Miller Lite Home Draft Dissected

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I want to say that I read somewhere that the TAD bottles fit perfectly, but please let us know if that is, in fact, the case here.

which (and where did you buy) CO2 cartridges did you use for your fruity experiment? :)
 
snevey said:
I'll be honest, I don't know much about CO2, BUT would this be able to screw into Miller Tap-a-draft system, rather than using the 16g CO2 cartridges?

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Pure-Energy-CO2-Tank-With-Repeater/5439038

The 16g CO2 cartridges are salty, at $10.00, even at Wally world!
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You don't want to use the co2 cartridges that you'll find at a place like walmart. Most cartridges made for co2 pistols like Daisy and Marksman, will contain a lubricant that is blown into the barrel with the co2 when firing the gun. That's a good idea for a pellet gun, but bad when that mixes with your beer.
 
Pellet gun CO2 carts are 12grams and wouldn't fit without a little modification I believe someone posted you could stack a couple dimes in the adapter so the smaller carts could be used. I posted a solution to hooking up a bulk air tank earlier in the thread. there's an adapter that consists of a dummy 12gram with a hook up for constant air.
 
DarthBeer said:
You don't want to use the co2 cartridges that you'll find at a place like walmart. Most cartridges made for co2 pistols like Daisy and Marksman, will contain a lubricant that is blown into the barrel with the co2 when firing the gun. That's a good idea for a pellet gun, but bad when that mixes with your beer.
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I think this is an urban legend. I use the Walmart pellet gun type CO2 cartridges regularly without any problems at all, and I've used all of the commonly available brands. I have never detected any type of oil or lubricant in them whatsoever. I've even discharged a couple into a tissue and could not see, feel or smell any lubricant.
 
AluminumGerbil said:
Pellet gun CO2 carts are 12grams and wouldn't fit without a little modification I believe someone posted you could stack a couple dimes in the adapter so the smaller carts could be used. I posted a solution to hooking up a bulk air tank earlier in the thread. there's an adapter that consists of a dummy 12gram with a hook up for constant air.
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A single dime worked for the 12 gram cartridges with the one I have from Miller.
 
I've used the 12 gram cartridges for guns. I've forced carb'd with it and it does impart a diacetyl aroma and flavor IMO. I use cartridges I get at the bike shop to inflate bike tires. the shop owner told me they don;t contain lube as the gun cartridges do. To me there is a difference.
 
Catt22 said:
I think this is an urban legend. I use the Walmart pellet gun type CO2 cartridges regularly without any problems at all, and I've used all of the commonly available brands. I have never detected any type of oil or lubricant in them whatsoever. I've even discharged a couple into a tissue and could not see, feel or smell any lubricant.
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It could be a myth. I've seen it on various forums. I've only used the Leland CO2 cartridged from the LHBS.

An easy way to test that would be to discharge a cylinder into a container and see if it leaves a residue or not.
 
DarthBeer said:
IAn easy way to test that would be to discharge a cylinder into a container and see if it leaves a residue or not.
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I've done exactly that and there was no residue of any kind that I could detect.
 
bigjoe said:
I've used the 12 gram cartridges for guns. I've forced carb'd with it and it does impart a diacetyl aroma and flavor IMO. I use cartridges I get at the bike shop to inflate bike tires. the shop owner told me they don;t contain lube as the gun cartridges do. To me there is a difference.
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I doubt that the diacetyl was a result of using the cartridges. Keep in mind that the bike shop owner has a vested interest in selling you his cartridges. Not exactly an unbiased source IMO. I still think it's B.S. Also, the manual for my pellet rifle cautions against using excessive oil for optimum performance. If the cartridges contained oil, there would be no way to regulate the application. Furthermore, any small amount of oil possibly in a cartridge would likely just coat the inside walls and not be dispensed uniformly along with the gas. Either that or the oil could pool at the nozzle end if the cartridge were positioned with the outlet downward for any length of time. This would eject all of the oil in one big squirt. What I'm getting at is that this would be a rather hit or miss way of lubricating a CO2 powered gun. Why would a manufacturer want to add lubricant if there were no beneifit for him to do so. Matter of fact, it would cost him more to produce the cartridges. It would be one of those lose, lose thingys. There is no mention of the cartridges containing oil on the packaging. I would think that there would be, if they contained anything other than CO2, just for liability reasons. All this leads me to conclude that there is no lubricant in them at all. Use a bike tire inflator with one and discharge it onto the surface of a container of water. You would see an obvious oil sheen, much like in the Gulf of Mexico at the moment. There may actually be some cartridges that contain a lubricant, but I have not encountered any and I have been using a variety of them for a long time without problems.
 
I don't doubt the diacetyl aroma/flavor was a direct result of the cartridge. I have a 20lbs CO2 tank also and did a side by side with the same batch of beer. My CO2 tank sat empty for quite some time. My fridge broke and I can't fit a keg in the new fridge. I had a feeling the beer was being contaminated by the gas so I went ahead and filled the CO2 tank again since it would be cheaper to force carb with it regardless.

I just thought I was taking it off the yeast too soon even though samples tasted good and gravity readings were stable.

I see your point about the bike store owner, but it wasn't her telling me the bike cartridges were oil free that prompted me to buy them. I tried different brands to find one that didn't funk up my beer. I bought 2 from bike store. The beer was clean. I went back to buy more for a camping trip and she asked if I was having problems with flats because I was buying a lot of them in a short period of time. I told her what was up with the beer when I used her cartridges vs the wally world Copperhead brand Paint Ball cartridges. This is when she told me they put oil in them. Regardless if its oil or just some funky aroma in the gas its getting in my beer.

I have no reference other than that. I do know from experience my beer gets funky with paint ball gas and it doesn't with Genuine Innovations brand gas for bike tires. Doing an internet search doesn't turn up much other than some saying it does contain and some say it doesn't. It is a common to find posts on bike forums warning to not use anything but gas for tires because oil on the paint ball gas will damage the tire.
 
I will back up claims about CO2 being a dirty gas. High end paintball guns use Nitrogen/HPA vs. CO2 for a variety of reasons. The two major are that under higher rates of fire CO2 will chill causing pressure to drop and the marker to freeze up, the second CO2 is considered a dirty gas among people who only use it on their markers. It will foul up regulators and leave a residue on every internal part of the marker. Granted the volume of CO2 put through a paintball marker is significantly higher, but the stuff used for paintball is not filtered like food grade gas is.
 
CodyRay said:
Ok, sacked up and drank all the coors light and have disassembled. It is the exact same system as the miller draft only it is black and silver. Gonna do a simple extract brew tomorrow and see how reusable this actually is.
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Your forgot to mention the best feature. If you get the Coors bottle you get the thing that turns blue to let you know your beer is as cold as the Rocky Mountains.

/fighting my way through a pair of Coors HD, actually not too bad for a summer beer
 
RogerMcAllen said:
fighting my way through a pair of Coors HD, actually not too bad for a summer beer
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The Coors variety I could stand to drink and finished that one off over a week or two. The Miller one, I couldn't stand after 1-1.5 glasses and poured the remainder down the sink.
 
Just picked up my Coors-Lite keg this evening. I am going to bottle my 2.5 gallon batch of Witbier this weekend, so I have so drinking to do. I have several of the 16gram carts (Mountain biker, flats happen), so I am gonna give force carbing a shot.
I also want to see if there is some way to add some hose to the tube so that it points away from the dregs.
Exciting little project.
 
BGJ223 said:
...
I also want to see if there is some way to add some hose to the tube so that it points away from the dregs.
Exciting little project.
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IIRC the tap-a-draft instructions suggest (when natural carbing) to carb with the bottle upright so the sediment is all at the other end of the bottle. Perhaps you could prop the bottle upright until your ready to serve so the dregs are at the other end.
 
Well I filled it up last night and put in a new CO2 cart. We shall see how it all works out. I have a total of 4 carts, so that should be a enough to carb and pour my witbier.
 
I have 6 TAD bottles and about 24 extra caps. You definitely want to stand them upright when naturally carbonating. If the TAD caps fit these Coors and Miller bottles, you should get some extra since the liner inside does not hold up to too many re-uses. The good news is, I have a TAD bottle that was filled last November and the beer is still good. Once you remove the storage cap and then add the tap, it has to be consumed pretty quickly. This fall when I start brewing again, I will bottle half of each batch and "keg" half in TAD bottles. I'm also going to buy some Nitrogen cartridges.
 
These just started showing up around here. Now I need to find someone willing to drink 5.7L of Miller Lite.
 
Just an idea here.
It has been reported that the 3 liter soda bottles would also fit the Mill/coors - lite taps. If you were to naturally carb your beer in the 3 liter bottles, could you store the bottles cap side down? If you did this you could pour off the dregs right before you tapped the bottle. Any input of why this would be a good or bad idea would be greatly appreciated.
 
Update: After 2 days force carbing in the fridge, my beer seems to be pretty good carbonation. On 9/12 I put a Witbier in the Coors TAD, beer was cold before I inserted the first 16 gram cart. Put the second cart in on 9/13, and took a sample today.
 
Catt22 said:
I doubt that the diacetyl was a result of using the cartridges. Keep in mind that the bike shop owner has a vested interest in selling you his cartridges. Not exactly an unbiased source IMO. I still think it's B.S.
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The Bike Shop/inflator cartridges are also billed as "food safe". The oil in Paintball/BB gun cartridges is not added, it's just left over from the manufacturing process. It's not a lot, but IMO any is too much.
 
HSM said:
The Bike Shop/inflator cartridges are also billed as "food safe". The oil in Paintball/BB gun cartridges is not added, it's just left over from the manufacturing process. It's not a lot, but IMO any is too much.
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Please disregard everything I previously posted on this subject. I was wrong. Some of the cartridges do contain lubricant or some other nasty stuff along with the CO2. I put a Copper Head cartridge in my keg charger and discharged it into a two liter flask. I put about 500 ml of water in the flask to see if I could detect any oil on the water surface. Well, one whiff of that stuff was enough to convince me. It had a very strong odor. I could not detect any oil on the water surface initially, but I did not bother to investigate it further once I smelled it. This was not a faint odor. It was very intense and unmistakable as something that should not be in your beer. I don't know if the oil is intentionally added or not, but I don't want it anywhere near my beer.
 
Just tried to put The Coors-lite keg cap on a 3 liter bottle. It does not create a seal. You could probably get it to work if you used some plumbers tape on it, but I don't think I want to risk it. I need to order a tap a draft bottle to confirm that it will work with the tap.
 
BGJ223 said:
Just tried to put The Coors-lite keg cap on a 3 liter bottle. It does not create a seal. You could probably get it to work if you used some plumbers tape on it, but I don't think I want to risk it. I need to order a tap a draft bottle to confirm that it will work with the tap.
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Please let us know as soon as you know. I have a call out on a Subaru forum for anyone with the HD systems to give me their empties, but I don't know that I'll get that many (maybe I should put a post up on the Camaro forums as well ;) )

I'm looking forward to doing one of these for Thanksgiving and kegging the remainder
 
BGJ223 said:
Just tried to put The Coors-lite keg cap on a 3 liter bottle. It does not create a seal. You could probably get it to work if you used some plumbers tape on it, but I don't think I want to risk it. I need to order a tap a draft bottle to confirm that it will work with the tap.
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As a side note, but related.
I now have bought a tap-a-draft dispenser since my Miller experiment failed (believe I lost the plastic seal for the co2 bottle).
I have successfully used tap-a-draft with 3L soda bottles. It seals fine. Curious that the Miller/Coors draft doesn't seal with the 3L bottles.
 
Picked up the Miller lite draft version this weekend. Drank about 3/4 of it and then dumped the rest. Will be trying this out soon.
 
BGJ223 said:
Another way to cut down on the CO2 cart cost can be found at the following linke

http://www.fizzgiz.com/Refillable16gOrderForm.htm

Basically you can refill this CO2 cart yourself. Would require a Larger CO2 tank and an inflator needle. I am sure that could be DIY'ed also. Just food for thought.
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Great idea but it looks likes the valve can damage the piercing needle in the dispenser.

I'm thinking of something like this:
http://www.pyramydair.com/s/a/Air_Venturi_IZH_Drozd_Bulk_Fill_Adapter/1180
 
My only issue I see with that is getting it to mount inside of the screw on CO2 cart holder. If that could be worked out, it might be a good way of doing it
 
Has anyone looked into using nitrogen in these or their TAD systems?

I am planning on picking up a coors system to add to my TAD collection and while looking for good 16g prices found some nitrogen cream chargers and was thinking it might be nice on a stout but have no idea if it would work, even if I could find the right size.

Just a thought. :mug:
 
I've been using one of the home draft kits for several months and have been quite pleased with it - up to this point. I was refilling it for the third time and when I had it fully assembled, inserted the CO2 cartridge and screwed it in to puncture it. I didn't hear anything that sounded like gas moving so I slowly unscrewed the cartridge. No leaking gas either. The cartridge had not been punctured.

The pin that punctures the cartridge was not in the unit. I didn't see it anywhere so I could at least test if it could be reinstalled.

Has anyone else experienced this issue with the Home Draft Kit?
 
Mose said:
That's great. Thanks for the link. These are going on the short list. :mug:
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You bet they are. I have a steam beer carbing up in my home draft at the moment, but I think I'll get a stout going tomorrow night to try with the nitro. Now I have to consider other styles that would go well. I'm kind of thinking a black IPA would be pretty sweet on nitrogen or maybe that Xocoatl recipe someone was posting about a few days ago.
 
RogerMcAllen said:
Your forgot to mention the best feature. If you get the Coors bottle you get the thing that turns blue to let you know your beer is as cold as the Rocky Mountains.
Click to expand...

Actually, the Miller version has 2 gold emblems on the side that do the same as the Coors.

I got a free one this weekend and I plan to use it with the beer I made this weekend, but how much headspace should I leave when I fill the bottle for natural carbing?
 

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