Corny keg setup

[Max Ballbagz]

Hey guys, I am looking to venture in kegging (small scale alongside bottling) and weighing up options, does anyone have any useful info, things to watch out for etc or even know of anyone looking to flick off any gear. Also has anyone used the soda stream adapters to gas 19L Cornys and if so, what is your opinion on this method?

I am based in the Hawkes Bay - cheers, Daniel

[Pierre Malan]

Funnily enough, I just went kegging and have a sodastream adaptor I used for the first time last weekend.  It is massively more expensive to re-fill the sodastream compared to a CO2 keg.

Example:

sodastream refill $12, for 0.25kg or so

CO2 refill $20-$30 for 3.5kg

if you are drinking any sort of beer, go and get a bigger cylinder.  It will pay for itself almost immediately.

[Grant R Baker]

First check you can get CO2 refilled in your area...and how much it costs but Co2 cylinders on TM and at Homebrew stores sell for a good price. A good regulator helps too.

There are also some 19L kegs going for $90 under the 'Buying and Selling'.. they don't come much cheaper.

[JumpR]

Some info I found useful: HERE and HERE.  Also FORCED CARB and BALANCING KEGS

[Sam DT]

I just switched over to kegging about four months back. I took a while to get there as I like having bottles to take with & share but now I'm there it's totally worth it. The time and effort saving of just draining into the keg and being able to carb over night and drink the next day is a total win. Also takes care of carbonation issues as you can basically dial in the exact carb you want and bottling from keg isn't difficult.

Watch out for leaky fittings, I got all my initial gear second hand and between leaky poppets, regulator and a cracked ball-lock connection I lost two full bottles of CO2 before I got sorted. Once I have my beer carbed I generally leave my CO2 turned off at the tank just in case. Tank is definitely the most expensive part of the kit but as others have said, payback is quick (providing you don't have leaks).

Also there are a variety of kegs out there all different shapes and sizes and some variation in poppet construction. My first kegs came with male threaded posts and had the poppets fixed with a circlip, while the kegs were cheap the male thread meant they weren't compatible with the widely available replacement posts and the circlip fixed poppets are a pita to pull apart to change o-rings. I've just bought two reconditioned ones from brewshop which should make servicing easier but they're 23cm OD which makes fitting them in a keezer a bit harder - need a 250+l to fit four kegs vs 216l for taller thinner kegs.

[Steve Dorrington]

Good trick I've just learned, after the fact, is to pressure test your manifold and keg charge lines and fittings by submerging them in a fermenter full of water with the CO2 connected.  I discovered 5 leaky fittings on a new 4 way manifold.  So it's not just second hand stuff that leaks.  Another thing I saw when the tank was being filled was the guy used a CRC product called Leak Detector in a spray can and applied it to joints as it was filled.   Repco appear to have it in some stores.  It's $21 but that's cheaper than a 5kg tank of CO2.  

I've also made a cheap delivery line cleaner from a $10  4L garden garden pressure sprayer.  Allows the delivery lines to be cleaned without disassembly.  Just disconnect them from the kegs and connect the sprayer to each line individually opening the valve until the cleaner flows out.  Leave to sit a while then flush and sanitise before reconnecting the kegs.  

cheers Steve

[Cain Harland]

I'm having so CO2 leek problems. After 2 bottle going in about 1/2 the use I might expect from them. I shut all the valves on my manifold and pressurized the lines then turned the gas off every time I'm coming back to zero pressure no hiss no bubbles when I spray the joints. For now I'm blaming the cheap worm clamps on the hoses and have ordered a couple of bags of stepless clamps and a tool to fit them. Once there on I will use Steves trick and chuck it all in a bucket of water. Until then only turning gas on for dispensing. What a pain I have 4 full kegs and usually I can just squeeze 4 kegs and the gas bottle in my fridge but that makes the bottle more or less inaccessible so having to run my fermenting fridge as cold storage for one just so I can turn the gas on when I want a beer.

[Steve Dorrington]

My guess is it will be the manifold and gas lines. Expect multiple leaks. I lost 5kg in 2weeks before I discovered the problem.

[Cain Harland]

My leek isn't that fast I got a couple of months out of the last 2kg refill. It seems to be either manifold and/or line in as the kegs are all maintaining pressure still connected but turned off at manifold. And I thinks its safe to assume a leek this slow must be on the low pressure side of the regulator.

Those worm clamps are rubbish with the PVC lines they cut in and make a real mess of the line and their never perfectly round, I always get a little triangle of space where the housing for the screw meets the strap. So when the new clamps get here I will take the whole thing apart trim off the damaged ends of the hoses and put it all back together then look at the manifold before I screw it back on to the fridge. Probably not much point in testing anything now as I will have to do it again after. Just hope my clamps get here form china before I have a new keg to force carb, that will be a bigger problem.

[Dave]

Get some starsan, it is great for leak checking (it has a foaming agent so blows good bubbles with leaks). Plus it won't hurt if a bit gets in your beer.

A spray bottle is also handy for small sanitising jobs. Dual purpose.....

[Steve Dorrington]

I also had a similar problem but on the beer lines where they connected to the delivery spigots on the door mounted taps. I couldn't get the lines to stop leaking. Solved that with a few wraps of teflon thread tape around the spigot before warming the tube, pressing the tube on and clamping it again. Makes sure you cut the manky bit off the end of the tube so as you have fresh tube.

[Cain Harland]

Steve, Good call on testing the manifold. After changing the clamps I had just one leek on the end of the manifold with the plug. It took several attempts but got it all sealed up in the end. It may have just been the one leek but I wasn't happy with the worm clamps and wanted to replace them with stepless ones any way.

Daniel, Your welcome to come and have a look at my kegerator and see how Ive done things. You may have one already, I see this post is pretty old. I do have 2 recommendations:

1) 1/4" OD - 0.17" ID LDPE beer line rather than wider PVC stuff. You need less to balance the lines and LDPE won't taint your beer like PVC can. Its and absolute bitch to get the barbs into the narrow LDPE but once its done its done.

2) Stepless clamps rather than worm clamps. For my gas lines I'm using 9.5mm clamps on 5.5mm ID / 8mm OD PVC line out of the manifold and 13mm clamps on 6mm ID / 10mm OD PVC line between regulator and manifold because I couldn't get the barb on the regulator in to the narrower tube.

[Darren Wood]

I know this post is getting a bit old now but I'm have a major issue getting my picnic tap attached to the  1/4" OD - 0.17" ID LDPE beer line. I've tried boiling water to soften up the tubing... no help... Any other tips/tricks?