Keg Bottom Dented - No good for Keggle?

Picked up 2 kegs today - one is in great shape and will be an easy conversion to a keggle however the other is a bit more beat up; the biggest concern I have is that the bottom of the keg is dented pretty bad (the lips not the actual concave inner piece) so it doesn't sit very flat. Being that I'm not sure even with hammer I can bang those guys back out to be "flat" - figured I'd see if anyone has run into this with kegs they're trying to convert to keggles.

Worst case - I turn it into a fermenter or use it for another project along the way.

I'll try and grab some photos of it later.

if it is not stable, do not use it as a keggle. Spilled beer is one thing (still not good) but spilled boiling wort can kill you.

Use a pipe wrench and hammer to straighten up the bottom lip on the keg, you are not the first to have recieved distressed kegs that look like they have been dropped from a loading dock or truck. Use the wrench to try and roll the rim back out and hammer the bulge back in as you go, test on a flat surface.

you've never had your tailgate come off and lose the full keg goin up a hill? it looks it was thrown under a bus! (so did the '67 chevy gate)

I agree roll it back with a wrench....

If it's not too unstable perhaps obtaining an extra piece of angle iron or steel can act as a wedge to fully stabilize it on the burner frame. I added 2 pieces of angle to correct my keggle. The roll method has me down to one piece of angle to stabilize it...

a couple of blocks of wood and a car scissor jack might be an easier way to reshape the keg lip.

I agree, you'll want to make it stable, but otherwise it'll work just fine.

OK cool - we'll give it a shot. We're working on our brewery design and intend to build a single tier with tipping keggle mounts much like a few folks have built on here (Nick and crew from Black Heart Brewery and Bobby M). In which case - as long as we can straighten it out well enough to be bolted to some angle iron we'll likely be OK.

Thanks guys. We're slowly designing our pieces and getting our hands on a few kegs was one of the first steps.

i tried a scrap of 2bi4 and a sledge. definately started to work. but don't forget the earplugs or the neighbors (at 0330 am).

+1 I would just have someone hold it and beat it back into shape with a sledge

+1060 on the neighbor warning... I once pissed a few off neighbors while building a pinewood derby track at night for a week...

Eh not sure I have to worry about my neighbors, they vac their cars out at midnight in the rain... don't ask (I've yet to figure them out!). But good advice none the less

i try not to go out of my way to abuse my neighbors or a keg if i dont have to.