brewing 2ne1

Bought a mini-keg of Adnam’s finest ale this summer. It was worth buying just for the ale of course, but now the plan’s to see if I can reuse the keg for homebrew ale.

The mini-kegs you buy for homebrew appear to be high quality ones that can handle pressurisation and use a top tap with a CO2 cartridge to maintain pressure. (Another difference is that disposable ones are plastic lined and can go rusty where the plastic perishes or is missing.) This one is a disposable take-home vessel that can maintain the pressure of beer put into it but probably not a lot more. The beer is gravity fed via a bottom tap so you have to ventilate the top to allow it to drain out.

I removed the little red insert in the bung at the top and then tried removing the bung from the top by levering it with a blunt knife and tugging it with pliers. This was after heating it with hot water (some advice I read on some forum). Alas, the bung would not budge. It did though pop very easily into the barrel where it is now living. I tried for sometime to see if I could coax it out from in there but, again, to no avail. I assume the bung is pretty inert so its presence in the keg won’t affect any beer so it’s going to stay there now.

Next step will be to buy a new bung, put in some ale with a little priming sugar (general consensus suggests half the amount you would do for bottling as these things can’t take too much pressure) and stuff in the bung. If the mini-keg fails as a long-term pressurised store it should at least be a suitable vessel to fill from a pressure keg and dispense from.

Thought just occurred - before I try conditioning beer in this I’ll try 5 litres of cheap carbonated water to see if it can handle that pressure. Don’t want to waste 5 litres of beer finding out the tap can’t take the pressure!

Mini-keg related links:

http://www.beertech.net/e107_plugins/wrap/wrap.php?2 (build your own tap for a mini-keg (not easy))

http://www.weekendbrewer.com/minikegtips.htm (tip on using a mini-keg)

http://www.brew-winemaking.com/ProductPDF/4906.pdf (how to use a professional one)

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/heineken-mini-keg-60710/ (Heinekan ones can’t be reused apparently although there appears to have been a video on youtube to the contrary)

dylski