[Not a] Bike Pump Keg [Evolution]

Bobby_M said:

You're talking about having multiple small containers that you have to sanitize vs. one large one.

Click to expand...

...I guess I missed the memo about the price of sanitizer going up...could you explain to me how having multiple small containers would use more sanitizing solution than one large container when both have equal surface area and volume?

Bobby_M said:

I'm thoroughly convinced that you either A. Have a horrible case of stainless steel phobia/allergy or B. Want to come up with a DIY solution no matter what, even if it's inferior or more costly than a corny.

Click to expand...

...oh, and I never claimed I was trying to build something superior to cornelius kegs, as you claim. I have already mentioned that I have no problem with cornies, they are a great tool, and work great for their purpose. They simply don't fit my purpose. Sorry if I confused you, please let me know if anything else I have said is boggling your mind.

I dont think it the price, but the chore of having to sanitize all that stuff. I guess you're kinda throwing us off because we're not really sure what you're trying to do , other than reinvent something. You gotta remember that most brewers come here to find not only good ideas that have been proven to work, or make existing inventions better. You're just going off on tangents and not really telling us what you're trying to build here. Are you looking for something compact but not stainless?

JesseRC said:

I dont think it the price, but the chore of having to sanitize all that stuff.

Click to expand...

Yes, having to sanitize six 3 Liter bottles would certainly be a chore for your average homebrewer....However, when compared to having to sanitize 45 : 12oz bottles, I'll take the six bottles anyday.

A few basic guidelines: lightweight, compact, easily and cheaply reproducible once the attachments have been built, ability to use one or multiple small containers based on your needs at the time, self sustained co2 fed system that fits easily into an average sized picnic cooler, moderately easy to disassemble and reassemble, ...

well then look into the Tap a Draft system, there is much more support for DIY stuff for that thing , especially since you can use PET bottle or mini kegs. I've also seen a DIY TAP a Draft system for the minikegs, actually various versions.
The Northern Brewer Homebrew Forum • View topic - New design for DIY 5L mini keg taps (Lots of Pics)

Good link. I have heard of many people having problems with the 5L mini-kegs; they either bulge and are rendered useless from slight over-pressurization or go bad after only a few months use, even with proper cleaning.

pizzaman said:

Good link. I have heard of many people having problems with the 5L mini-kegs; they either bulge and are rendered useless from slight over-pressurization or go bad after only a few months use, even with proper cleaning.

Click to expand...

okay you're criticizing these kegs, but you actually wanted to use a plastic bag in your own invention. Oh well good luck hope to see you on one of those "As seen on TV" ads someday.

Haha, very true.

Pizzaman - I thought along the same lines as you are going. I wanted to have a draft system that was self contained, portable and fitting into a cooler.

I looked at the 5-liter mini-kegs and the TAD bottles. Both can be made into a draft system with mini-keg bung. Drill a hole in the TAD cap for the bung and jam the 1/2 NPT barb-setup into the bung and there you go. (Like the picture above)

I looked at the party-pig, replacing the spigot for a round disk with a gas-in/beer out ports. (Threaded)

I wound up abandoning the idea for cheap $15 cornies and a jockey box that I got for $60. It didn't come with taps but they are cheap as well.

If you designed something where you can use carbonator caps on mini-kegs or TAD bottles. Then I think it would be worthy DIY thing.

Find a way to put two of these on a safe pressured vessel then you'd have something. This way you could keep partially empted vessels fresh.

The emphasis is on a, "SAFE PRESSURED RATED VESSEL."

Schlenkerla said:

Find a way to put two of these on a safe pressured vessel then you'd have something. This way you could keep partially empted vessels fresh.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input, that is the basic idea I'm going with, I'm just trying to avoid paying $10 each for adapters...if I had six custom made lids, one for each 3 liter soda bottle which I already know can handle the psi, that would add up to $120, which would be pointless. If I can manage to concoct my own lids with a line in for gas and a line out for liquid, which I'm working on at the moment, then I'd be in business. Even if it's just a couple of tubes that are permanently attached to each lid, all that would be needed is a stopper to plug the tubes when not being used to keep the pressure.

You know I liked my party pig idea because I could put it a fridge with shelves and have at least 6 beers on tap with leftover space for bottles.

I'd be doing that if I had a lathe in my basement or garage along with a drill press. I'd make a round disc with two 1/4 NPT ports.

It would be a cross between a TAD & a party pig with a conventional co2 and the plumbing hardware. (disconnects, hoses, faucets, and etc.)

To me its not so much with volume as it is with variety. I won't do it if its not really practical or safe.

Schlenkerla said:

To me its not so much with volume as it is with variety. I won't do it if its not really practical or safe.

Click to expand...

I'm right there with you on that one. Once I have a working setup, I'd like to be able to have multiple kinds of beer on tap. With the idea I'm currently working on, all that would require is the purchase of an additional cobra tap and a barb coupling for each additional beer. The co2 lines would stay the same in their daisy chain setup, and the feed lines could still be teed off to hold multiple bottles of the same beer if wanted.

JesseRC said:

...you could go to Harbor Freight on Fredericksburg road (SA,TX) and buy their $34 regulator...

Click to expand...

Is this the one your talking about?

- Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

All they have listed is an oxygen regulator, inlet pressure is 0 - 4000 psi. What I've seen on this forum about O2 regulators says they use left handed threads to prevent you from being able to use CO2 on an O2 regulator. From what I've seen on ebay, most co2 regulators end up going for about $30, plus shipping. Still checking craig every day but not seeing anything in a decent price range.

they have one in the store. I saw it a few weeks ago. I know some folks say it is cheap, it probably is, but since its local I would try it.

Is it this one for $27.99? - Harbor Freight Tools - Quality Tools at the Lowest Prices

According to this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/harbor-freight-co2-regulator-any-good-55257/ Yuri_Rage gave it a thumbs up, though he didn't agree it would be worth it just to save $5, if I didn't have to pay for shipping I would be saving a little over $20 if I went and picked it up. I'll probably end up giving this a try if I don't find anything on craig or ebay this week.

I guess if you must continue on this quest, here's some more food.

Life After Coffee » Alan Baker’s Bar Monkey

3 Liter Pop Bottle Mini-Kegs

Yeh, I've seen about every variation of "3 Liter mini keg" that I could imagine. The main problem I have with each of them is the investment in the cap. The monkey-bar link is an awesome find though. He nails my exact problem: "The caps, which we thought would be easy, turned out to be the biggest challenge of the project". It looks like I'll be doing some flashing in the near future...

This is exactly what I have had in mind for a while now:




Look Familiar?

I guess I just dont see the issue with building them with caps using the brass tees or even with the metal minikegs. I know you said low cost, you didnt say no cost. I mean how much would it cost to build it like the 1st link i put out. I rather have something sturdy and I could reuse. The minikegs will last a while if you take care of them and dont scratch the inside or dent them up. Sure they're 10 bucks online, but you can buy them with beer for abou 15-18.

I'm just trying to be as frugal about this as possible. I understand it is important to have a good co2 tank and regulator, as it would be dangerous not to. But as far as the rest of the system goes, I'm trying to make it as easy as possible to have a practically unlimited number of "mini" kegs, and having the ability to use as many or as few as you want to at any one time. If it costs $30+ to make each cap assembly, then this is not feasible. All of the sites I have seen where people build these 2 liter kegs already have a full kegging system setup and ready to go, they just want an easy way to carry around 2 liters of beer in a small, handheld cooler. While I would like to be able to do that also, I want more options, and since I don't currently have a complete kegging system, I thought I'd just kill a bunch of birds while I'm stoned.

I'm heading off to lowes in a minute, gonna pick up some more epoxy and a barbed adapter for my cobra tap. I already have a PET cap tubed, taped, and ready to be epoxied. I'm gonna flash it, epoxy it, and let it sit for a day or so; then I'll give it a psi test and see how it holds up to about 15 psi.

As I was walking out the door, I passed by the bag of corks I've had sitting on my counter now, debating whether or not to throw them away....a strange idea dawned upon me. I drilled a hole in one of em, jammed it into my PET bottle, and voila! It's holding at 20psi right now, I'm gonna check back in a little bit after I drill out a few more for testing of fitting two tubes.

pizzaman said:

This is exactly what I have had in mind for a while now:

Click to expand...

If there's a word that represents a more extreme version of CLUSTERFUQUE, I'd use that word to describe that setup.

yeah I agree I only posted it cuz I think it was being used as a prototype for a Monkey-bar. If it works I think there's definately roomfor improvements.

One clusterfukeg coming up.

pizzaman said:

As I was walking out the door, I passed by the bag of corks I've had sitting on my counter now, debating whether or not to throw them away....a strange idea dawned upon me. I drilled a hole in one of em, jammed it into my PET bottle, and voila! It's holding at 20psi right now, I'm gonna check back in a little bit after I drill out a few more for testing of fitting two tubes.

Click to expand...

I've seen a thread wear some guy did a similiar thing and inserted a soccer ball inflation needle in the cork. I think he heated up the needle first and then use the portable co2 bike charger to apply pressure.

Well, this is as far as I got before deciding the corks are simply too brittle to be a viable option. It does hold pressure, but it took me three tries to get it to do so, and as soon as I pulled the cork out it snapped in half. This might actually work for a rubber cork or bong....




[EDIT]If anyone decides to try this, the corks I used were #9 x 1 3/4 straight corks[/EDIT]

Here's what I've got so far:



Time for work now, will post results in the next couple of days.

pizzaman ,
Been following your attempts since you started out and applaud your efforts .
Not sure if it would work because I don't have one to compare ,but search around and see if you can find an old seltzer bottle. They took co2 bulbs and if you could find one that fit your PET bottles you'd be good to go.
Just a thought.

pizzaman said:

Good link. I have heard of many people having problems with the 5L mini-kegs; they either bulge and are rendered useless from slight over-pressurization or go bad after only a few months use, even with proper cleaning.

Click to expand...

I've used the 5L mini-kegs many times, though they aren't my primary serving vessels. They aren't designed to withstand the pressures of force-carbing, so you have to prime with an appropriate amount of sugar and simply use the small CO2 bulbs to push the beer or, in the case of some, using the built-in gravity tap. 'Tis easy to kick one of these in a weekend (they're 1.32 gallons after all!) and convenient to take to parties or rugby matches, as I often do.

The beauty of the 5L mini-kegs is that many craft breweries and imports package their beer in these and they can be pressed into service after you've drained them of their original contents.

You appear to be grossly overestimating the utility of epoxy for your application. Re-engineer it so that you don't have to use so much glue...or so many bottles, for that matter.

pizzaman said:

Click to expand...

This is just plain dangerous. Please find a mechanical means of sealing your pressure vessels instead of relying on friction and glued up pieces of wood.

pizzaman said:

This is exactly what I have had in mind for a while now:

Click to expand...

Although nothing like a bike pump keg to me, it is pretty much what I figured you had in mind too.

Yuri_Rage said:

This is just plain dangerous. Please find a mechanical means of sealing your pressure vessels instead of relying on friction and glued up pieces of wood.

Click to expand...

As you can see from my posts, I decided against pursuing the cork method.

Baldy_Beer_Brewery said:

Although nothing like a bike pump keg to me, it is pretty much what I figured you had in mind too.

Click to expand...

This was my original idea, I just wasn't quite sure it would ever work. It was after seeing someone else got it to work that I decided to pursue it.

The epoxy has been sitting for almost 2 days now and still has not completely dried. I probably used way too much. Honestly the way I did it I probably could've gotten away without using any epoxy at all. I drilled 3 holes in the cap that were slightly smaller than the tubing, so it was a very snug fit. I'm gonna try another run without any epoxy and see how well it holds pressure(while I'm waiting for the epoxy to dry). I'll report back soon. On another note, my co2 tank arrived today. I'll be heading out to get a regulator sometime this week.

pizzaman said:

This is exactly what I have had in mind for a while now:

Click to expand...

Yeah, I remember the first time I tried to make my own assembly-line style cow milker too.

I used less glue in mine.

pizzaman said:

This is exactly what I have had in mind for a while now:

Look Familiar?

Click to expand...

I am frightened by this thing, I have seen too many movies where the thing just took over and assimilated all into its being. This is going to happen here. In fact do we even know that there is an actual person on the other end of the spaghetti if tubing.

SOrry dude, All frontiersman spirit aside this is going to end up with $300 worth totally useless crap and you'll still want to go ahead and purchase that corny system.

If you'd be willing to allow us to start a pool I pick May.

So, you've sprung for CO2 and a regulator, and I'm guessing you've spent nearly $20 just for glue. A used Cornelius keg costs about $20, and is easily more portable than nine soda bottles cobbled together that way. Despite your fancy drawings and wildly creative ambition, this is really no longer a practical or even reasonable project.

I know you're bound and determined to finish this. So, please, just be careful working with gas under pressure. Your solutions appear to be neither effective nor safe.

I've got the schrader valve secured into some 1/4" od vinyl tubing. I tried a test with the tubing run tightly through a PET lid, it held pressure up to about 10 psi before leaking through the hole in the lid. After this, I applied a small amount of epoxy on the lid around the tubing, just enough to make an air-tight seal. Hopefully this will give it the added boost it needs to hold up to 20 psi. I'll report back in a couple days once the epoxy has completely dried.

All I have to contribute here is years of watching both Yuri and Bobby work on a wide variety of DIY projects. I can't think of two guys that I've got more respect for than those two when it comes to making stuff.

You REALLY should listen to those guys. Some of us you can dismiss as not knowing what we're talking about; Yuri and Bobby, they know their ****. If they're telling you something's not really safe... well, I'd make sure all of your insurance premiums have been paid, you know?

Pizzaman - Have you seen this website? New Page 1