Possible to run 2 kegs with 1 tap?

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cgseanp

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Instead of adding another tap to my kegerator, I was wondering if it's possible to just use the 1 tap with 2 different kegs. I was thinking you'd run co2 to both kegs, and then you'd have to get a beer line and split it off to 2 beer lines. Each side would have to have a valve that you'd close or open depending what beer you want. Seems like it'd work.. close off one line, open the other and there it goes.. or am i missing something?
 
It would work but you would end up having to purge the beer line of the old beer every time you switched. If you used 5 foot beer lines you would waste a lot of beer.
That said, for a while I only had two taps and room in my fridge for 4 kegs. It was easy to reach in and take the ball lock off one keg and move it to another. That's probably easier that coming up with a beer line splitter and valve.
 
It would work but you would end up having to purge the beer line of the old beer every time you switched. If you used 5 foot beer lines you would waste a lot of beer.

+1

You are either wasting beer, or mixing the residual somewhere in the line. Just use a picnic tap on the other kegs until you can buy another tap. It's not as pretty, but gets the job done.
 
Couldn't you put a Y at the back of the faucet? You wouldn't loose much when you purged then.

Not that I'm going to do this, but seems like you could save the volume of 5' of beer line that way.

I have done the swapping the line from one keg to another. Instead of dumping a lines worth of beer, I drank a half glass of mixed beer quickly, then filled the glass with the beer of choice.
Extra taps are a far better way to go.
 
Again, home brewing seems to me like the mother of invention, but it's so much easier to have picnic taps on the kegs you don't have a tap for yet. No wasted beer, and you can always keep the picnic taps for later on to bottle beer or to take to parties when you take a keg with you. Seems like a simple investment to me.
 
I could just ad another tap or picnic tap.. i just thought this way would be kinda cool.. while we're talking about wasted beer, if I don't pour a beer for a few days, I have to purge the lines of the beer or else my glass tastes and smells like vinyl... I have food grade beer lines. Is this normal?
 
I wouldn't say it's normal, but it's definitely not unheard of. Some people are more sensitive than others. If the lines are still new that can contribute.

A lot of us use barrier tubing (Accuflex bev seal) and eliminate the vinyl completely from the beverage side. Keep in mind the barrier tubing has much lower resistance than vinyl, you'll need 10-20 feet per tap to get nice pours.
 
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