I received a free keg today

My brother is friends with a guy at Goose Island brewery here in Chicago and I asked him if he could get me a keg for brewing purposes(brew pot) so he comes over with this 5gal keg, Oh no its to small, but its filled with 5gal. of there IPA, sweet. So anyway my question is this is a keg that uses the hand pump tapper, with one input no output like cornys. I was going to get into kegging in the near future so I was wondering if I can use this type. Has anybody used this type? can you force carb the beer with this type? what other equipment to purchase for this particular keg? TIA.

Scott.

They are no different than the half barrel kegs (the big ones you want to make your brew kettle out of) and require ALL the same equipment to clean and maintain and use. Forget it and give it back to them, it wouldn't be worth the effort to use in home brewing, give a good long thought about how you are going to clean it out...

Post an add on Craigslist for a keg or contact your local big boy brewery and try to get a keg before they send it to the scrap metal yard. Call around to all the scrap metal places / junk yards and see if you can buy one from them. ($20 usually gets you one)

Or make sure your friend understands you want a "big" keg. Honestly I doubt you get one, a lot of micro / brewpubs lease their kegs to help keep cost down, most don't own them.

I found that a lot of wort/beer is lost when you use a keg for kettle because of the dish.

In my opinion, a flat bottom purpose built kettle is worth the extra money. there are some cheap italian jobs on the market but they have a funky thread pitch on the fittings so you'll most likely want to weld on a standard NPT fitting (any machine shop with a TIG can handle that.) and the Sabco folding false bottom works well for straining out [whole] hops when you're casting out.

Use the old cut up keg for hot liquor.

Mike & John said:

I found that a lot of wort/beer is lost when you use a keg for kettle because of the dish.

Click to expand...

I disagree. I am using a 16 gallon converted keg and made a C-PVC manifold for it. If there is more than a cup left in the bottom by the time i am done i would be surprised.

Yup - a good dip/siphon tube and you should have next to nothing let in the bottom.

If you use a dip tube/syphon you can drain within 1/4 inch of the bottom. That's better than a flat bottom and tap alone.

My Sabco keggle leaves a whole lot less than a cup, probably in the ounces!!!