Sometimes money is the best DIY

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I found this thread on how to carbonate a keg on the cheap.

Notes:
1) I'm exhausted just looking at it.
2) It's Angelfire. That's pretty exhausting all by itself.
3) Make your own bike pump and collect all your CO2 in a mylar balloon.... Aiiiigh!
4) Probably works well in a Beyond Thunderdome world but;
5) Makes me happy I have some discretionary cash.

http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/carbonation/
 
Brewing Clamper said:
The mini keg tap is kinda neat actually, but I totally know what you mean with that whole "build your own bike pump" thing...

I don't want to take anything away from the guy. It's genius... in a stay up 96 hours re-inventing the wheel kind-of-way.
 
Impressive, and I just skimmed it. However, if you consider time in any respect that can't be a saver over just getting some kegs and a co2 tank.

Again, I think it's genius as well, but that is just way too much...
 
OK, so he's smart.. but still, that's an awful lot of work. and correct me if I'm wrong, but re-using 5L mini kegs. Not really a good ideas, IMHO
 
I am not kegging yet, but this seems a bit on the lunatic fringe for me.

When I start kegging, I want to be sure it SAVES me time...
 
Well, I happen to think that's pretty cool! Not that I'm going to go through all the trouble of doing it. It seems like bottling is easier. To be honest, I actually thought about this before seeing this... i.e., using some sort of balloon to capture CO2 during fermentation and then carbonating with it. But like all my seemingly ingenius ideas, someone already thought of it. :(
 
Given the smell of some of the gases coming out of the airlock with certain batches, I'm not so sure I'd want to be pumping that back into the finished beer to carbonate it...
 
gnets99 said:
correct me if I'm wrong, but re-using 5L mini kegs. Not really a good ideas, IMHO

I love the idea of 5l kegs...

I used to buy them empty from my LHBS and reuse them. I found that on the 2nd or 3rd time I starting picking up a metalic flavor to my beer. Internal inspection showed that the weld line was starting to surface rust.

If that weren't a problem, I'd probably rig my tap with a ball lock and serve from 'em. They are GREAT for parties and the house fridge.
 
gnets99 said:
OK, so he's smart.. but still, that's an awful lot of work. and correct me if I'm wrong, but re-using 5L mini kegs. Not really a good ideas, IMHO

Not smart enough to afford to buy a tank with CO2. CO2 is like what? $10-$20 for how many kegs worth?
 
There is a link on the page with the mini-keg tapper to his new site. Where he talks about his 14.5cu ft chest freezer converted to kegerator using a CO2 tank. Being on a tight budget myself I commend his frugality in his early days of brewing documented on his old anglefire pages but looking at his newer pages he seems to have come a long way since then.

And I am reconsidering the mini-keg thing for when I have to go to the mother in laws because of his DIY mini keg tapper. The commercially available tappers are just silly expensive with my current brewing budget.

Oh, and the title of the thread "Sometimes money is the best DIY" I'm pretty sure the government frowns on DIY money... :p
 
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