Eldest Bambina is doing soda making for her senior project. So, maybe, I should get a keg set up for her final presentation, and then liberate it after that for my beer. 
I’m a pretty avid homebrewer and beer drinker but have not gone the kegging route. Currently, I have a stash of 1 liter swing top bottles, which I find is a pretty painless way to bottle condition my real ale.
Looking for a cost effective, easy to clean, practical, doesn’t take up the whole fridge, 3-5 gallons type system. Already have a second fridge in the garage, and can use around half of the space. That said, I have zero experience with kegging systems and open to the voice of experience. Corny kegs seem to be popular, but again I want about as hassle free a system as possible.
This set up seems okay.
I’ll get on some homebrew sites but checking Doper wisdom first. Will also tap into the local HBS.
Bonus points if the set up can showcase more traditional British beers styles (mild, ordinary bitter, porters, etc).
Thanks in advance!
For some odd reason, I’m not allowed to go to homebrewing sites from work. Go figure. However, I’ve had good luck with williamsbrewing.com as a mail-order place, and they seem to have a bit more variety than Northern Brewer. I remember they had a cheap mini-regulator that took a CO2 cartridge or could be adapted to use a tank, so you could get into kegging a step at a time or have a more compact travel kit–just take a corny keg and the mini-tap and a cartridge, and you don’t need to lug a CO2 tank with you.
Hmm, hubby and his BFF (25 year Bud Guy) have a single tap kegerator* and (not set up yet) a multi tap pop dispenser (like at a restaurant). They have several built into beer/pop coolers systems (cold plate/regulator/hoses/tapper) that run on hand pumping/tapping or CO2 bottles that they loan out on occasion. They did away with the fridge models about a decade ago.
(crappy kindle picture) http://mistymage.com/Family/pinball/bndkeg.jpg It’s basically a mini-fridge on wheels that the BFF decorated for hubby’s birthday. It has a cold plate inside, tapper and drain plate up top (I think it needs a hose to drain to a bucket but since neither spill much they didn’t see the need).
I’m waiting for them to get the pop dispenser set up… maybe with a bottle/bag of whiskey instead of one bag of pop syrup Or the Margarita Maker set up… we have an ice machine and all the MM needs is a new power cord and a new 220 outlet installed.
Maybe they’ll get them both working around the time they set up the hot tub.
They’ve owned all for 3 years now so I won’t be holding my breath. There is always some other project.
For multipurpose use an economy, get a 20 pound CO2 tank at AirGas or some other local industrial gas supplier. Specify food grade.
I make soda, force carbonate homebrew, serve half- and quarter-barrel commercial kegs, make soda water, etc. If you want to do a homebrew batch all at once, you can use cornies.
For the senior project, not sure if she’s making ginger ale, open source cola, or using flavor extracts, but a CO2 tank will handle any of them.
