Greetings from Watertown, MA

[TheKeggingPart]

Hello everyone, Randy Baril here. I'm a long-time lurker that has been recommending other people to this forum for years. I've been homebrewing for over 10 years now. I've worked in professional breweries and am currently in the homebrew retail scene over in Cambridge, MA. If you've been to a NERAX (New England Real Ale eXhibition, www.nerax.org) in the past 3 years, you've had some of my cellaring handiwork. I'm the Head Cellarman of CASC (Cask-conditioned Ale Support Campaign), the organization that brings you NERAX. I'm also an inventor, but we'll get to that in a bit.

My current setup is for dual extract and all-grain brewing. For the majority of my brews, I do a concentrated boil of extract and specialty grains. Keeps the cooling simple and the time invested minimal. I like to do all-grain for my English-style session ales. It takes a bit of teasing to get the best malt flavors into a 3.5% bitter or mild. These session ales are where my passion lies. NERAX comes but twice a year in these parts. If you want to have a real session ale, best make it yourself!

From my station at the LHBS, I've heard many requests for a simple way to use commercial kegs in a homebrew setup. There are a few strategies to do so, but no really good solutions. That is, there *were* no really good solutions. I've come up with a little do-dad that solves this problem. You could call it an ball-lock post adapter for commercial keg couplers. Or perhaps a commercial keg coupler to ball-lock post adapter. I just call it The Kegging Part. Links and more information can be found in the signature below or over in the Vendor section.

Cheers!

 

[zachattack]

Do you work at Modern Homebrew? I'm a huge fan of the shop! I live in Waltham but lived in Somerville for years.

I think it's a very clean part, and I certainly appreciate any innovation in the homebrew world. But I think it has its disadvantages for some of us, so just to play devil's advocate here:

I personally think MFL/swivel nut connections are the only way to go for beverage line. This is because I use barrier tubing, and it's a major PITA to get it over a barb. So for me, there's a huge advantage to getting the tubing on a swivel nut with a 1/4" barb, then more or less forgetting about it. I can swap between ball lock QD, commercial couplers, etc. and just use the MFL fitting. I can easily remove the tubing from the ball lock QD so I can clean/rebuild the disconnect. And I can clean the line with the fitting on there. So until I need to replace the lines, those swivel nuts are staying in place.

What I'm saying is, if you prefer to use MFL fittings like I do, I see no advantage to this part. I can connect to a Sanke coupler with an MFL fitting, or a ball lock disconnect with an MFL fitting. Why would I want to use a ball lock disconnect in addition to a Sanke coupler to use a commercial keg? It's several more places I have to worry about leaking (poppet, post o-ring, QD), and it's an extra piece of hardware that just doesn't need to be there.

I do think most home kegerators don't use the MFL fittings and will definitely love this part. But I don't agree with you when you describe a direct Sanke --> MFL connection as "inelegant" compared to Sanke --> Ball Lock QD --> MFL. Especially considering your part is $30 compared to $10 for a beernut/MFL fitting.

edit: I definitely appreciate Real Ale work you've done! I didn't know there were local cask festivals, I'll try and make the next one

 

[TheKeggingPart]

Zach, I'll have to disagree with you just a little bit. You're right, of course, my solution is more expensive than just using the MFL tailpiece. I completely understand if it's unnecessary in your setup. The reason I refer to it as 'inelegant' is that there is a huge flaw - you have to depressurize the coupler and the lines before changing anything. By having the ball-lock post and the connectors, you have check valves available to you. Now you can just remove the ball-lock connector when you want to change the lines. You don't need a wrench to loosen the MFL nut, nor do you have to keep track of that little washer (a must for metal to metal connections like these). Minor points, I know, but I think that the convenience makes it worthwhile. I've found this to be particularly true when cleaning those commercial kegs.

I'm usually in the shop on Mondays. The rest of the week I'm bouncing around throughout the rest of the company. Feel free to stop in and say hi sometime!

 

[zachattack]

That's a great point, and something I definitely didn't consider!