So I’ve been home brewing using home kits for a while and initially fully bottled my brews. I then got bored of all the bottling and started kegging into 40 pint barrels although I have discovered that these can depressurise if you have too many friends round on the beer or when the amount of beer in the keg gets to 1/3 or so (also when the barrel splits).

I then thought of bottling half and barreling half in a 20pint barrel but then came across the corny keg.

My question really boils down to asking experiences of smaller pressure barrels (20 pints or so) vs. the corny keg. The latter is a bit of an investment but given the phenomenal savings of home brew and the fun of tweaking the kits I think the long term savings make that spend ok. Or is the corny little better to a 20 pint pressure barrel?

Thanks!

They are night and day.

Although a significant investment, a decent corny keg set up is far and away from pressure barrels.

You can also force carbonate, which is a great advantage.

However, to really take advantage, take the leap into full grain, easier than you think and the results will astonish you.

As the cheapest option I keep CO2 bulbs to top up the pressure when the level drops to about a quarter. I’ve been thinking of going to a soda stream type CO2 system to be able to add small amounts as and when needed, rather than a whole bulb. The cheapest place was Wilko. About £3 for 10.

I had a pressure barrel split last autumn. It was 8 years old and been in constant use, so not bad.

The corny kegs are a bit of an investment, especially when you need a few. Whether they are ultimately an improvement when you consider the cost, I don’t know?

I’ve got about 10 cornies, I think 8 of which have been in the garage unused for years 😯

I’ve also got a couple of the smaller 11 litres ones and use those quite a bit. Sometimes I bottle a batch, sometimes use cornies or a bit of both 🙂

I’ve found a kit with 19 litre corny for £130. Is that good or fair value? Can I use a co2 canister from soda stream?

Again, thanks

I’m a bit confused about your description of loss of pressure in barrels – do you mean the beer sphere/king keg type? The cornys look nice, but I had good results (some time ago) with a 40 pint keg, that allowed CO2 to be added from a cylinder.

The keg cracked eventually (good job we were renting at the time) but otherwise the results were pretty good. I seem to remember re-gassing about 1/3 or 1/4 left, to get the last out once the secondary fermentation had stopped.

I’m fairly sure there was an adaptor for tyre/soda stream cartridges to be used to top up. I daresay a tubeless valve in the lid would offer some potential.

You should be able to get a 19L cornie for around £50. You could use a sodastream CO2 cartridge (with suitable adapter) but the best option is to buy a CO2 regulator and a larger CO2 cylinder. I’ve got a 6kg CO2 cylinder (6kg being the gas weight) and it’s a large beast at around 1m in height and must weigh around 20kg. But is only cost £20 and will last me around 5 years. When it’s empty I just swap it out for a full one and another £20.

I mean as you describe: when I get to 1/3 left I need to add gas with a co2 cartridge through the top via a valve in the cap.