Budget kegging and draught serving setup?

[jayjay]

Hi
A couple of months ago i started my venture into the hobby of homebrewing and have since then been hooked (Read: addicted)

So far i have been bottling, however i've started to look a bit into kegging.
However, i am a student with a budget and some of the "systems" that i have been looking at cost quite a bit, so i was wondering if any of you got some recommendations for a budget setup.
- I am thinking of going for a 10l keg (2.5gal) keg to easier fit in my "regular" fridge and bring around for parties.

So what would i need to make this work on a budget? (i have no former experience with kegs so bear with me....)

Cheers

 

[brewdude88]

at minimum, your looking at needing the following;

Co2 tank- $20ish for a 20oz paintball tank (yes paintball)
Co2 paintball tank keg regulator w/ gas line and disconnect- $58 Mini Paintball CO2 Regulator
Keg- $75ish for a 2.5 gallon ball lock keg
ball lock picnic tap assembly- $10-15

This setup would fit in your fridge and be portable

FYI ,transporting beer in kegs can result in cloudy beer due to all the settled solids that sit on the bottom of a keg getting stirred up. This can be avoided by either transferring only clear beer to a new keg after conditioning, cold filtering when kegging, extended cold conditioning in fermentation vessel, or just waiting a day or two after moving it to let is settle again.

There's no rule against drinking cloudy beer, but I find people who aren't used to ingesting that amount of brewers yeast and coagulated beer proteins can have an interesting gastrointestinal reaction

 

[3toes]

If you do use a paintball tank, make sure it's been "cleaned" for this type of use; they can contain oils and metal shavings inside the tank. If you buy one new from a LHBS or homebrew supply shop online, it should arrive cleaned and ready for homebrew use.

Also make sure you get it filled with beverage-grade co2.

 

[jayjay]

at minimum, your looking at needing the following;

Co2 tank- $20ish for a 20oz paintball tank (yes paintball)
Co2 paintball tank keg regulator w/ gas line and disconnect- $58 Mini Paintball CO2 Regulator
Keg- $75ish for a 2.5 gallon ball lock keg
ball lock picnic tap assembly- $10-15

This setup would fit in your fridge and be portable

FYI ,transporting beer in kegs can result in cloudy beer due to all the settled solids that sit on the bottom of a keg getting stirred up. This can be avoided by either transferring only clear beer to a new keg after conditioning, cold filtering when kegging, extended cold conditioning in fermentation vessel, or just waiting a day or two after moving it to let is settle again.

There's no rule against drinking cloudy beer, but I find people who aren't used to ingesting that amount of brewers yeast and coagulated beer proteins can have an interesting gastrointestinal reaction

This sounds pretty reasonable
- and yeah makes sense with the solids getting disrupted by transport

I've also been doing a bit of digging myself and found this (image)
as far as i can understand it contains everything for kegging and serving homebrew, if you use the keg conditioning approach (no forced carbonation) right?

The set contains
- 9.5l keg
- Co2 mini charger
- tap
- "shank adapter"
- Mini co2 regulator
- 4x co2 cartridges

Cheers