My New Taps [General]

2008 Aug 29
For 12 years now I've been using crappy picnic/thumb taps. But NO MORE! I finally invested in some top-of-the-line Perlick's, which are better than what most bars/pubs use. Perlick's are forward-sealing, which means that the mechanism is always immersed in beer on the "beer" side. Most taps have the mechanism on the air side which means it gets all sticky with beer, dries out, and gets kinda nasty.

picasaweb.google.ca

2008 Aug 29
Zym - Congratulations, I'm not very beer knowledgeable, but these do look nice and I'm sure they'll add to the enjoyment of your beer making.

2008 Aug 29
Wow ... three taps .... one fridge.

What are you running here ? .... (found) Pepsi kegs ? or is the fridge just a big line chiller for three 50 liter (found) beer kegs ?

I met a guy a work once who had a beer tap installed at his kitchen sink. It was fed from a fridge in his basement through an insulated line.

My set up from many years ago was a fridge I found in someones garbage and hauled home on my kids toboggan. A 'found' 50 liter european keg which I had a 'keg cracker' made for. Before the internet,the only place in town to get a tap was from Brewers Retail. So I bought a tap and all the fittings off the back of a Brewers Retail truck.

The picture is my fav tap picture ... and I took it.


2008 Aug 29
Coke kegs in there right now (pin lock), but I also have a bunch of Pepsi (ball lock). They are not "found" - they are all legal. Most of of the Cokes were bought from a Coke plant in Saskatchewan that was getting out of the kegs and into bag-in-box (disposable, garbage-producing) technology. Most of the Pepsi kegs were purchased at Princess Auto as surplus. I've got about a dozen of each.

My wife has long-since given me permission to put beer taps on the kitchen counter like your friend. It's a bit complicated to do in my house, but I am well on my way to doing it, complete with insulated lines like your friend. Though it is likely to be a few years yet. The kegs will be in the basement under the kitchen. I'm already building a small "walk-in" (crawl-in) fridge down there for it all.

2008 Aug 29
I can recall I had a hard time sourcing 'food grade' carbon dioxide.

I had a certified, pressure tested, used fire extinguisher that almost no one would fill. I can't even remember where I got it filled. Maybe I ended up with fire extinguisher CO2.

Is there a source in the city that will refill my used fire extinguisher with food grade CO2 ?

PS: The reason I ask about 'food grade' is because I heard that NO2 comes in two grades, food grade for dispensing whipped cream and for medical use as well as industrial grade NO2 for car racing. The industrial grade is quite toxic if consumed by humans.


2008 Aug 30
Davidson's Fire Extinguishers has food grade.

2008 Aug 30
Thanks Zy ..... and just for you .... NO picture with this post !!!

2008 Aug 30
nothing to add here but envy! nice!

2008 Aug 30
BTW, I now have the 4th tap installed. And the wife found some dry erase markers so we got rid of the paper labels and wrote right on the fridge.

The 4th tap is a grape juice Schorle mixed 1 part juice to 2 parts water, and carbonated. So the kids can have their own tap :-)

2008 Aug 30
Can the kids pour there own Schorle ?

If so, maybe they can fetch dad a cold pint while they are at it.


2008 Aug 30
when your children are teenagers that shed is going to be the neighborhood hot spot!

and i don't think they'll be congregating for the grape juice schorle :P


2008 Aug 30
And to monitor the teens usage of keg brew... put the kegs on scales!

2008 Aug 30
Those taps are fantastic. I should get some for my Dad for Christmas so we don't have to worry about those ridiculous thumb-taps. What a mess they make.