Dispensing From 50l Kegs

[glassgrenade]

Hi everyone,
A mate of mine bought some of those imported kegs a while ago and said he'd give two of them to me for free as they are just gathering dust, so i'm other the moon about that.

A mate of mine owns a pub and i was wondering if the brewery owns the couplers? I know they own the kegs. If my mate owns them then i reckon he'd do me a great deal, if not mybeershop.com has them for $40.

I assume that i can still use the same CO2 reg as a corny system?

The main attraction for me for the 50L keg is that someone told me they actually hold 55L, which is three 18L cornies. So two of those in the fridge would be 6 cornies!

I've been doing a bit of research and i seems that its cheaper to setup a 'commercal keg' system rather than a ball lock. Even if i had to pay for the kegs I see craftbrewer has them for $99, which is cheape than 3 cornies.

I worked out it will cost: (Mybeershop.com)
Coupler $40 (if i can't get one from my mates pub for cheap/free)
line $15
gas reg $75
one way valve $12
long shank draughttap with flow controler $69
CO2 bottle $180 (ebay)
fridge free
So all up it will cost around $400 for the equivalent of 6 cornies. Whereas for the same thing with a cornie i would cost me $660 (2 keg deal plus 4 kegs) So even if i had to buy the kegs it comes out $60 cheaper, and i get to clean less.

Is there any oother disadvantages besides the weight issue? Plus if i got the megaswillers coming over for a party or the footy they can all chuck in and rent a kkeg of something that they like, instead of drinking my high hopped beer that they'll drink but don' enjo as much as their weak piss flavoured water.

Also, is it possible to hook up those big 80L kegs? That would be great! Get out the 44 gallon drum to ferment in!

 

[DU99]

Co2 Regs are the same for corny's same for the big keg's..

 

[jbumpstead]

The hardest part is cleaning the 50L kegs between brews. Other than that, no reason why you aren't able to go down that path.

Cheers,
Justin.

 

[glassgrenade]

This was my initial concern, i had thought about welding a pressure cooker onto the top and welding the keg coupler bit to the lid so i could get right in there. However my mate who has kegs doesn't clean his all that often, hasn't had an infection that was't present before he put the beer in there. He told me that the alcohol, the cold temps and the acidity of the beer (from the beer itself and co2, carbonic acid) keeps most things at bay. He cleans his kegs once four or so bres have been through, and even then its with the hose... ie no iodophor.
I did a search of this forum and i couldn't find a single keg infection. Some bloke even posted about the topic http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=54489

Even so, if i fill it to the brim with napisan and let it soak it should be fine.

 

[crozdog]

this is pretty easy to do.

As mentioned c02 is c02.

The most flexible way is probably to fit ball locks to the coupler. that way you can use off the shelf homebrew type fittings. However the fittings are a bit dear. There are a few threads here already - use the search 1 example is http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=15006

here are the bits on ebay http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Pub-Keg-Coupler...s-/290404102032

 

[glassgrenade]

I don't atually have a keg system, so i don't need to convert it. i was figuring on just buying comercial keg stuff rather than corny keg stuff. But i wanted to check before i did it to make sure there wasn't something i was missing. Thanks for the links crozdog.

EDIT I was thinking of putting a piece of tube connected to the coupler then a john guest joiner. This would then allow me to fit a ball lock fitting to the gas/beer line and swap between commercial or corny. This could be handy as i reckon i could maybe sqeeze another 2 cornies in my keg fridge o be. Could be good for those batches that i like but don't want to drink 55L of, like a weizen or a schwarz.

 

[Old_Bob]

Unless you have some type of lifting device, the only real problem is lugging 50Kg around and lifting it to put it in the fridge.

 

[ekul]

Is it possible to dispense from an 80L keg? And what type of fitting would this require? And where would i get it. A friend of mine is having a party and i was going to make some beer for the party, would be so great if we could dispense from an 80L keg rather than four cornies.

 

[DWC]

Is it possible to dispense from an 80L keg? And what type of fitting would this require? And where would i get it. A friend of mine is having a party and i was going to make some beer for the party, would be so great if we could dispense from an 80L keg rather than four cornies.

You'll need to find a spear that screws into the hole in the top of the keg.
Tooheys stopped using those kegs in the early 90's, spears might be difficult to find.