Are used keg prices increasing?

From reading a lot of the older posts, it seems like the consensus for a good price is about $50-$60 for a used ball lock corny. Looking around at most websites, it seems like they are asking $70-80. I usually scope Williams, Northern Brewery, More Beer, and a few others. The best deal I've found so far is Adventures in Homebrewing which is 4 kegs for $$220, shipped.

Demand increasing? Keg shortage? Anyone have any insight? Is this just my imagination?

They're not making any more soda kegs, so...yeah...the prices will increase until they cost nearly as much as new kegs.

RGillette10 said:

From reading a lot of the older posts, it seems like the consensus for a good price is about $50-$60 for a used ball lock corny. Looking around at most websites, it seems like they are asking $70-80. I usually scope Williams, Northern Brewery, More Beer, and a few others. The best deal I've found so far is Adventures in Homebrewing which is 4 kegs for $$220, shipped.

Demand increasing? Keg shortage? Anyone have any insight? Is this just my imagination?

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Yep, they are in demand and the price has gone way up. I paid $15 each for some of mine, about 6 years ago, and now they go for $50 or so at best.

Just off the top of my head, Coke and Pepsi have gone more nd more to the bag-in-a-box distribution thing, meaning they use fewer and fewer kegs, so the greatest producers of used kegs aren't using as many, and there are fewer used kegs around as a result.

They've definitely risen a bit as supply has gone down and demand/popularity of homebrewing up. The good news is that they will level off eventually due to cheaper new kegs being introduced to the market. I know once the price of used kegs goes north of 65-70ish, I'll just buy new kegs and not have to deal with the hassle. (If I am still buying kegs at that point)

This time last year, I bought three ball locks from a guy getting out of home brewing and moving up to the big time for $20 each. He cut me and a buddy of mine a hell of a deal on all kinds of hb stuff. Last week I happened to stumble upon a guy who hadn't brewed in a while and wanted to unload some stuff. Didn't even have it listed for sale yet. Gave him $180 for a ball lock, 5lb aluminum co2 tank and regulator, carboy/keg washer, and a brand new A419. I figured in about $40 on the keg.

Deals are becoming fewer and further between. I check craigslist and keep my ears open every day for stuff I don't even need.

Thanks. My suspicions were confirmed.

63belair said:

They've definitely risen a bit as supply has gone down and demand/popularity of homebrewing up. The good news is that they will level off eventually due to cheaper new kegs being introduced to the market. I know once the price of used kegs goes north of 65-70ish, I'll just buy new kegs and not have to deal with the hassle. (If I am still buying kegs at that point)

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I'm getting to that point already. I haven't been able to get one of the last two kegs I bought to seal (although I haven't put that much effort into it yet) and both of them leave black all over my hands and what ever they touch as the rubber is deteriorating.

I hear ya on that one. I know my threshold price went down a bit once I learned that the new Italian kegs could have their non-renewable poppets easily replaced with universals.

I can pretty much confirm that the last Pepsi distributor that had any of these sold the lot to a few places in the PNW. There's no more "input" into the chain so to speak, so expect the price to rise until the new ones are a tough choice.

There's a rumor that the corny supply is being artificially depressed by one or two HBS retailers (household names in brewing circles) who bought up significant quantities of kegs and are keeping them in storage (i.e. off the market). Even if this were true, whether it would even make a meaningful difference in the price remains questionable.

I know that some folks around my part are talking about converting to sixtels; the price/availability of cornies has been cited by more than one person as a driver behind this. Although the price is steep (though about the same as a new 5 gallon corny), they are much more future-proof (i.e. parts availability/compatibility) to the extent that sanke remains the standard on the macro- and micro- side of the industry.

Cleaning sixtels has to be a bigger pain than cleaning a corny keg, for the homebrewer at least.

63belair said:

I hear ya on that one. I know my threshold price went down a bit once I learned that the new Italian kegs could have their non-renewable poppets easily replaced with universals.

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Oh, rrrrrrrrrreally? I was wondering why they are listed everywhere as having non-removable poppets. So they can be removed? They looked pretty in there.
I just bought two new kegs. I figure I'll be brewing a long time, they are an investment. In the long run, $125 for a keg isn't bad. I'll probably only end up with no more than 4 of them. I have three used kegs, and they can be finicky.
But now I ferment in those, so that problem is mostly solved.

I found a scrap yard that had 500+ kegs and they were getting ready to chop them up for scrap. I bought 30 of them for $10 each and then told the owner of our LHBS about them. He bought the rest and is now selling them for $70 each.... If I had the money and the storage area for them I would have bought them.

Monster Mash said:

I found a scrap yard that had 500+ kegs and they were getting ready to chop them up for scrap. I bought 30 of them for $10 each and then told the owner of our LHBS about them. He bought the rest and is now selling them for $70 each.... If I had the money and the storage area for them I would have bought them.

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$70 for scrap yard kegs? No thanks

beersk said:

Oh, rrrrrrrrrreally? I was wondering why they are listed everywhere as having non-removable poppets. So they can be removed? They looked pretty in there.
I just bought two new kegs. I figure I'll be brewing a long time, they are an investment. In the long run, $125 for a keg isn't bad. I'll probably only end up with no more than 4 of them. I have three used kegs, and they can be finicky.
But now I ferment in those, so that problem is mostly solved.

Click to expand...

This is just based off of people I've talked with on here who own them, I don't own any (yet). The reason the poppets are listed as non-removable, is that you can't take them out without destroying them (need to grab them out with pliers). Once they have been removed, you can apparently easily replace them with universals.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/kegs-non-removable-poppets-403543/

Now that I'm good at taking apart sanke Ds, it doesn't take any longer than a corney. Thinking about selling a couple of corneys to fund another sanke....