Heineken 5L Draught Keg for Home Brewing???

[xpers]

I keep seeing these Heineken 5L Draught kegs in the supermarket for around £15. I have not brought one but does anyone know whether they could be reused for home brewing???

[floydmeddler]

Have never seen it done!

[purple_chicken]

I had 2 of them which i got from aldi's for a tenner,
beer was pretty crap, did look at converting them but for 5l decided it wasn't worth it and would stick with my 19l cornie....

[stu-le-brew]

I have been using similar 5litre kegs that I buy from Brouwland in Belgium (I live in France), it is necessary to buy a tap and small gas cartridges. I now have about 40 of them much simpler than bottling - all of my friends have bought their own taps !

[mooj]

The heinekin kegs are sealed - too much bother to convert I'd say but I've re-used some 5l kegs that had summer lightning in several times with no problems - the sort that has a bottom pull-out tap and a vent/bung at the top. IMO these are a great alternative to bottling so long as they are used quickly. I prime as per bottles. I've found the first pint is sprayed out at high pressure then you have to open the vent bung at the top to allow the beer to flow. I like them for parties / bbqs, so much less hassle than bottles. Of course the sediment means they won't travel particularly well, unless you like hazy, yeasty beer. Lidl have similar kegs with dodgy lager in, I keep meaning to get some more.

[edit1now]

The Lidl ones are only worth buying if they contain the wheat beer, which I find quite acceptable. I didn't like the Grafenwalder lager much. We've used the 5l cans to dispense TC but I didn't dare use them for my precious beer. If anyone could come up with a way of applying about 5 psi of CO2 to the top valve then the cans might be really useful. NB they are plastic-coated steel, and will rust anywhere that the plastic gets scratched.

[stu-le-brew]

The Lidl ones are only worth buying if they contain the wheat beer, which I find quite acceptable. I didn't like the Grafenwalder lager much. We've used the 5l cans to dispense TC but I didn't dare use them for my precious beer. If anyone could come up with a way of applying about 5 psi of CO2 to the top valve then the cans might be really useful. NB they are plastic-coated steel, and will rust anywhere that the plastic gets scratched.

As I said in my earlier message, I use these kegs all the time, I always go for a secondary fermentation in the keg, and use the gas cartridge to help get the beer out of the keg. One gas cartridge can last for several kegs, interestingly I have from the same batch put some in bottle and some in mini keg while the bottle one has better condition the keg tastes better. Take a look at http://www.brouwland.com site to see the starter kit, it comes with a tap a few kegs and some gas cartridges, it’s what I started with first.
The only keg that I have had problems with rust (thrown away now) was one with a tap at the bottom and a vent in the top. The rust was probably caused by me getting the vent out of the top to use it with the new system.

[edit1now]

These ones? (Typo in your link )

They don't seem to have the special rubber bungs on their own, so one would have to buy the keg as well instead of re-using the Lidl ones.

[stu-le-brew]

The keg as supplied from brouwland comes with rubber bungs, they also sell packs of rubber bungs separately. I have bought these packs in the past as empty kegs don't always comeback from friends with the bung

The bung is in two parts, the central part drops into the keg when you push the long spout part of the tap into the keg.

[mooj]

Candirect are worth a look for mini kegs also, shame about the crap euro exchange at the moment.