geoff@burl.UUCP (geoff) (03/01/86)
References: I am starting to get into beer brewing again. The biggest headache has always been the bottles -- getting them, cleaning them, and filling them. My local brewing supply store sells a product called a 'rotokeg' which looks like a small keg lying on its side. It has a screw fitting on top you can attach a seltzer-water CO2 cartridge (ie, not a CO2 gun type cartridge). These things run about $.50 apiece. Apparently you prime the beer in the keg normally and shoot it with CO2 when the pressure runs low. The owner said he was at a party with one of these and it took 2 cartridges to drain the keg. The beer is tapped through a petcock at the lower front of the keg (I don't recall the exact configuration). The price for one of these beasties is about $32. My questions: Does anyone have any experience with these or similar kegs for homebrew? How well does the keg hold CO2, esp. after opening? Does it take the same amount of time to age in a keg as it does in a bottle? Same taste? Anything I should look for, be wary of, etc? thanks, -- geoff sherwood ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!geoff ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!geoff "If your words can't stand on their own, adding volume won't help"
tjsmedley@watmum.UUCP (Trevor J. Smedley) (03/03/86)
[ stuff about keg homebrew ] > >My questions: > Does anyone have any experience with these or similar kegs for homebrew? > How well does the keg hold CO2, esp. after opening? > Does it take the same amount of time to age in a keg as it does in a > bottle? Same taste? > Anything I should look for, be wary of, etc? > My main question would be; How do you keep the beer cold? Trevor J. Smedley University of Waterloo {decvax,allegra,ihnp4,utzoo}!watmum!tjsmedley
robs@tektools.UUCP (Robert Sleator) (03/03/86)
A friend of mine had a similar keg, a 5 gallon polyethylene sphere presurized with a CO2 cartridge. The thing was a pain in the ass. We never did get it working acceptably. The main problem with it was the lack of pressure regulation. The pressure was usually either too high or too low, with only a short period at a reasonable pressure. The keg had a little faucet on it which was not well suited for carbonated liquids. A beer tap should have the ability to go from full closed to full open very quickly; a partially restricted flow results in excessive foaming. The combination of this faucet and too much pressure resulted in glasses full of nothing but head. I recently started putting my homebrew in 5 gallon stainless steel Cornelius kegs. (These are the kegs that Pepsi syrup comes in.) I pressurize these with a 5 pound CO2 tank with a regulator on it. The system works beautifully. Its only drawbacks are the price (a bit under $200 with one keg is typical for a homebrew supply store), the size (you more or less need a dedicated refrigerator if you want to keep the stuff cold, although Cornelius also makes a 3 gallon keg), and its effects on homebrew consumption (upward, rather sharply). I found a few used kegs in a junk shop quite cheap, so now, with a little restraint from my friends, I can keep a keg "on line" all the time. In general, beer will mature slightly faster in a keg than it will in bottles. There shouldn't be much difference in taste, except that you will probably brew more often kegging and get more experience. The polyethylene keg seemed to hold pressure well enough, although the lid was rather crude. There is another brand of keg, Firestone (used by Coke), which is equivalent to the Cornelius kegs, but uses different fittings for the CO2 and tap connections. Robert Sleator ...!tektronix!tektools!robs
rcd@nbires.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (03/05/86)
I carried on an email conversation with someone--I think his login name was
ignatz and he was somewhere at an "ih" at&t site--about the Rotokeg.
(Hello, are you still out there?) He had the very devil of a time with the
thing. It sounded like a contamination problem of some sort, but he was an
experienced brewer and had chased down all the possibilities that either of
us could think of for sources of contamination. I don't know if he ever
solved it, but he was working pretty hard at it without much luck...so
caveat.
Our local supplier of homebrew equipment strongly recommends the soft-drink
systems for home-kegged beer. There are several advantages--they're
available (look for used to save money); they're the right size (5 gallons,
which is a standard homebrew batch size as opposed to the 15 gal beer keg
size); they're designed for pressure; they're stainless and hence easy to
clean and durable.
--
Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086
...A friend of the devil is a friend of mine.