Old Kegs as Brew Kettle?

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SpecialEd

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A lot of people seem to be using old 15.5 gallon kegs as brew kettles. Where can I find one, how much should I expect to pay for it, and what exactly do I have to do to get it ready to brew in (i know cut the top off, but cleaning with any special chemicals?????) My LHBS wants $100 for one.:mug:
 
SpecialEd said:
A lot of people seem to be using old 15.5 gallon kegs as brew kettles. Where can I find one, how much should I expect to pay for it, and what exactly do I have to do to get it ready to brew in (i know cut the top off, but cleaning with any special chemicals?????) My LHBS wants $100 for one.:mug:

$100 sounds about right, but I would probably expect the top to already be cut out for that price. If you want spigots and thermometers and whatnot added, the price goes up considerably.

check out sabco: www.kegs.com

-walker
 
I posted a similar question last year at this time, and a lot of people directed me to the sanke (15.5) keggle route. I agree with Walker, www.kegs.com is the way to go! Got mine last November and I've never been happier. Full-wort boils just make a BETTER beer.

Good luck!

BREW ON:mug:
 
i bet you could use a grinder to cut the top off... i do lots o' welding and metal work
 
Grinder/Cutter worked for me. Takes a while but is cheap.

Try steel salvage yards or ask for discontinued kegs at breweries.

Not all are 15.5 Gallon (60L) kegs. a LOT are 50L or 13.21 US Gallons (11 imp). Really screwed me up with beersmith until I realised that.
 
I got my kegs for free at the local liquer/beer store. I just went inside and asked for empty kegs. They were going to charge me $10 (deposit price) for them but when I mentioned I was using them to brew beer they were more than willing to give them to me for free.

I cut the top off one with a Sawzall- what a loud, tedious job. The hole came out irregular. I am looking to use an angle grinder to correct the error. Then I will use it to cut the other keg too. I built a three tier stand to accomodate brewing and am going to use these as my HTL and Keggle. I have a 10 gal gott cooler for mashing.

Good luck!!

- WW
 
Wow, they gave them to you for free. Criminals!

My dream system that I'm going to start building this winter will not only have a 3-tier 3x1/2-barrel gig, but the fermenter is going to be a 1/2-barrel as well...a ball-lock keg. I'll include a bottom-drain for removal of yeast and a CO2 pressure valve to pump my liquid courage up to secondary carboys to age.
 
Please try to get them the right way. I still do not have a problem with getting them from salvage, because your saving it from being cut to death! Of course most kegs at salvages are stolen property, just get a reciept. Beer stores giving out free kegs is illegal. Read On!

Metal is so precious that thieves tap beer kegs
Wednesday, March 15, 2006

By Joel Millman, The Wall Street Journal


KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Brewmaster Neil Witte has an unusual job to do these days: combing through scrap metal.

"There's one!" he shouted on a recent afternoon, as he tugged a shiny, 30-pound cylinder from the mountain of stainless steel at a local junkyard. Last year, Mr. Witte recovered more than 100 kegs in this same lot that had been stolen from his employer, Boulevard Brewing Co. Around him were dozens of steel kegs stamped with the logos of Miller and Anheuser-Busch and various Mexican and European brewers. They all suffer from the problem of kegs with legs.

A global boom in the market price for commodities, including steel and aluminum, has sent scrap-metal prices soaring. And that has created a tempting target for criminals world-wide in everyday objects that contain metals -- from light poles along highways to lowly beer kegs.

In the past few months, Belgium's main railway station has lost nearly all of its 800 aluminum luggage carts. German railway operator Deutsche Bahn says metal thieves recently dismantled and carted off three miles of idle rail track outside Weimar. In Beijing, a European commodities analyst noted, some 25,000 manhole covers have gone missing since the start of last year. They were replaced with concrete plugs.

How bad is it getting? Last month, groundskeepers at the Royal Johor Country Club in Malaysia discovered that somebody had taken the aluminum cups from 12 holes on the golf links.

It's a growing problem in the U.S., too, where crooks steal aluminum guardrails from highways and plumbing pipe from construction sites. Even military installations aren't immune. Metal scroungers have stolen about $50,000 in booty from the Concord Naval Weapons Station east of Oakland, Calif., Pentagon officials estimate.

The thieves are growing more brazen. In Oregon, two men and a woman dressed in orange workmen's vests arrived at the isolated Elkhorn Creek Bridge in the Willamette National Forest in November 2004. In broad daylight, they put out traffic cones, then dismantled crossbeams and handrails from the short bridge. They hit two more over the next year, according to the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that owns some of the land. The bureau said the thieves trucked 3 1/2 tons of steel to a scrap yard outside Salem, the state capital.

With beer kegs, the crime spree began in the United Kingdom, where more than 250,000 wobbled out of circulation last year, according to the British Beer and Pub Association. Last fall, thieves scaled a chain-link fence and made off with 430 kegs in a single night from a storage yard belonging to Empire Distributors Inc. in Charlotte, N.C. The empty kegs had contained Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada and Pyramid brand beers. "I don't know why they didn't just ram the fence down," says Hank Bauer, Empire's sales manager. Empire is now locking its kegs in a warehouse to keep them safe.

Kegs are a tempting target, not only because they contain quality stainless steel, nickel and chrome, but also because they are easy to carry and can be readily found in storage sheds, behind liquor stores, or right under the counter of a neighborhood bar. For microbrewers, which sell about half their beer on tap in brew pubs, keg pilferage from their customers' taverns is so bad that even bartenders can't be trusted. Warren Dibble, chief financial officer of Boston's Harpoon Brewery, suspects that some tavern owners are letting employees sell empties on the side "as part of their compensation."

With rising metals prices, it's not a bad fringe benefit. Just a few years ago, scrap yards paid only about $5 a keg. But prices are as high as $21 now in some parts of the country.

The cost of a new keg, meanwhile, has also tripled, to about $90. That's a headache for specialty brewers like Kansas City's Boulevard Brewing, which started in 1989 to brew Belgian-style pilseners and ales. The 40,000 kegs in Boulevard's inventory represented more than 20 percent of the brewer's fixed assets in 2004.

In 2005, when keg theft started to plague the brewer, Mr. Witte, the brewmaster, began haunting scrap yards both to warn dealers that accepting stolen property is illegal, and to buy back kegs at $15 to $20 apiece.

At the same time, Mr. Witte engaged local police, urging detectives in Kansas City and suburban Johnson County, Kan., to track scrap yards' repeat suppliers. He also came up with a novel way of dealing with the problem, strapping each of his kegs with a large yellow "STOP!" tag with a cartoon cop warning scrap dealers not to buy Boulevard kegs.

His diligence is paying off. A recent tour of area scrap yards found that several dealers said they still buy kegs, but not Boulevard's. A similar reticence may have trickled down to local thieves. "I talked to one bartender," says John Dickey, a Leawood, Kan., police detective. He says the bartender told him "they took four or five of his kegs the other night, but left Boulevard's."

The simplest way to protect kegs and small companies like Boulevard would be to increase deposits on kegs, which currently run in the $15-to-$25 range. Then, bars would have an incentive to be more diligent in safeguarding kegs.

But asking retailers to pledge kegs' full value is difficult. Bar owners, particularly at specialty pubs that have up to a hundred varieties of beer on tap, already feel squeezed paying deposits on each keg. Michigan is one state that has capped the amount a beer distributor can charge for deposits at $10 a keg, hoping to protect small family-owned bars.

Earlier this year, an Anheuser-Busch wholesaler in Kansas City proposed raising keg deposits to $50 from $12. It didn't go down well with some bar owners. Andrew Mullen, a co-owner of the Paddy O'Quigley's Pub and Grille chain in Johnson County, threatened to take Busch products off tap, selling them in bottles only.

Mr. Mullen's brew pub on Roe Boulevard has been hit three times since November by keg thieves. To keep from losing any more empties, Mr. Mullen has invested heavily in security. He has installed a concrete divider like those highway crews use to divert traffic, and upgraded to a heavier, cutter-proof chain to string through the handles of about 15 kegs stored each night behind the restaurant.

He hopes that will help him on Friday, when he expects St. Patrick's Day revelers to empty at least 50 kegs that he'll have to guard through the weekend. "It's the Super Bowl of keg theft," Mr. Mullen says. "They'll be out that night for sure."
 
Thanks, Thirsty. I've been preachin your gospel for awhile now, but not many seem to listen or care. Plain and simple: getting a keg for deposit price from your local beer depot is theft, period.

Normally I'd post a link to the Green Bay Rackers homebrew club and their sankey keg sales, but apparently scrap price has gone so high that they can't get them anymore; breweries send their busted kegs to scrapyards instead of selling them to non-profit organizations.:(
 
What if I purchase a keg of beer and keep the keg that way? Is that theft? To me its like buying a bottle of soda and having to return the empty... but who am I?

- WW
 
Also if they really want to stop theives from stealing the kegs why don't they monitor scrap yards and fine them when found in thier heap?

If I pay $12 for a deposit - that is telling me that the keg is worth $12 no?

- WW
 
Well, the cost of the beer doesn't include the keg - otherwise, you'd be paying $90 more. You're just borrowing it. If you read the article, you'll see that keg deposits are so low because they either small bar owners say they can't afford to put up a bigger deposit (depending on how many kegs you have on premises at a time, could be forcing you to tie up a lot of capital) - or some states restrict how much they can charge.
 
Sure but they don't even need to do that. Most kegs are stamped with the owner's name and, if by chance they were able to track you down, all they'd have to do is point out that it is definately one of their kegs. Then it'd be on you to substantiate that you legally acquired the keg.


But whether it can be enforced is only a small part of the issue here. If there's no other reason than fear of procecution that keeps you from stealing then its just fear that makes you an 'honest man'.

An stand up guy doesn't steal because it's not right. He's not afraid of anything, he's just living right.
 
I agree to your point. Honestly, this is the first I am hearing of this issue (as you can see from my ignorant posts). It makes sense. And I know , ignorance is no excuse but if I saw something in print on a keg in BIG letters like STOP RETURN PROPERTY warning I would never have asked for them in the first place.

I still have one that I did not cut into and will probably return it. Seems that people all over do not realize this consequence either - i.e. the beer store workers.

Education seems in order.

Thanks for the information.

- WW
 
wilsonwj said:
Also if they really want to stop theives from stealing the kegs why don't they monitor scrap yards and fine them when found in thier heap?

If I pay $12 for a deposit - that is telling me that the keg is worth $12 no?

- WW

A reputable scrapyard will not accept kegs from just anyone. If they get a bunch of things like kegs, or copper pipe or wire that is in good shape they will raise a red flag and call the police. Note the key word here- reputable. There are still enough seedy ones out there that don't care and are really nothing more than a fence for stolen metal. But at least if you went to a scrapyard, there is at least a chance that it isn't hot, while if you get it from a beer depot, you KNOW it is.
Sabco would be the safest bet, but of course now you're paying more. You could try contacting a brewery directly, but I don't know what their reaction would be.
 
One of the big problems is, that the deposit is 10.00 and the scrap value price is around 25.00! The scrap yards charge me around 40.00.

I am a good guy, but I am not going to pay a scrap yard 40.00 to get a 10..00 deposit back:D

The first keg I got was at a garage sale. The other four I got were imported beer kegs from the UK and stored up in a shed collectin dust!

From now I will try to save as many as I can! Once the yard knows you will buy them they will call you. Most of the kegs that they get are included in bulk purchases, where people are bringing in all kinds of stuff.

Here is another great link on keg conversion

http://texanbrew.com/article.php?story=20021110200202146
 
I live in MA, and keg possession is tightly controlled. I went to a "packie" (MA-speak for liquor store) that I buy a lot of specialty brews and asked if they had any kegs for sale. They had one in front of me in 5 minutes. The guy I was dealing with was a co-owner (owner's son) and assured me that it was on the up and up. From time to time they come across ones that don't go back, and sometimes offer to buy the beat up ones from their distributor, for the express purpose of using them like HBers etc use them. As a rule, they do not just grab the ones on deposit, because as has been stated, they do not own them. I am waiting for another, and he is going to let me know when they get another. I paid $20 for mine FWIW...
 
NY is even stricter. In an effort to stop under age keg parties they require a valid drivers license to get a keg. Also the deposits are alot higher. The keg is $10, the tap is $25 and the state deposit is $75 IIRC. I last got a keg a couple of years ago. They have a form that they attach directly to the keg and if it isn't with it when you return it then you don't get the state money back. I actually had more in deposits on the keg than what I paid for the beer.
 
FYI: a lot of places are starting to take a credit card numbe when you buy a keg of beer. You pay the deposit like normal and can get it back, but if you fail to return the keg within 30 days (or whatever their limit is) they charge you $100 (or whatever they feel like).

It's kind of like Blockbuster's "NO LATE FEES" thing. Keep it long enough and they just charge it to your credit card and you own it.

-walker
 
wilsonwj said:
Also if they really want to stop theives from stealing the kegs why don't they monitor scrap yards and fine them when found in thier heap?

Who are "they" who you propose do the monitoring? Who will perform the arrests, try the cases, and levy the fines? Now, if you can answer that, who is going to pay their salaries?

wilsonwj said:
If I pay $12 for a deposit - that is telling me that the keg is worth $12 no?

Nope. Didn't you read the article that Thirstyone posted? At least one state caps the deposit that a brewer (keg owner) may charge.
 
beer4breakfast said:
Who are "they" who you propose do the monitoring? Who will perform the arrests, try the cases, and levy the fines? Now, if you can answer that, who is going to pay their salaries?

Nope. Didn't you read the article that Thirstyone posted? At least one state caps the deposit that a brewer (keg owner) may charge.

Who regulates trash heaps currently? Whoever does that can add this to their list. There should be no arrests just summons' and/or fines. Having this in place will eliminate heap owners from collecting them illegally. Aren't these auditers are already paid by their agencies?

Yes I read the article and know the information. My point is that the average person who buys beer in a keg figures that the deposit is worth the keg. How much incentive is it for someone to lose $12 dollars?

All I am saying is that if it wasn't for this forum, I would never have been interested in learning this information and would never have known about this law unless it smacked me in the face. Even the store employees were not aware of this until I took the keg back to them and told them about it.

Point: Less those who steal kegs for money, more infromation should be readily available to the public.

- WW
 
Dennys Fine Consumptibles said:
Grinder/Cutter worked for me. Takes a while but is cheap.

Try steel salvage yards or ask for discontinued kegs at breweries.

Not all are 15.5 Gallon (60L) kegs. a LOT are 50L or 13.21 US Gallons (11 imp). Really screwed me up with beersmith until I realised that.

Takes awhile, HAHAHA!!! I cut the top out of mine with a DREMMEL!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! ROFLMAO!!!! Had a keg, had a multi tool... had 20 cutting wheels... HAHAHAHA!!! only took about 4 hours, HAHAHAAH!!!! wow... Next time (yeah, I said next time, LOL!!!) I cut the top out of a keg I'm going down to get a Grinder with a metal cutting blade, some ear plugs and a turntable so I don't have to stop and rotate the keg. I can just rotate it with my foot. I've heard of people using a plazma torch but then slag is a problem. Some even use a sawzall(man, i need spellcheck!!!) but it's INSANE LOUD and you go through 3-5ish blades. But I don't know anyone who has used a Dremmel!!!!!! :rockin: :rockin: :rockin: :rockin:
 
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