 on the UK Klarstein website. Looks like @fore has beaten me by £20.

 

[Fore]

How much was that? And where from?

France Amazon. Look for BW1880. It's recently jumping between 135 to 140 EUR. Just hold back and use camelcamelcamel. And if you don't know what that is, you should! And it will be a few quid extra for UK delivery.

I live in France, on the German border, so quite adept at shopping around. On my IE, I have 4 ebay shotcuts, 4 Amazon shortcuts and 4 google shortcuts, 1 for each of UK, France, Germany and Italy. I always go through them all when I have my eye on something, because you can often find cheaper elsewhere, including delivery. I'd say my on-line purchases are spread through these countries quite evenly. In this case, cheapest was on France Amazon (.fr instead of .co.uk). It comes with an EU plug, but you just need a cheap UK adapter (Mick also needed an adapter for his UK bought one).

 

[Leon103]

Mine arrived. Equivalent of about 118 pounds. Considering the delux party tap is 70 to 80 quid, this complete unit with cooling seems pretty good value.

In my case, this purchase was all about 23 litres = 18 litres + 5 litres. The cornies are great, but I might have thought harder about going that path given the simplicity and comparative low cost in this mini keg approach. I hold my final judgment until I've used them a while.

The unit itself is obviously built to a price, built in China. But it seems pretty well thought out. I've yet to use it, but I'd say my only concern is that the CO2 might slowly leak as soon as I pierce a cartridge (it came with 3; I forgot to photo them).

Not sure where you are looking at the party star taps but they are nowhere near that expensive.

 

[MrEgg]

There are some graded ones on amazon.fr that work out at about £113 with delivery.

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B01H7Q5RSE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[B160AVE]

Have just found them on this site Wellindal (never used them before) for £119 with cheap postage.

https://www.wellindal.co.uk/home/h-koenig/p-269033

 

[pvt_ak]

I so need to go down the Keg route but seems complicated !


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[Dutto]

I so need to go down the Keg route but seems complicated !


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It isn't.

Just remember two things in addition to what you do already.

1. Don't overfill.

2. Don't over prime.

Enjoy..
:thumb:

 

[Fore]

Aghh. I don't know why, but every time I do a new brew thing for the first time, I don't think it through, then realise I forgot something, then go into panic mode. Same with my first mini-keg.

I worked out that I could use my auto-siphon, outside part removed, attached to my fermenter tap. The "hard" plastic bent tube part of the auto-siphon, with the rubber seal on the end, just manages to fit into the hole in the mini-keg. Up to then I had been wondering how I would do the transfer. Had been thinking about my little bottler, but was a bit worried about the little plastic push part of the valve scratching the plastic coating at the bottom of the mini-keg. So was pretty happy with the auto-siphon solution (the "auto" part out of action of course; this was tap & gravity only).

So the 5 litres was very successfully transferred, plug put in place, keg rinsed. BUT.. oops, forgot to put sugar in . So then how to get the plug out? Didn't come out by hand, way too firm. So went to get the pliers. Still very hard. Then I ripped a big chunk out of the side of the plug. Well I couldn't just leave it, and I couldn't push in the plastic stopper part of the plug because then I'd have to drain the barrel to get that back. So I did one last firm pull of the plug. But there was no way it was just going to come out, and in the end the plastic stopper popped into the keg. Once the plastic stopper was in the keg, the rubber part of the plug came out easy. And of course, I then realised I had 4 other plugs with plastic stoppers and could have just pushed the stopper through from the start. Anyway, 15g sugar added and a second plug put in place. I realised later that I did have an earlier plan to put some CO2 into the keg, but had completely forgotten about that.

Oh well, all should be OK. I know now.

 

[private4587]

It isn't.

Just remember two things in addition to what you do already.

1. Don't overfill.

2. Don't over prime.

Enjoy..
:thumb:

Am I correct that a free head space of approx 3/4" should be left and that 20g of sugar/keg is correct.

 

[Dutto]

Am I correct that a free head space of approx 3/4" should be left and that 20g of sugar/keg is correct.

I NEVER fill to more than 1" from the top and NEVER carbonate with more than 15g of sugar.

One reason is that I mainly use the MK's for Lager. The Lager is always at a low temperature (introduced after either cold-crashing or long term lagering) so there will always be some thermal expansion during carbonation.

As an additional precaution I also take the first two pints from the bottom tap (and live with the copious amounts of foam) before I introduce the Flexi-Tap through the top bung.

This is because one time I introduced the Flexi-Tap wand through the top bung as a means of tapping into a new keg. As far as I can work out, the displacement of the Flex-Tap wand caused the MK's internal pressure to rise so quickly that the CO2 was unable to be reabsorbed into the beer and the seal around the bottom tap leaked.

Live and learn if you live long enough!

 

[MrN]

What's the most amount of sugar anyone's used in a mini keg successfully here? I'm thinking about kegging some of my neipa that I've made and would ideally like a bit more carbonation than what I'd normally have.

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[Simonh82]

I've primed with 20g per keg. I don't use a party start tap but this amount of sugar allows me to push the whole keg out of the bottom tap without needing to vent the top.

It makes the beer pretty foamy but means I don't have to drink the whole thing in 4 days.

 

[pms67]

What's the most amount of sugar anyone's used in a mini keg successfully here? I'm thinking about kegging some of my neipa that I've made and would ideally like a bit more carbonation than what I'd normally have.

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I accidentally batch primed my pseudo lager with 140g for 20l then bottled most but minikegged some,it was too much,too foamy but at least it didn't explode

 

[MyQul]

I've primed with 20g per keg. I don't use a party start tap but this amount of sugar allows me to push the whole keg out of the bottom tap without needing to vent the top.

It makes the beer pretty foamy but means I don't have to drink the whole thing in 4 days.

I prime mini kegs to 20g and dont find it too foamy but them again I usually open the top vent

 

[Leon103]

It would do my head in dealing with a foamy drink all the time, might as well use bottles.