New to kegging

[rbruch]

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[k1ngl1ves]

And...?

 

[rbruch]

Sorry. Something got messed up. I want to buy a ball lock keg and use it in this kegerator. The guts are obviously for a traditional keg you would buy at a distributor. What am I going to need to buy to get this one homebrew operational? Thanks!!


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[sketerbuck]

All you need is a gas and liquid quick disconnect. Should only be about 15 bucks.

 

[chickypad]

If you're only going to use ball locks then as sketer mentioned you just need the disconnects. If you're switching back and forth between corneys and sankes then you will want to get these pieces. If that's the case be sure to get the ball lock disconnects with flares, not the ones with barbs.

 

[WWJPD]

I have the exact same kegerator but black inside and it came with the same tank and regulator. It's been running OK for 2.5 years, but I've made a lot of small changes.

• It never ran as cold as I would have liked so I tried the "mod" of pulling the temp probe out from the back. This made it waaaaaay to cold and froze some bottles I had in there. I gave up trying to fix that and bypassed the thermostat entirely and wired in a STC-1000 controller externally. That's been running great every since.
• The tank was fine, but a bit small, so I got a 5lb one instead. The 2.5lb one is sitting in my garage.
• I recently bought the conversion kit that chickypad linked to. While I think it'll be fine in the long run, I think I would have preferred this kit.
• The shutoff valve coming off of the regulator has an odd end and no backfill safety. I never had a problem with the safety, when the end/connector(see next bullet point) was odd, it was what convinced me to replace that.I was never good at dialing in the right CO2 pressure and now I chaulk it up to that, but it could have been I was just crappy at it.
• When I went to do the kit chickypad linked to, I found the connectors were odd. Brought the whole regulator, gas line and kit into my LHBS and he thought that the gas line was too small. I ended up replacing the regulator shutoff valve and converting to normal gas lines. It wasn't hard at all.

So my only reason to suggest the kit I linked to over the one chickpad linked to(and I have currently) is that I'm lazy and would prefer to just pop off the ball lock connectors and pop them onto the other keg. With this one I have to unscrew the connectors. Not hard, but now I have to use a wrench to tighten instead of just popping on/off.

Feel free to PM me if you have questions with the kegerator.

 

[rbruch]

Holy s$&@! Thanks for all of the advice!


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[chickypad]

Very cool WWJPD, had I known those existed I would have gone that way. It's not worth it to me to buy whole new connectors, but OP I agree if you're buying new this looks like a great option.

 

[oakbarn]

Friends do not let friends drink store bought beer!

 

[chickypad]

Friends do not let friends drink store bought beer!

So you never drink commercial brew? Whatever floats your boat, I'm quite satisfied with my own beers but I have to say the Sculpin on tap is also going down mighty fine.