Looking for quick & cheap CO2 rig

[LarryC]

I have a CO2 tank set up for my kegerator but for the 4th of July I will be taking a keg of my summer ale to a friends house for the festivities. I don't want to have to tear apart my CO2 setup for the kegerator so I'm looking for a quick and inexpensive way to do this. The beer will be completely carbed so I figure that using something that takes the small CO2 cartridges would probably work fine. I thought I might find something like that on the DIY site but so far, no luck. Anybody made one?

Since the beer will be fully carbed and the keg pressurized, how many cartridges would it take to dispense 5 gallons of beer? Is there an adapter out there that will take the small cartridges and output them to a regulator? Is there a cheap regulator I can buy?

I've seen some kits at MoreBeer and other places but they are around $50 and come with the keg connectors and party tap which I have already got. Anyone seen a less expensive ready made version?

thanks to all!

 

[insanim8er]

I use this for my portable:



I made it from a regulator I had laying around and a universal paintball tank fill adapter. Then a 1/4" reducer to an 1/8" pipe. Ignore the tube. I generally connect a Y splitter and run my two 3 gal kegs off my igloo portable kegerator.

The regulator has standard threads, so I got the parts at Home Depot. I have a few of these regulators left over if you want to build one. The universal fill adapter is $6 on ebay.

I can probably build one for you for under $50 shipped, but you'll have to supply the tank. Or maybe I can just rebuild one for me and ship this one.

Or you can use one of these:

http://www.homebrewing.org/The-Adapter-CO2-regulator-to-Paintball-Tank-Adapter_p_1122.html

I have one, it works great but the profile was too high for my kegerator. I wanted it cleaner. If you're not worried, that may be a better choice.

 

[ram5ey]

You just need one of those co2 16g cartridge dispensers. They don't use regulators. You just give it a couple pulls when the flow slows. Over the course of a party it won't be an issue.

http://morebeer.com/products/co2-injector-w1-cartridge.html

This will just attatch to your disconnect.

 

[day_trippr]

Considering the warning on the Morebeer page and the fact that this is a totally unregulated device, I'd be a bit concerned about having one of these unattended at a party. You just know some half-cocked nimrod will have to test your keg's PRV...

Cheers!

 

[insanim8er]

Except those things suck. They work, but the cartridges are expensive and people screw with them if you're not there to monitor it. So they'll keep filling the pressure, or you may accidentally over pressurize...etc.

For the price, I'd go with a real setup that you won't have to screw around with--especially if you plan on using it regularly during events.

 

[Yooper]

Considering the warning on the Morebeer page and the fact that this is a totally unregulated device, I'd be a bit concerned about having one of these unattended at a party. You just know some half-cocked nimrod will have to test your keg's PRV...

Cheers!

I have two of them.

They work great.

And my expensive regulator and c02 tank stays home. I'd say that's a great deal.

 

[ram5ey]

Well then it seems like you know what you need.

 

[LarryC]

I think in the long run I may build a rig like InsanImar posted up. However, for the 4 TYG party, I think I'll go with the little cartridge deal. Concern for over pressure is noted and I'll watch for diddlers - also, the tank has an overpressure relief valve. Hopefully I won't be testing that.

By the way, although I didn't find any threads when I used the forum search, I did find a bunch when I did a Google search - most of which were on this site. Go figure mm

 

[insanim8er]

the tank has an overpressure relief valve. Hopefully I won't be testing that

Ya I think those are rated at 130psi. That would be too much pressure

Be sure to have spare cartridges. I'm not sure how many you need to dispense a keg, but I'm guessing more than one.

 

[LarryC]

I read in one of the posts I found that the small cartridges are good for dispensing about 1 gallon of homebrew

 

[insanim8er]

Ya Yooper may be able to chime in on how many are needed for a 5 gal keg... But that's why I would just invest once in the system I have.

Those little shots are spendy and add up $$$. I get several 3 gal kegs on one $3 fill. Eventually I'll convert one of my 20lb tanks to a dip tube to use as a fill station. Then it's way cheaper.

But I also use my portable kegerator a lot. This is it. Everything is nice and neat inside.



Anyway, take it for what it is. I'm just a firm believer in investing once... But that's just my 2¢

Enjoy the your 4th. I hope it works out.

 

[d3track]

I read in one of the posts I found that the small cartridges are good for dispensing about 1 gallon of homebrew

I think I used 2-3 cartridge last time to completely empty a keg, not too bad IMHO.

 

[Bradyfumbled]

Those little co2 cartridge shooters are super easy and convenient, but they're also made out if really cheap flimsy plastic. I had mine break in the middle of a bachelor party in Tahoe this past weekend, bad timing! Closest HBS was an hour away, so a few of us were able to piece the broken pieces back together with some duct tape to make it work well enough to get the rest of the beer out. I'm leaning toward a 20 oz paintball tank system instead of dropping $20 on another flimsy piece of plastic.

 

[LarryC]

First off, nicely done insanim8er - excellent portable rig you have there. I'll set that as a future goal. For now, I'm going to go the cheapie route and get the little plastic CO2 cartridge filler. So I see that in some stores ads they show them selling with a ball lock (or probably pinlock as well) QD that is threaded into the filler. I have a couple of gas QD's with a thread on the end, will the filler fit those or are they something special?