Portable single keg set-up

[punkin]

Punkin, where are you getting 3L pet bottles from?

Why the supermarket Brad. They have them with Coke and Fanta and all sorts of labels. You get free soft drink with every bottle purchased.

 

[shaunous]

Haha.

Why don't you guys just fill up coke bottles for camping and parties, Yeh it's cool to take a keg In a bucket, but imagine the responsibility of having to bring a keg, then fuking around with temp, gas, foamy pour etc. if I done that around my mates I'd be hung. CPBF and a heap of big bottles, solved.

Now I wait for the abuse

 

[Yob]

Coz getting it right is rad!!

Blingin also has merit

 

[b00ner]

It's all about the bling

I'm sure this looks a tad familiar for Surly, but tbh the white looks pretty nice and hopefully keeps a bit of heat off.

 

[surly]

Shaunous, the answer is pretty simple really. Check out the above pic, damn sexy.
Also, making things is fun.

b00ner, the white DOES look good. Looks like it turned out really well!
Is that a trolley handle sticking up behind?

 

[shaunous]

I've got 37' Chev's for having fun making things

No I agree, they do look sweet as Fuk, I will build one, one day. After I finish my actual shed bar, after the lounge room, after the kitchen, after networking the house, after cattle/farm work, after normal work! all before the sun goes down. I think you get the hint

 

[surly]

Hey all, I finally broke out the portable keg set up last night. Took it to a house party and, as per nearly all my other beer adventures, there was a ****-up

Damn gas disconnect had a crack in it. I lost 2 soda bulbs worth of gas before I discovered where it was coming from. Didn't have a spare threaded disconnect either, so had to make a quick dash home for my big gas cylinder. This meant I had to have it outside the barrel so the lid now wouldn't go on.
Otherwise it was all a success. Many beers were had, it was pouring well and despite there being no lid on it, there was still ice in the barrel at 3:00 this arvo (nearly 18 hours later).

 

[Wigarus]

Hey guys, just thought I'd show you my take on the weed sprayer party keg



The handle is a 3/4 scale replica of mine so now its fun for guys and girls :beer:



I machined this piece out of Delrin - it's the first time I've cut an imperial thread on my lathe and it fits a standard corny gas in post





I'm pretty proud of this tiny little piece. Its 316 stainless and its tapered so that when you tighten the plastic collar it seals against the beer line and the diptube fits in neatly inside it. Tested it to 20PSI with no leaks.

 

[waggastew]

Quick question re: tap placement.

I have purchased all my parts for a portable keg setup. I have room in my esky to put the tap above, level or level with the bottom of the keg.

Apart from factoring in height into line balancing is there any other reason to choose one position over another?

One thought I had was having the line at the bottom of the esky means it is submerged in ice and hence should keep a little cooler.

 

[MastersBrewery]

you could sell those delrin adapters I'm sure

 

[shaunous]

That setup is sweet wigarus, the only thing I'd build upon that probably might be to hard anyway is having a tap, like a push button thing built into the wall of the esky, so there isn't anything protruding the walls of the esky, much anyway. Then you'd have a perfect camping keg setup, easily packed in ya 4x4, and square shaped so no space is wasted beside it, and the tap cannot be snapped off. Be just like taking an esky and throwing it in the car like u would anyway.

 

[waggastew]

Starting to put together my portable keg setup.

Main aim was to have something to take to parties to dispense 9.5L kegs AND be completely self contained. This last bit was the most difficult as I had to consider regulator, gas bottle etc. Went through a few permutations and ended up going with a SS bottle and single stage mini-reg. Decided against keg chargers as I didn't want to have to play around with the gas during the party. This setup should be essentially plug and play.

Just installed the tap.

Next I am installing a plastic bracket to keep the gas bottle upright and swearing my way through connecting the 4mm ID beer line to the tap connection and disconnect. A mate is currently working on my new logo and labels so once he is done I will get a big logo sticker printed for the front and smaller ones for the font label. Timber handle laser etched with my brewery name is on the way from the US and all should be ready for an upcoming 'famcation'. Plan is to bring two kegs, one in the setup, the other in a separate esky.

Will post picks when all details are done.

 

[waggastew]

Just back from the maiden run for my new portable setup. (see post above)

Occasion was a Famcation with famlies of 6 close mates from school. I took three 9.5L kegs: Bright Ale, Bright Ale dry hopped with Galaxy, and a West-Coast IPA. Have not kegged before and the trial pour during the week at home with a keg of Porter was problematic. I was not feeling confident as I was getting alot of foam and gas coming out of the beer in the line. I bought a jug just in case I was going to have to deal with alot of froth.

Pre-chilled the portable esky and two others with large bottles of ice Thursday night. Friday morning I transferred kegs from fridge into eskies and packed with four bags of ice. They sat in the car all day Friday before I drove down to Lemon Tree Passage after work. Got there around six, cracked keg of Bright Ale at 6:30 and.............

Poured perfectly. Carb was spot on, had to work the glass a bit to get the right amount of head. Took about 8-10 secs to pour a pint. Blew the first keg about an hour later, worked our way through half dry-hopped version before bed. Remaining beer was drank the next afternoon and evening.

So stoked that it all worked out. Didn't have to screw around with gas etc. All self contained so no amateur gas technicians.

Happy days

PS. Note to self. Don't bring AIPA's to holidays with mates. High ABV and IBU's are not general crowd pleasers.

 

[shaunous]

Awesome stuff Stew

PS. Note to self. Don't bring AIPA's to holidays with mates. High ABV and IBU's are not general crowd pleasers.

Fuk the crowd, unless that crowd has your boss and/or mother in law in it.

 

[Ratsathome]

Hi guys new to your site :beer:
I made a portable single keg system.
I used the big 12" plastic underground pipes put in a bottom and made a lid for it.
My first use of it I used my 2kg gas with it but now I use the "Co2 charger with 16g cartridge"
It holds about 7Kg of ice around the keg and keep it cold for a few hours.

 

[Kodos]

Nice job. You mention you had 4mm ID beer line, would you mind sharing how long the line was, and what your serving pressure was?

What was your carbonation method?

Just back from the maiden run for my new portable setup. (see post above)

Occasion was a Famcation with famlies of 6 close mates from school. I took three 9.5L kegs: Bright Ale, Bright Ale dry hopped with Galaxy, and a West-Coast IPA. Have not kegged before and the trial pour during the week at home with a keg of Porter was problematic. I was not feeling confident as I was getting alot of foam and gas coming out of the beer in the line. I bought a jug just in case I was going to have to deal with alot of froth.

Pre-chilled the portable esky and two others with large bottles of ice Thursday night. Friday morning I transferred kegs from fridge into eskies and packed with four bags of ice. They sat in the car all day Friday before I drove down to Lemon Tree Passage after work. Got there around six, cracked keg of Bright Ale at 6:30 and.............

Poured perfectly. Carb was spot on, had to work the glass a bit to get the right amount of head. Took about 8-10 secs to pour a pint. Blew the first keg about an hour later, worked our way through half dry-hopped version before bed. Remaining beer was drank the next afternoon and evening.

So stoked that it all worked out. Didn't have to screw around with gas etc. All self contained so no amateur gas technicians.

Happy days

PS. Note to self. Don't bring AIPA's to holidays with mates. High ABV and IBU's are not general crowd pleasers.

 

[waggastew]

Nice job. You mention you had 4mm ID beer line, would you mind sharing how long the line was, and what your serving pressure was?

What was your carbonation method?

I used 1.8m of 4mm ID line. I worked that out for my system using the various equations available on here and around the net. Main problem was most online calculators don't have 4mm line so I had to do the calcs manually (on Excel) using a quoted figure for 4mm line resistance. Another problem was having to convert figures back and forth between metric and US measurements e.g. PSI etc.

Please note that this is the line length for my system. That figure relied on certain beer temp (2degC), tap height (~15cm above middle of the keg), carbonation level (13PSI) etc. If any of this things are different on your system then the figures may change slightly.

Keeping the line really cold also seems really important. I ended up running it under the ice level to ensure things stayed cold. In the trial run when I first tested the setup at home with the line above the ice I got some gas coming out of solution. This led me to mess with the gas pressure which caused more problems.

In terms of carbonation/serving pressure I ended up using 13PSI. This is a good middle of the road figure which should suit most styles. The calculations referred to above were aimed to get a system in balance for both carb/pouring. In the end the pour speed and carb were fine.

For carbonation I used a hybrid method: rolled after filling keg cold for 35secs at 45PSI, left for an hour in fridge, degas the headspace and connect at 13PSI for about one week. I figure this gives the beer a bit of a headstart without risking overcharging which from all reports is a nightmare.

Hope that helps

 

[Kodos]

Thanks, waggastew, I understand the various variances etc, but it's good to get the details on a system that has worked.

I used 1.8m of 4mm ID line. I worked that out for my system using the various equations available on here and around the net. Main problem was most online calculators don't have 4mm line so I had to do the calcs manually (on Excel) using a quoted figure for 4mm line resistance. Another problem was having to convert figures back and forth between metric and US measurements e.g. PSI etc.

Please note that this is the line length for my system. That figure relied on certain beer temp (2degC), tap height (~15cm above middle of the keg), carbonation level (13PSI) etc. If any of this things are different on your system then the figures may change slightly.

Keeping the line really cold also seems really important. I ended up running it under the ice level to ensure things stayed cold. In the trial run when I first tested the setup at home with the line above the ice I got some gas coming out of solution. This led me to mess with the gas pressure which caused more problems.

In terms of carbonation/serving pressure I ended up using 13PSI. This is a good middle of the road figure which should suit most styles. The calculations referred to above were aimed to get a system in balance for both carb/pouring. In the end the pour speed and carb were fine.

For carbonation I used a hybrid method: rolled after filling keg cold for 35secs at 45PSI, left for an hour in fridge, degas the headspace and connect at 13PSI for about one week. I figure this gives the beer a bit of a headstart without risking overcharging which from all reports is a nightmare.

Hope that helps

 

[LiquidGold]

My bro's latest setup.

 

[shaunous]

It'll do the trick.

I like that option though, ya forget them esky's have such a good seal u can stand them up-ways.