Cornie Keg Question (pin lock or ball lock)

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RBChallenger

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I am in the process of piecing together my keezer and have come across a deal on 3 cornie kegs. All three are pin lock, is there any down side to this and will this cause me any problems. I plan to have 4-5 taps with 1-2 having my home brew and the other 2-3 being micros filled at the local brew store. I believe the brew store does fills on cornies on an exchange basis. can I just specify pin versus ball when I have them filled? Is one harder to come by than the other? It seems that there are setups for either for the keezer, is there any disadvantage to pin lock? Thanks!!!
 
Pin locks are hard to come by. Their advantage is that it's impossible to put the gas disconnect on the liquid side and vice versa.

The advantage of ball locks, IMHO, is that they're easy to come by.

Since you plan on exchanging cornies, you'd do well to either have an all ball lock system or a mixed system (the 3 pinlocks plus any you come by, plus ball locks for exchange/ when pinlocks are full) with all NPT fittings on em.

No reason you couldn't have 2 taps with ball locks, and 2 with pin locks on em...
 
I am sure they probably only have one style and only accept only one style for exchanges. You might want to find out which kind this is.
 
Thanks, I'll take a look into it. I'll also take note of the idea of running a dual system (holding onto the pin locks for my home brew and getting ball locks for the micro/commercial stuff). The main reason for the interest in the pin locks is due to the fact that I can get them for ~$10 bucks each. Thanks for the info!!!
 
That price makes it worth a little effort to go ahead and get them. Simple enough to have a set of Pin Lock and a set of Ball Lock connectors on hand. Just change as needed.

At least you will have something to start with and as you build you can always sell the ones you don't decide to stay with.

One thing I'm starting to notice is that the Pin Locks are a bit cheaper. That is a good thing since they work the same other than the coupler. Pin Locks are also a bit shorter, which may be helpful. Although they are a bit larger in diameter too.
 
I may be wrong, but I think that it is likely that the Micro's will use Sankey Kegs. Doubt if they would take your Cornie's as trade.

There are a couple of stores here in town that will fill cornies on an exchange basis as well. I have conformation of that one, though I don't have conformation of what brews they will fill it with.

I think I am just going to grab em up and use them for my home brew to start with. Thanks for the input everyone, if I grow out of them and use ball lock for everything then I'll just sell them or trade them or give them away or whatever. I also wonder if I bring in a pin lock for a trade in if they will give me a ball lock in return if tahts all they have... guess I'll have to find out.
 
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