Switching from bottles to kegs - Advice please

[LeeH]

That's great value. Cheapest I can find in York area is £55 fully refundable deposit on the bottle and £14 +VAT for a 3kg fill. Still I'm happy enough with £17 a fill for 10 to 12 cornies. Will last me a year at least .

Energas in Hull. 7.2KG bottle for 15 quid no deposit. They deliver for free and take cash on delivery.

Don't know if they go to York though but I'm across the bridge and its no problem.

 

[Stib]

I take it if you re-filled a sodastream thing with an N, CO2 mix something bad would come of it?

Nitrogen require a high preassure bottle and guage.

My co2 bottle sits at 750 psi
My 70/30 sits at 2500 psi

 

[LeeH]

That's VERY bad.

 

[braziliain]

Energas in Hull. 7.2KG bottle for 15 quid no deposit. They deliver for free and take cash on delivery.

Don't know if they go to York though but I'm across the bridge and its no problem.

Wow! Will have to check that out. Thanks.

 

[Smileyr8]

Wow! Will have to check that out. Thanks.

Energas have branches scatered about the north Leeds may be nearer for you.
This link should show you the locations, if you decide to use these please post the price.

 

[bobukbrewer]

....use 2 litre PET bottles.....

 

[BridgeBrew]

Used pressure barrel's for year's. I started with bottle's back in the 80's, soon switched to a beer sphere, and roto keg. Now i use a couple of king keg's, and a couple of the new wide neck wilko barrel's. Bottle's are just to much trouble, and i prefer the taste of beer dispensed from a pressure barrel. The new wilko barrel's are great value, as long as you fit a schrader valve in the lid, and change the rubbish tap for a king keg style tap as soon as you get it, also change the seal's on the s3 valve total cost less then £10, and you will have a very good barrel. The only negative's are the tap is set to high, and the lack of decent handle's. The king keg's are ok, but you have to do the same mod's on them apart from the tap, and they are nearly twice the price. I see lot's of post's on various site's complaining about leaking barrel's, and barrel's losing pressure i used to test high pressure steam boiler's for insurance inspection's (and you cant have a leak on one of them, unless you want to demolish a building) before i put beer in a new barrel i fill it 2/3 full with water, apply PTFE tape to the thread's on the lid, make sure all seal's are well, but not over lubricated with vaseline, then pump air into the barrel via the schrader valve to 10psi, then leave overnight, and test the pressure with a tyre gauge if it's held the pressure. i will use the barrel, if the pressure has dropped i will pump up again, and test for leak's with washing up liquid foam. 99% of leak's will be from the lid, pressure relief band, injector seal, or the large O ring that seal's the whole lid, i use one of the large plastic spanner's to tighten the lid's down. I have thought about corny keg's, but the 19L capacity, and the expense is a bit of a downer. The advantage over pressure barrel's is early drinking beer, and cheaper CO2 injection system.

 

[Graynighty]

I've got a couple of top tap king kegs that I can gas up with an S30 gas bottle and haven't had any problems so would recommend them. Just have to make sure you put a bit of Vaseline on the cap seal and threads every now and again or it will lose a little bit of pressure over time. Got given a corny keg with a co2 lone fitting and an S30 valve that the bloke had fitted himself and that works great too. As they say "to each his own" so the choice is really down to you

 

[Crappyfish]

Anyone wanting a decent keg try this site I just got one everything I needed and very quick despatch and communications https://brewkegtap.co.uk

 

[Dave Parry]

I’ve got two of the Dark Farm 10l mini kegs with beer spears and a sodastream adapter from EBay (I like the idea of refilling these yourself - thanks @BarnBrian).

They’re brilliant. They’re quick to fill, easy to serve from and look great. My friends are much more convinced this is a serious beer now! Not had problems cleaning them yet. Will see.

I do not want to undermine our forum sponsor’s business so won’t post links, but like with anything you can buy them direct from China for about half the price. Maybe get going with Dark Farm ones to start with and see how it goes from there.

 

[Dave Parry]

Anyone wanting a decent keg try this site I just got one everything I needed and very quick despatch and communications https://brewkegtap.co.uk

Thanks for the link. Sounds better than the cheap Chinese imports.

 

[Druncan]

Thanks for the link. Sounds better than the cheap Chinese imports.

My family of 14 x 25l Chinese cornies have worked non stop since June 2016 and other than replacing o-rings they have been perfect! -best bargains ever:hat:

 

[yikkerman]

My family of 14 x 25l Chinese cornies have worked non stop since June 2016 and other than replacing o-rings they have been perfect! -best bargains ever:hat:

How did they compare price wise ??

 

[eyuptm]

Got my 6kg CO2 bottle from my local, just the £12 refill cost... I AM a (VERY) regular, though...!!
On Schrader valves, I've just bought 10 car tyre pull in types from eBay, about 30p each... Not used them yet, but have one on a pressure barrel top that's been at 10psi for a month or so- don't know how youse all feel about them, but they're easy to fit (AND remove for cleaning etc) and they're cheap..!!!

 

[Drunkula]

I've got a shrader on my pressure barrel but not got it permanently connected, which I would like as I've got a secondary regulator I'm not using. I've just got a tyre inflater linked to the co2 bottle to give it blasts. I want to get a tube linked to the tap so I can use it for low pressure styles.

 

[northof49]

....use 2 litre PET bottles.....

I hear you about the need to reduce the hassle. I've been bottling with 1 L swing top bottles (I have about five dozen) and only use smaller bottles to give away. I can bottle a 23L batch in about half-an-hour and the time to wash and sterilize is about he same. I've considered going to 2 L plastic bottles, but am concerned about the second half of the bottle going flat. I rarely go through more than 1 L at a time. Without sounding like I'm prying in to how much you imbibe, bobukbrewer, do you find that this is an issue?

 

[bobukbrewer]

sometimes I polish off 2 litres at a sitting, BUT, recent brews have been 1.2%, 1.4% and 2.2%, and I also have 1 litre PET bottles, 750ml swing tops and 660 and 500 ml crown cap bottles, and eight 330 ml swing tops.

 

[user 23602]

Have children, preferably 2 of them. Twins are perfect.

1 bottles, 1 caps, I label.

And all it costs me is 1 hour of YouTube, a Dairy Milk and a Dr Pepper for each of them.

 

[Clint]

How is the best way to fit a pressure valve to a plastic keg?

 

[eyuptm]

How is the best way to fit a pressure valve to a plastic keg?

I haven't done it... YET... but I bought some Schrader tyre valves on eBay, less than 50p each, and they pull into place from behind a 14mm (from memory) hole- was thinking that'd be a simple, cheap way to do it...