Hey guys,
New to the board, came across it because of a spike in traffic to my site originating from here... Now I see why.
I am the owner of
www.ikegger.com where the original post linked to, I can give you a bit of advice about these units as there are some differences between the various chinese companies providing them.
I'll say straight off the bat that yes of course retailers mark up prices, we have to organise shipping, packaging, storage, logistics, custom clearances, refunds, warranty issues etc etc
I'll also say that we would be happy to offer a substantial discount for an order the size of the one that this is shaping up to be, the same as we do to our wholesale customers like The Local Taphouse and Frankies here in Sydney and Campari in Perth (yeah that campari, they use them for pre-mixed cocktails for events)
We would also be happy to try and group shipments around the country to reduce postage costs.
Crunched is correct in that many of them available on aliexpress are junk, the steel is crap and the taps virtually useless.
If you want to organise this yourselves through this board the first thing and easiest thing to look out for is part of the spear, there are 2 main types all over alibaba / aliexpress only one of which has the pressure release valve like you can see on our products (little metal ring poking off the top)
Without this the tapping unit is virtually worthless as you can't bleed out oxygen (when filling) or excess pressure without opening the tap and spraying your delicious beer everywhere.
Yes the taps do get knocked easily but we have found that there is a perfect position to put a rubber band and it virtually eliminates that problem very cheaply and easily.
Crunched is also correct in saying that the larger 4L ones can be awkward to put into an esky if you leave the tap on but as you can just turn the gas off on the regulator and remove the tap for transport (if you have the bleed valve) we haven't found it to be much of an issue.
You can lay down 4 of the 4l in most eskies comfortably and take along a tapping system that you just swap over as you polish off each one (take a couple of the co2 cartridges in your pocket rather than a whole bottle and you've got 16L of fresh tapped cold beer (or 4L of 4 different beers / differently hopped and conditioned brew) in a standard esky.
It does take a while to get used to the tap system as the regulator is so small it can take a fine touch to get it right, and each beer needs a slightly different pressure to pour correctly.
We were playing around the other day and got a quick video of pouring from our 4L which you can see here
https://youtu.be/z7n61sD8Gzw
I work at The Local Taphouse, have done for nearly 5 years, you can get our kegs filled there but it's bloody expensive, breweries can sell much cheaper than retailers funnily enough ;-)
I started the company because I love sharing craft beer, not to get rich so if you are interested let me know and I'll give you the best deal I can with the orders you gather, it won't be as cheap as going direct to china, I got to pay the bills somehow, but I will make it as fair as i can.
Cheers all,
David Thackray
www.ikegger.com
