EasyKeg Secondary

[Sadfield]

I'm planning on doing some small batch experiments using different aging ideas, primarily with a stout, but also looking to sours in the future. The stout would probably be a 20l brew split into the following 5L batches.

Unadulterated
Vanilla Stout
Oak Aged
Chocolate Chipotle Chilli

The idea is to brew and ferment the base recipe and then split and infuse the batches then condition for several months, then bottle. Initially I was thinking of using 5L PEHD jerry cans, until I happened upon these, EasyKegs. They appear ideal on the face of it, robust, impervious to light, reusable and have a tap for decanting. Has anyone any experience of these? Are there any drawbacks or longevity issues? What alternatives are there out there? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[Heron1952]

OK for conditioning and then serving directly. But likely to introduce a lot of air if you were to try and bottle from them via the tap, so not very suitable for that.

[Dave S]

I use Easy kegs/Mini kegs frequently and find them great. As with Heron though, I've never used them for decanting into bottles. Best to leave the beer in the kegs and serve from there IMO. I also don't use the bottom taps as they are said to wear out. I instead use a Beer King CO2-charged top tap.

[darkonnis]

I went this route thinking I was going to save myself loads of time and effort. Sadly I was mistaken. As a bit of background I've tried pretty much all of the dispense options, from bottles & polypins to the new crusader kegs and plastic bottles.

The mini keg route makes sense for small batches, however I would now go down the route of the kegs without taps built in and buy the beerking tap or party tap attachments with the CO2 canister. It gives a great deal of flexibility as if a brew isn't quite ready, you still have plenty of time as you've got an intact CO2 blanket (and you can force carb). With this style as soon as you pop it, the life of the keg is down to about a week or so. I also found that when priming with sugar, the yeast settles in the tap and around the bottom. After long conditioning times this can clog up the tap (which is a bit flimsy I might add)

[Sadfield]

Cheers for the feedback, people.

To be honest I have little to no interest in using these as a dispensing vessel, as my general mode of practice is to brew small and often. My taste in beer is quite diverse, so everything goes into bottles, giving me a range of styles to drink through or share with friends, when the mood takes. I'm not to keen on the idea of ploughing through a keg of the same brew all in one go. Also, being new to brewing, I'm easily moved to have a go at various styles of the beer, when inspired by commercial beers that I try, or reading posts on this forum.

Basically, I'm looking for 5L vessels to condition beer in over periods of up to 6 months (for sour beers), with no priming other than any residual fermentation not completed in primary. The info on the tap is interesting as very little info regarding the design of this can be gleaned from images on the internet. I'd be curious to know if they could be adapted to accommodate a tube and bottling wand, and also as to how much dead space there is at the bottom of these kegs to collect any matter that settles. If I went with other options I'd have to siphon out into a bottling bucket anyway, so ignoring the tap isn't to much of an issue.

Thanks.

[mooj]

I think you'll have little joy adapting the tap to take a tube or adding a new tap, the bore on the tap is tiny and the kegs are made from coated steel so any drilling will be tempting rust. Worth mentioning that you can get these kegs with beer in if you're wanting to see what they're like, lidl sell them them from time to time with something cheapish in them, but plenty of other breweries also use them, I've seen bath ales gem and speckled hen at tescos recently.

In all honesty I would think you're better off using demijons, just store them out of light.

[mozza]

I use them but for your purpose I would second demijohns.

[Fil]

i have minikegs some with and some without taps, ive never used the tap on one and consider them a hindrence, and think they would be a real pita to use to fill bottles through, the minikeg film coating can fail allowing rust, especially around the top hole, i got 5 uses out of the minikegs sourced from candirect before i removed the bung after a brew and discovered rust..