KegLand Questions and Answers

[KegLand-com-au]

Sounds good, bump.....

We should probably note that it's unlikly that we will be doing any discounts on the Kegerators any time soon as we are already the cheapest in Australia.

Also we have new cheaper freight rates on our website so you can at least get them shipped to you at a cheaper price now.

 

[Thomas Wood]

We should probably note that it's unlikly that we will be doing any discounts on the Kegerators any time soon as we are already the cheapest in Australia.

Fair enough, couldn't hurt to try

 

[dkril]

Yes that is correct. Ball valves really are not sanitary. You can get away with them if you are using them pre-boil in brewing. Some customers say that that the three piece ball valves are the way to go because they are easier to disassemble and clean but I dont really believe this as very few people actually take apart the three piece ball valves to clean them. Can i please have a show of hands who owns 3 piece ball valves on their brewery and take them apart for cleaning after every brew day?

When I dismantled my ball valves after 10 YEARS of brewing (including many occasions when the whole system was left uncleaned for days afterwards due to time constraints), they were spotless inside. Not one speck of muck in any of them, including the T-valve. All disassembled onto a white towel, so dirt that fell out during disassembly would have been easily visible. But you still missed the key part of the question:

Any chance of you guys stocking some 1/2" stainless steel food grade butterfly valves for us mere mortals who don't need 1.5" tri-clovers?

 

[dkril]

Yes absolutely. We are designing the Fermentasaurus 27L and 50L so that it fits into the Fermenting fridge that we are also working on.

So looking at the PDF specification sheet for the fermentasauruseseseseses would give me the minimum internal dimensions of the fermentation fridge?

I'm asking because my current ferment fridge is dying, and a) I don't want to buy a normal fridge and have to modify it if I can buy one purpose built; but b) if I'm going to hold out and buy your ferment fridge, I want to know in advance that my current vessels will fit. If they won't I may as well go and buy a generic fridge and start hacking straight away (so I'm ready for when this one dies).

 

[RRising]

It is very unusual for cartons just to get stolen or completely go missing. Normally it's just fallen off a conveyor belt or something and it's sitting on the floor of a warehouse or something the it gets found and starts scanning again. With that said our policy is that if a carton doesnt scan for 10 business days then you need to notify us and we will process the claim for you and you will either get re-sent goods or alternatively get a full refund.

Sorry for the late reply but good news is that i have just received my corny and carbonation lid, not too sure how a keg gets lost in a warehouse.

Edit... I have opened the parcel (thanks for the wrapping, you didn't want me to get into it ) and the keg was completely depressurised. What psi are they tested at?

I'll put it up to 50psi and leave it for 24 hours.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

When I dismantled my ball valves after 10 YEARS of brewing (including many occasions when the whole system was left uncleaned for days afterwards due to time constraints), they were spotless inside. Not one speck of muck in any of them, including the T-valve. All disassembled onto a white towel, so dirt that fell out during disassembly would have been easily visible. But you still missed the key part of the question:

We didn't have plans to go as small as 1/2inch tri-clover. These are really small and we have not designed anything to fit to such small ones. If we get enough demand for them we might look at it but at this stage it's not on the cards.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

So looking at the PDF specification sheet for the fermentasauruseseseseses would give me the minimum internal dimensions of the fermentation fridge?

I'm asking because my current ferment fridge is dying, and a) I don't want to buy a normal fridge and have to modify it if I can buy one purpose built; but b) if I'm going to hold out and buy your ferment fridge, I want to know in advance that my current vessels will fit. If they won't I may as well go and buy a generic fridge and start hacking straight away (so I'm ready for when this one dies).

The fermenting fridges that we are making will have internal dimensions of approximately 46cm x 46cm x 130cm. So they are quite an unusual size but specifically made for this purpose.

 

[mashmaniac]

We didn't have plans to go as small as 1/2inch tri-clover. These are really small and we have not designed anything to fit to such small ones. If we get enough demand for them we might look at it but at this stage it's not on the cards.

I think he means pipe size, I've seen 3/4" TC, 1/2" TC must be really small and near useless even at HB scale. Though most HB heading down the path of TC go 1 1/2" x 3/4". Inches and the way sizing is done with some of this stuff is lost on a lot of people. He may also have meant a butterfly valve with threaded 1/2" connections, but not realise the threaded connections would make the valve as sanitary as a standard ball valve. *Much like partial circumcision, either go all the way or f...en forget it!! ( *partial quote from the late great Robbin Williams.)

 

[dkril]

He may also have meant a butterfly valve with threaded 1/2" connections, but not realise the threaded connections would make the valve as sanitary as a standard ball valve. *Much like partial circumcision, either go all the way or f...en forget it!! ( *partial quote from the late great Robbin Williams.)

Correct. Didn't realise there was a different standard for measuring sanitary fittings (OD instead of nominal ID), hence my wondering why there was no supply of suitable butterfly valves given how dreadful the 1/2" ball valves apparently are. i will probably stick with the ball valves, as they haven't done me wrong so far.

 

[fdsaasdf]

Edit... I have opened the parcel (thanks for the wrapping, you didn't want me to get into it ) and the keg was completely depressurised. What psi are they tested at?

I'll put it up to 50psi and leave it for 24 hours.

Was this a new or used keg? The used keg I bought a few months ago needed post, prv and lid seals replaced.

 

[RRising]

Was this a new or used keg? The used keg I bought a few months ago needed post, prv and lid seals replaced.

Used... i pressurised the keg to 30psi and left for 24 hours and there doesn't seem to be any leaks, it held its pressure quite well, but with all used kegs i will replace the seals.

 

[Kev R]

Is the cone on the new Fermentasaurus the same angle as the old one? The drawing looks like more cylinder and less cone.
60deg?

 

[jll]

Hi Kegland,

Having a **** time getting a replacement 6kg co2 bottle in my area (the whole thing lasted just 3 kegs due to a faulty regulator).

Just to let you know, a sydney lhbs that is listed as a KL disti refuses to swap or refill your bottles because they do not meet Australian standards. You would think distributors on your own site would swap brand new bottles.

 

[f00b4r]

I find one of my most useful tools in brewing to be my pressure cooker and I really like being able to sterilise items in it, especially if they are a little fiddly to clean (gives a bit of piece of mind). Could you let me know which of your items below I could put in the pressure cooker without them melting or distorting?:

Carbonation caps
Ball lock posts with 5/8” BSP thread (sankey to corny disco)
Weldless thermowell
Corny plastic disconnects
Intertap faucets
Fermentasaurus parts (the non PET parts)
Your new duo tight fittings (I don’t have any of these but it might sway my potential future purchases for this kind of gear)

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Correct. Didn't realise there was a different standard for measuring sanitary fittings (OD instead of nominal ID), hence my wondering why there was no supply of suitable butterfly valves given how dreadful the 1/2" ball valves apparently are. i will probably stick with the ball valves, as they haven't done me wrong so far.

Yes we have the measurements of the pipe and then the measurements of the actual tri-clover ferrule. The most commong stuff in home brewing is 1 1/2inch tri clover for the ferrule side so I would do your best to try and keep that standard in your brewery where possible. This size is used commonly for tanks up to a few hundred liters and sometimes on the larger tanks above 1000L you will start to see larger 2-3inch tri-clover ferrules used.

With regarsd to the pipe sizes I most of the small brewery hardware will often use the 1/2inch pipe and we see a bit of 3/4inch pipe from time to time as well. For larger breweries over 1000L we will most frequently see 1inch pipe size.

We have a larger range of tri-clover hardware that will come into stock soon and most of this range will be 1 1/2 inch tri clover ferrules/clamps which will connect to 1/2" and 3/4" thread and then use 1/2" and 3/4" pipe as well.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Is the cone on the new Fermentasaurus the same angle as the old one? The drawing looks like more cylinder and less cone.
60deg?

Traditionally the 60degree cone has been what most stainless steel conical fermenters use. With that said it's not actually nesessary to have such a steep angle and provided that we make the cone very smooth.

On the Fermentasaurus 1 the surface was not perfectly smooth on the cone as we did not have the correct stretch ratio on the plastic in that part of the feremnter. It was adequate but not ideal. With the new Fermentasaurus 2 it will have a smoother cone with better material distribution. As a result we are also reducing the angle. By reducing the angle we can make the fermenter slightly lower making it more compatible with a larger range of fermenting fridges. This is the main reason we have gone with the lower angle on the cone.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Hi Kegland,

Having a **** time getting a replacement 6kg co2 bottle in my area (the whole thing lasted just 3 kegs due to a faulty regulator).

Just to let you know, a sydney lhbs that is listed as a KL disti refuses to swap or refill your bottles because they do not meet Australian standards. You would think distributors on your own site would swap brand new bottles.

That is not correct with respect to the Australian standard approvals. Please let us know which distributor you went to and we will send them the approval paperwork so they have the facts handy. If you post up the store in reply to this thread hopefully other people can see and dont run into the same issue with this store. The reality is there are many places all over Australia to get a CO2 fill so we just need to make sure we are publishing an accurate list of locations where customers can go. The more feedback we get from customers like yourself the more accurate we can make the map.

The reality is some stores don't like customers going and purchasing cylinders for a cheaper price than what they sell for then brining them into the store for filling. With that said there are many stores now which are happy to fill our cylinders and we have more stores every week going onto the map which you can see here. There is reasonable margins on the CO2 filling service so we believe the well run stores will still fill anything that is in date and also that is approved to the correct standards which all of our cylinders are:
https://www.kegland.com.au/distributor/

So logically it doesnt make sense for other stores not to fill or swap our cylinders as all the cylinders we sell are less than 6 months old so they are a signficantly newer fleet of cylinders. If you look at the other competitors cylinders many of these are reaching the time when they will require hydro-testing. So If i was a retailer in Sydney I would be more than happy to swap any other KegLand cylinder with any other cylinder of the same size as i would most likely be getting a much newer cylinder. But at the end of the day it's not our choice.

 

[jll]

That is not correct with respect to the Australian standard approvals. Please let us know which distributor you went to and we will send them the approval paperwork so they have the facts handy. If you post up the store in reply to this thread hopefully other people can see and dont run into the same issue with this store. The reality is there are many places all over Australia to get a CO2 fill so we just need to make sure we are publishing an accurate list of locations where customers can go. The more feedback we get from customers like yourself the more accurate we can make.

I’ll pm you. Happy for you to educate your distributors but don’t want to publicly bag them as I generally find them quite good.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

I’ll pm you. Happy for you to educate your distributors but don’t want to publicly bag them as I generally find them quite good.

Yes we totally agree. We definitely will not bag them. This industry is all about education. Making sure everyone is equipped with the right facts is absolutely the answer. So if you think it will be more tactful then please do not post on this forum as we dont want to name and shame this store. Just send us a private email to [email protected] and we will discretely send them the necessary information.

 

[Pundy]

Hi Kegland.
Do you (or have plans to) sell neoprene sleeves / jackets for your mini kegs?

I’ve got a 4L one I use laying down in the fridge but it’s already getting a little banged up going in and out for refills.