Beer Forum

We got a break in the weather yesterday so I went over to our nearby Pepsi bottler. I had called ahead and they said they had a few kegs they would sell. They only had 11 and were going to sell them to a scrapper until I called. It was sixty miles over there and the roads were slippery as heck but I wanted to get there before the scrapper! They were sitting on a pallet in the maintenance shop. They were dirty and I almost left them there because I did not really care to put them in my car. They blew them off for me and I was able to see that at least two were no good. The maintenance manager said it was all or none, so I bought the lot for $10 each. He was real nice though and threw in a box of spare parts. Mostly seals and the hand grenade looking things. Poppets? There ended up being three kegs that were no good- dented up and one had a hole. They had good lids and posts though. Two of the good kegs had no lids and another was missing one of the posts and the long tube. So the bottom line is it looks like we have eight good kegs at $13.75 each and some spare parts. That is a pretty good start. Me and Mort cleaned up a few last night. I am going to try and clean up the rest and pressure test them today. Then we will know what we have for sure. Ya-Hooooo! Here's a question for you. Should we just replace the seals as we are going or should we clean up the seals we have and use them if they seal up? One of the kegs we cleaned reaked of rootbeer. One keg is pretty heavy like it has something in it. I say we replace the rubber and start fresh. Mort is a cheapskate and thinks we should boil the rubber and use it as long as they aren't cracked or rotten.

Milt

Every cornie smells like sodas at one time or another. I would clean up the seals, smell them, no odor equals no flavor.

Gaskets and O rings are cheaper than a bad batch of beer. Replace the rubber. Rootbeer is especially difficult to get rid of.
BUB

Replace the rubber. It's just not worth the chance of destroying a batch of beer.


Travis

Just call me Mort II my cheap side is always showing itself

There is nothing wrong with being cheap. Stupid is another matter altogether. Not saying it is stupid to play it safe but as long as the rubber isn't checked there is no reason to not use it. Near as I can tell the beer never comes into contact with any of the rubber.

Mort

I ended up with one more keg that would not seal due to a warped lid. So now I have no extra lids. I had to replace a few poppets and most of the seals were cracked but now have eight kegs that hold air. We need to get brewing!

Milt

Milt that is great! So am I getting some of those and how much do I owe you? I would give you $20 each for 3 kegs. That would be five kegs for each of us. I think we need a couple more each though.

Mort