Alternative Keg Dispensing Options

[Dent Arthur Dent]

CO2 is getting harder for me to get right now, and with the Brewers Association posing about a potential CO2 shortfall, I'm starting to think long and hard about alternative methods of dispensing a keg. And, rather than do this in isolation, I thought I'd post my current idea and see if anyone else has any bright ideas.

Like most people with a kegerator, I have more kegs than I technically need to keep my taps running. I've also got a few spare parts around. I'm thinking about rigging a gas line between two kegs with a regulator from the outside of the kegerator to the inside, and keeping a pet yeast in one of the kegs. The kegs are rated to 60 psi, so even if I overdo it a little, I should be able to keep it safe and dispense a keg. Won't be the cleanest CO2, but any port in a storm, you know?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Could go naturally carbonated cask ale, with cask breathers. Use a beer engine (basically hand pump) to pull from your kegs. Meanwhile the cask breather supplies enough CO2 to replace the beer drawn out, keeping the beer at ambient pressure but flushed with CO2 (as opposed to CAMRA-approved breather-less cask ale where air is drawn in instead of CO2).

 

[mongoose33]

I don't have a lot of thought about what you might do to replace CO2--having a backup tank is probably best--but here is how I have run CO2 from outside my refrigerator into the inside, using a bulkhead shank. I have two shanks--one passes CO2 from outside to inside, the other is for silicone tubing I use when I am using the refrigerator as a ferm chamber and want to send fermentation gas outside to a blowoff jar.

 

[jrgtr42]

At this point I let it naturally carbonate - toss my priming sugar in the keg and put it aside for a while, and use the little 16-gram injectors. The first few pints are little over-carbed, and it's kinda flat by the end, but I can get a keg with 2 or the enjector capsules. But the beer is still fresh, with no oxidation I can tell.
I do plan to get a tank and so forth soon, just waiting for one to come up at a good price on craigslist or whatever.

 

[lablover]

Just naturally carb with 3/4 cup sugar in the keg. You can serve it with very little CO2. Just turn it on enough to keep 2 or 3 psi and then turn it off so you have no chance of leaks.

 

[coonmanx]

I use 5/8 C. of dry light malt extract to prime my kegs. After that I am only using serving pressure for CO2 so I can use a lot less. Thankfully I also have a 25 lb. CO2 tank that has plenty of gas left in it. The guy at the brew shop just weighed it. I should be good for another 20 to 30 kegs now. But priming a keg means eliminating using CO2 for force carbonation so your gas will last longer.

 

[IslandLizard]

It's fairly easy to harvest fermentation CO2 in your spare kegs. But each will only contain around 5.5 gallons of gas, at atmospheric pressure. Without a way to compress it, it's not much. But it's still 5.5 gallons saved from your tank, per keg, which don't need to be purged anymore.

You could get the CO2 out under pressure by hooking up the liquid out to your water line. As the keg fills with (the pressurized) water, CO2 pressure will build as the headspace volume shrinks. Don't leave it like that or you'll end up with carbonated tap water.