The Keggle Conundrum

A large number of posts on a number of forums promote the effectiveness of old beer kegs when converted to a number of brewing vessels, especially brew kettles. These sites all suggested tactics to acquire these kegs, ranging from the morally questionable to the, well, totally legit, to the unnecessarily expensive. The best sites also showed pictures and videos detailing keg converstion with the use of either a plasma torch or a Sawzall, a drill, and a welding rig. This thread on the homebrewtalk.com forum has good videos, and also leads the reader to other demonstrations of the "keggle" conversion technique.

I was led to believe by the authors of these posts that the hardest part about the keggle conversion process would be conning someone into welding a ball valve onto the damn thing. I was mistaken. Further research dropped me into a whimsical world built of stainless steel, where the rivers flowed with light beer and people in diapers made of Keystone Light cases and duct tape braved the currents in red plastic cups. These are the things I learned there:

1. Kegs are expensive. Sources varied, but the average quoted price was $150 per standard 15.5 gallon keg shell to the brewery. This means that when you appropriate a keg shell by eating the deposit after hosting a party, you are basically stealing. But who are you stealing from?

2. Liquor stores do not own the kegs they give you. The breweries do. This means that every keg that doesn't get returned loses over $100 worth of product for the brewery. This particular revelation may cause the anarchists in the crowd to decide that if beer (and therefore the keg) comes from a multinational macrobrewery, then they should make the effort to fuck the man and take what they must from the living room at the frat party/trunk of the car at the hockey game/loving embrace of the devotee passed out face down on the couch with his hand on the tap. Come on guys. This is weak. You drank that beer. You already get free product every day at 3 from Coors Lab. Take it to the man by contributing to developing your local economy or something.

If the keg came from a microbrewery, then don't steal it. Their profit margins are thin enough as it is, and if you take product from them, they have to work harder at being accountants and don't get to have fun and make delicious beer for you to drink.

3. Breweries don't have a lot of old kegs. I don't live in what we would call a beer-poor environment. This is Golden, Colorado for fuck's sake. I contacted every microbrewery I could think of in the Denver/Boulder area to see if they had any decommissioned kegs that I would be able to buy or take off their hands, and came up with the following responses:

From Jeff at Golden City Brewery: "Shannon, we don't have any decomissioned kegs. They can be hard to find. You should check kegs.com and also auction sites like ebay, craigslist. You could even check with some bigger micros that keg like Lefthand."

From Adam Avery, of Avery Brewing: "Shannon,
We do not have any kegs for sale and not sure where to get them. Maybe a
homebrew shop?"

From Patrick of Great Divide: "Hi Shannon, thanks for getting in touch. Unfortunately we can't sell any of our kegs here. Stomp Them Grapes, a homebrew shop in the Highlands might be able to help out. Sorry about that, let me know if you need anything else. See you
Friday! Cheers!"

and etc. ad nauseum and such on.

4. Kegs are also expensive to get secondhand. Romps through the jungle of online sales and auction got me an average price of about $80 for a cleaned, used keg shell. This is a bit more than I want to spend at this point, although this is much less than the $250 price tag for a 15 gallon, stainless steel brewpot without a valve or thermomether.

I called a few scrapyards, but didn't receive any calls back with positive results for kegs. I will call a few more, as I will be able to use as many of these as I can get my hands on to improve my system, but the prospects, they are not looking good. And yes, I called Coors. I think that we are still not on speaking terms.

I Bought A Turkey Fryer Brew Kettle!

The poor man's (lady's) all-grain system is about to get its first infusion of material. Today I bought a turkey frying kit with a propane burner and a 30 or 32 quart (7.5-8 gallon) capacity, coated aluminum kettle for $45 on Craigslist. This also includes the turkey stand and fry basket, in case I get the urge to try something like deep-frying snickers bars and selling them and hand-rolled cigarettes outside bars at 2 am. Or, you know, frying turkeys.

I did days worth on research on the best investment choices in starting an all-grain homebrewing system, and came to the conclusion that I don't have enough money to do anything less than the absolute minimum. I would rather make beer now with a turkey fryer than wait a month to have enough money to make it in a stainless steel pot. With the addition of a ball valve and thermometer (which I will install thanks to the fact that I live in Golden and have a bunch of friends who will frankenstein anything just for a few beers, if not just for the hell of it), this setup can eventually transform into another element of a larger system.

I found a few articles and fora especially helpful in doing the research on brew kettles and in deciding that the turkey fryer route is an acceptable way to go at this point.

1. Paul's Brewing Page: This is a page set up by a guy who just loves to homebrew, and is learning along with the rest of us. I found his explanations of extract, partial mash, and all-grain brewing to be really easy to follow and complete with pictures, which is a must for me. With sites that just offer explanations, I found myself having to draw pictures just to really internalize what was being said.
2. "Greenethumb" Johnathan Greene has a number of articles describing his homebrewing adventures, and also has lots of often-beautiful pictures.
3. The Northern Brewer Forum and HomeBrew Talk Forum are both excellent resources with a number of knowledgable and respectful people.
   

In - blog - ural Post

This is the inaugural post of my blog! I don't know if that was evident by the fact that there is probably a number (1) on it somewhere, or that until I put up a new one it will be the only one, or by the cleverly rendered title (clever!), so I thought I would point it out. Subtlety is not my strong point. A good writer would have implied that.

The purpose of this blog is to share my love of beer and brewing and such things with the wide world of my readers. This world will be minimally populated with roving hipster vigilantes and the onetime curious, as well as people who are converted from the onetime to the manytime curious, and eventually into loyal and diehard readers. Once this level has been reached, I will request tasks be done. Beware!

I am drinking a 471 Small Batch Double Hopped IPA from Breckenridge Brewery (one of my consistent favorite breweries, of late--Pandora's Bock was incredible) as I write this, so bear with me while I stop using grammar and wander down the bright and swirling world of "Grammer". Grammer is like the Yellow Submarine version of grammar. If the blue meanies ended up taking over for good. Grammer happens when one drinks 9.2% ABV beer after a twelve hour workday on an empty stomach. Grammer is a versatile concept. Like "fuck". I'm assuming that we're all adults here, and I can say fuck, by the way. If you're not an adult, then good on you for developing an appreciation for beer that is sophisticated enough that you're reading beer blogs. You get a free pass to read the word fuck.

This blog was precipitated when I combined the dregs of a Colorado School of Mines education with the realization that I hate the Colorado School of Mines, don't really care about making enough money to buy a new truck the year I graduate, and pretty much just care about beer. And world peace. Serious. And maybe cartoons and the wilderness and friends and stuff.

From this nonexplosive combination of circumstances rose the solid form which, when treated with loquaciousness, gave rise to this diatribe.

And so will be chronicled my adventures in making enough money to live by, designing and utilizing an effective homebrewing system, and immersing myself in the rich and malty brewing culture. I have $230.72 in my bank account, a broom closet full of aging bottles, and I hate wearing sunglasses.