Gas Manifold vs. Secondary Regulators

I'm in the process of building my kegging setup in my head. Eventually I can see myself wanting different pressures for different beers so I was wondering if building a bank of secondary regulators was worth it. Does anyone have a source for cheap secondary regs (preferably with check valves)?

Maybe the best option is a hybrid with one maybe two secondary regulators along with the obvious primary regulator and gas manifolds off of these. Anyone have any useful information or links?

How many faucets are you looking to serve?

Check out this http://stores.kegconnection.com/Detail.bok?no=149

or this http://stores.kegconnection.com/Detail.bok?no=129

Personally, I have one regulator and don't feel like I need a second. However I only serve one beer at a time. There were times in the past when I had 2 taps flowing but I just used a manifold to split the gas for the separate kegs and ran both at the same pressure.

I actually purchased the dual regulator system from Midwest Supplies and have had great success with it. It is very nice being able to dial in two pressures as I like to have a batch carbing up while still being able to serve.

I use a 5-way manifold hooked up to my first regulator. This regulator is usually set between 8-10 psi for serving. I can have up to 5 kegs at that pressure ready for serving at anytime.

The other regulator goes straight to the gas line and then to a keg. If I need to carb, I can just set that regulator at a different pressure and can carb without affecting the other kegs. Once it's finished carbing up, I either hook up the keg to a line coming off of the manifold or just turn down the second regulator to serving pressures if no other beer needs to be carbed up.

I went with a single regulator and a manifold for about three months, before I bought a second regulator. Like rsmith179, I use the second one to carb kegs at a higher PSI, then move them over to one of the manifold lines when they're done. It's probably excessive, but the second regulator I got from midwest was only maybe $30 or so, so it wasn't a huge investment...

Depends completely on what you plan to serve. If you want to have a mild and an IPA on tap at the same time, for example, you're going to need a second regulator or a secondary regulator since they require very different carbonation levels.

I feel secondaries are worth it. Currently my primary is at 40 psi for the soda water, one secondary is at 12 psi for the two pales and the third is at 2 psi for the not-really REAL Brown (the Dark Mild got donated to the last beer fest).

I'm looking to get a 15cubic foot freezer to ideally serve a max of 8 kegs at a time. I'm sure in those 8 kegs I would want more than one pressure which means at least 1 secondary is needed and possibly 2 if I want to carb a keg up while serving at two different pressures. On the other hand I have to complete gas setups (2 5# CO2 tanks with primary regulators) so I could rely on my second gas setup for carbing and possibly a second serving pressure. Too many options!