I have been bottling beer for 16 years, using grandpa’s pre-prohibition bottle capper. I have been reusing a favorite case of thick, brown-glass, 16-oz bottles we picked up in Reading, PA, just after we got married 11 years ago, and moved from apartment to apartment to house to house. At last count the bottles have held 42 different batches of homebrew. Heck, by now those old bottles are old friends, through thick and thin brew, through the experiment years, through the infection years, through the award winning years. My cap’s off to those well worn bearers of beloved, brand-free brew.

Slowly, the homebrewing improvements came. I replaced the copper wash tub that sat on top of the stove with a 2-tiered, 3-tank, stainless steel system, with perforated SS false bottoms, using a mag drive pump, connected with SS quick-connect fittings, and fired with natural gas furnace elements. But that wasn’t good enough. I still had the same old bottlenecks. Suddenly, it hit me one day, literally, the same day I accidentally drop a bottle of beer, "Hey, I don’t really have to mess with bottles at all." Beer will never be the same again in my household - I’m about to go kegging!

First, I picked up a used refrigerator. Well, actually two refrigerators, but I only kept one. A neighbor was having a garage sale and I told him that if his refrigerator wasn’t sold by the end of the day, I’d probably consider taking it off his hands. Later on that day I found it sitting in my garage for free, right next to the other refrigerator my brother-in-law gave me the day before. My brother-in-law’s classic ‘30s streamlined refrigerator was a work of art, but it only held two 3-gallon soda kegs. Whereas, my neighbor’s refrigerator held six 5-gallon soda kegs. I kept the 6-kegger.

Next, I spoke with a coworker (who also brews beer) and he told me his friend’s restaurant was going out of business. Too bad, except that his friend had six soda kegs and two 20-lb CO₂ tanks that he needed to sell. I tried to sound concerned about his friend’s business, but I was really excited about his equipment. So I picked up the whole lot for $100.

By now I was committed to CO₂, but I needed a plan, a design. So, I did the same thing as when I wanted to make my own brewery - I ran over to Bob Jones’ garage, took notes on everything (OK, "copied" everything), then made improvements where I saw fit. Then, I looked at the price tag, and made a phased approach where I saw fit. Like, using cobra-head party tap dispensers until I’m ready to drill holes in the refrigerator and install (expensive) bar tap dispensers.

I purchased the high-pressure regulator from Brewmaster. Tom has some really good deals on equipment. I found that you have to ask what he has, because you’d never know it looking around the shop. I also picked up some ball-lock snap-valves (gray for "in," black for "out") from Brewmaster. Had I known exactly what I needed, I probably could have picked up more hardware. When I got home I found that I needed some low-pressure regulators, one for each soda keg. And then I found out I needed some check valves. And then I needed 4-6 feet of 3/16" hose (instead of ¼" hose) on the dispensing (beer) side of the keg to cut down on foaming. Because I live many miles from Brewmaster, I had to rely on catalogs and local hardware shops to fill in the missing pieces.

When I brought my 6-gauge low-pressure manifold to November’s meeting, several members asked where I got some of the pieces. As for the ¼" brass fittings (Tees, male and female elbows, male flare to male pipe thread, double-ended female flares, and 2 ½" nipples): some combination of OSH, ACE/TrueValue, and Home Depot. Don’t ask the price. Trust me, brass is expensive, but "Man, it looks awesome!" It’s also easy to assemble and change configurations. As for the 1-way check valves, I got them at HopTech (because it’s within walking distance of work) for $6 each. I saw in Bill William’s catalog that they are $3.95 each plus shipping. Nifty devices, with about 3 psi drop across them. The check valve has ¼" MPT on the input side and ¼" male flare on the output side. While at HopTech I also picked up some stainless steel ¼" FPT to hose barb connectors for about $2.50 each. These are used for the regulator-to-keg connections.

We had considerable discussion about where the 1-way check valves should be located. General consensus is that you want to protect your regulator, so put it on the output side of the regulator. The only drawback is that you’re not measuring the true pressure being delivered to the keg (remember that 3 or so psi drop?). So, there’s the argument for the input side of the regulator. I chose the input side because I wanted to measure true pressure. We all agree that it is beneficial to use a check valve as long as it’s after the main distributing manifold and before the keg. It controls aroma too (from neighboring root beer kegs or infected beers). One piece of advice I got was to always bleed off the pressure valve at the keg before connecting the CO₂ line, to ensure that you won’t push beer back up through the regulators and into the manifold. Wouldn’t it be nice if the check valves never had to be put into use?

I ordered the regulators from C and H Sales Company’ free catalog. Toll free 1-800-325-9465, direct phone (626) 796-2628, fax (626) 796-4875, e-mail c&h@thegrid.net, mailing address P.O. Box 5356, Pasadena, CA 91117-9988. Each surplus pharmaceutical regulator is $11.95, which includes a 0-60 psi Marsh gauge. That’s fairly economic, compared to over-the-counter regulators about $24. But, the $24 regulators have check valves built into them. So, $12 for each regulator, plus about $1 each for UPS shipping & handling, plus the $6 cost of a check valve = $19 each. It’s still marginally economic, but you have to put it together. For six regulators I saved $30.

When I received the regulators I found out what surplus really means - not "extra, unused stuff" but "previously used, from various sources." Three out of six gauges had glass windows with metallic frames. The other three had one-piece plastic windows. Two gauges had needle stop posts at zero. Two gauges had stops well below zero (about -10 psi). The last two gauges did not have stops at all. One needle had a 10º bend in the tip (I bent it back by hand). None of the gauges rested at zero (± up to 2 psi), except those with the zero stops. All the regulators had gray plumbers’ putty smeared on them, which cleans off easily with paint thinner.

Was it worth it to save a couple of bucks? Hey, it’s a hobby. The more time I can spend fiddling around with the equipment, the better.

Future developments include quick connect (QC) fittings. I have been buying QC fittings for natural gas and water from the "Hansen Quick Connect Couplings Full Line Catalog". Actually, you can’t buy directly from the catalog, and you can’t get the catalog from Hansen. You have to order the catalog and buy through a distributor. The closest distributor is The Burke Company, 1387 Lowrie Avenue, South San Francisco, CA 94080, although, when you order by phone, who cares where they are? Call 1-800-243-1387 for the catalog and for ordering. Fax 415-871-4275, direct phone 415-871-8922.

As for the CO₂ tanks, I went to Bay Airgas in Dublin (because it’s on the way to work) to get them filled. The tanks have this obscure coding that prevents them from being filled for me. There are 5 characters which read "P E P S I" which seems to stand for "Pilfered, Embezzled, Probably Stolen Item." On the one hand, Bay Airgas is probably doing their job. On the other hand, they’re not doing me any favors. I’ll let you know when I finally get the CO₂ tanks filled.