Kegs

BUDFORCE

Something I have been thinking about.

I use 2 of the standard 25 litre plastic kegs.

I've been homebrewing solidly for just a little over 3 years, in the space of those three years, I have had to replace one of my kegs completely, as it formed a crack in the seam of the plastic, and I have had to replace several of the pressure valves.

Yesterday I discovered one of the lids had actually cracked - literally split plastic horizontally on the side of the screw part of the cap so I will need a new one.

Please do not take this as any kind of complaint - but over the three years that will have added up money wise - plus the hassle.

My capper also broke recently after a good few years service, so I have put in an order for the Super Grifo you guys sell, for which at £100 is not cheap - but if it lasts to me that is a good long term investment.

Looking at the selection of kegs out there (not just HBO it seems everywhere) I cant easily seem to find a more rebust version of the kegs. I know about the King Kegs but they are also plastic, and whilst I am sure an upgrade on the more basic ones I can only see the same problems happening given time.

I cant for the life of my remember what its called nor seem to find a picture on a google search, but I do remember many years ago before I really got in to brewing telling my about a metal keg he was a fan of. All I remember what is looked hexagonal in shape and were about £60 to buy.

I see the cornelius ones - firstly you need to buy gas bottles separately which to source I would need to get from Peterborough and I have no idea how much they would cost, plus the kegs only hold 19 litres - neither is ideal, if I had 2 would I need 2 gas bottles? or loads of fitting to make it work? Seems like there is quite a jump up from plastic ones I am not sure they are right for me given the cost.

HBO_Staff

Hi Budforce, you are not alone in thinking this, the plastic pressure barrels are OK for what they do but there can sometimes be issues with them but alternatives in a similar price bracket seem to be none existent. It is either a plastic barrel or the alternatives are bottles or a premium set up such as a Cornelius keg.

We wish there was something in-between but currently there is nothing. If you loo a somewhere like the USA where home brewing is massive people tend to use either bottles or the Cornelius keg style set up, they are great set ups but do have the initial out lay and as you say you need gas for them too - there are stockists around the UK and some companies also deliver to your house with no rental charge on the cylinders.

I short there is no easy solution, if you will get the use out of them then the Cornelius set up is worth considering, you can get 2 kegs with one regulator so you only need one gas cylinder, and there is also the metal column taps available to dispense from, the range is here:

http://www.home-brew-online.com/search/cornelius

King Kegs are more sturdy but are made in the same way by the same company so the same issues can happen with them too.

Bottles are very popular but will take longer to fill than kegs and take a bit more cleaning, some prefer to dispense by a tap too so it comes down to personal preference and cost. It is really quite like the capper - the super grifo is fantastic and used by micro breweries etc, but does cost quite a bit more than the hand held cappers - if you will get the use out of it though it can be worth the upgrade to many brewers.

Sorry we can't give a more positive response and offer an alternative, the barrel issue seems to be that a new design and mould will cost an outlay of tens of thousands of pounds minimum and nobody has yet done it, the trend in the US sometimes follows over here so we may find that serious home brewers do move on to Cornelius style kegs and bottles