A while ago, my brewbuddy Dan brought around his gutted SodaStream machine to force carbonate some PET bottles of beer. It is pretty much what Graham uses to push beer out his party kegs. I already had some PET bottle caps with Schraeder valves in them. Beer got carbonated and I suddenly had a new need. Thanks for that, Dan.
I'm not fond of playing with high pressure gas, but that is what comes out of gas bottles - even the small ones. A birthday gift, some credit card points, a small amount of cash and a fortuitous change of pricing policy saw me the proud owner of a SodaStream kit, a MicroMatic CO2 regulator and a sundry bunch of bits and pieces; enough to force-carbonate PET bottles and build a party keg.
Using Quick Disconnects for Gas In adds about seventy dollars to the cost of the first keg (including a carbonating cap) and thirty to each subsequent keg as well as making life interesting. Using them for Beer Out makes life even more interesting and increases the cost by another thirty dollars per keg. I chose to use the automotive Schraeder valve for Gas In (just like the aforementioned pioneers) and something new for Beer Out.
Four words: John Guest Bulkhead Fitting. It has a cute grippy thing on each side that makes a mechanically sound and gas-tight connection to BEVA hose, so you can easily attach a dip tube to the inside and your Beer Out to the outside. If you don't want to leave the beer line and tap connected forever, you can release the pressure in the keg, remove the line and tap and insert one of these.
Fitting these little beauties to the keg is just a matter of a hole-saw and a cheap plastic chopping board. The equivalent of two thousand spoken words follow:
 |
| From Party Keg |
 |
| From Party Keg |
Now I just have to make some beer to try it out.
Edit: A third pic showing the whole enchalada as I've happily deployed it:
 |
| From Party Keg |
