Hi all. I'm new to brewing and new to the boards. I had to join, after drooling all over Jester's Keezer Project. I will DEFINITELY be building one of those when I get back to the Land of the Big PX! If for some reason you haven't seen it, Google "The Keezer Project" and then go to Page 1 of the thread. It is a work of art.
Well, I bottled my second batch of the golden goodness last night. (That is, my second "successful" batch, since the very first attempt exploded in my buddy's glass carboy--I don't want to talk about it....let's move-on.)
Despite the unspoken mishap, my awesome wife authorized Santa to bring me the Delux Starter Kit #5 from morebeer.com (the one for home-kegging). It was pretty-much the best Xmas ever. Unfortunately, I've hit a snag. I'm living in Okinawa Japan and am on a steep learning curve regarding CO2.
Long story short, I took my American CO2 bottle to the Japanese liquor store. They can't/won't fill it, because they only exchange empty/full bottles with their distributor. Fair enough. I bought ($70 or so but $50 was the refundable deposit) a Japanese CO2 bottle and to be sure, tested their regulator on my empty bottle and it seemed to fit. I got home and tried to attach my US regulator (which allows for specific PSI output for carbonating--not just pushing beer to a tap) and found out the Japanese connection is just a hair larger....of course it is.
I scoured the internet for an adapter with no success. The first glimmer of hope was an advertisement for an Aquatic/Aquarium adapter that looks perfect but had no specific model number or method to purchase. The second glimmer was a post from a guy who was given a Japanese regulator from a local bar owner. He was then able to swap the nuts between the regs and that worked for him. I have since removed the input stem from my regulator in preparation for acquiring a Japanese "nut" to swap...assuming I can ever find one.
Yesterday, I spent a couple hours at an awesome Japanese hardware store which specializes in non-standard items. They were incredibly helpful and called all kinds of other stores but were unable to help me out.
I'm going to start begging local bar owners for regulators, or at least try to find out where THEY buy them. I'm hoping to find one that somebody dropped and broke, but didn't throw away and will give to me for free..then another one for my buddy who got me into brewing in the first place...rriiigghhhttt...
Anyone? The only successful in-home keg-serving operation I've found over here (by searching the internet and word-of-mouth) is an American that uses a completely Japanese system to serve from Japanese kegs...not brew & keg his own.
Thanks!
Brett
Well, I bottled my second batch of the golden goodness last night. (That is, my second "successful" batch, since the very first attempt exploded in my buddy's glass carboy--I don't want to talk about it....let's move-on.)
Despite the unspoken mishap, my awesome wife authorized Santa to bring me the Delux Starter Kit #5 from morebeer.com (the one for home-kegging). It was pretty-much the best Xmas ever. Unfortunately, I've hit a snag. I'm living in Okinawa Japan and am on a steep learning curve regarding CO2.
Long story short, I took my American CO2 bottle to the Japanese liquor store. They can't/won't fill it, because they only exchange empty/full bottles with their distributor. Fair enough. I bought ($70 or so but $50 was the refundable deposit) a Japanese CO2 bottle and to be sure, tested their regulator on my empty bottle and it seemed to fit. I got home and tried to attach my US regulator (which allows for specific PSI output for carbonating--not just pushing beer to a tap) and found out the Japanese connection is just a hair larger....of course it is.
I scoured the internet for an adapter with no success. The first glimmer of hope was an advertisement for an Aquatic/Aquarium adapter that looks perfect but had no specific model number or method to purchase. The second glimmer was a post from a guy who was given a Japanese regulator from a local bar owner. He was then able to swap the nuts between the regs and that worked for him. I have since removed the input stem from my regulator in preparation for acquiring a Japanese "nut" to swap...assuming I can ever find one.
Yesterday, I spent a couple hours at an awesome Japanese hardware store which specializes in non-standard items. They were incredibly helpful and called all kinds of other stores but were unable to help me out.
I'm going to start begging local bar owners for regulators, or at least try to find out where THEY buy them. I'm hoping to find one that somebody dropped and broke, but didn't throw away and will give to me for free..then another one for my buddy who got me into brewing in the first place...rriiigghhhttt...
Anyone? The only successful in-home keg-serving operation I've found over here (by searching the internet and word-of-mouth) is an American that uses a completely Japanese system to serve from Japanese kegs...not brew & keg his own.
Thanks!
Brett