Cost of moving to Kegs

[Mike]

Me and bottling have started to fall out.  Its my least favourite part of the brewing process!  I am looking for a bit of advice on moving to kegging.  Since the group buys seem to be so succesful here, i was hoping someone could advise me on what the best course of action is for moving to kegs. 

Should I buy second hand?  Is a group buy the best option?

Finally - what cost should I expect to end up with when I have paid for everything I need to have a nice kegged beer.

Thanks!

[Ciderhead]

Dear Santa,
i have been a good boy this year can you please bring me;
Second hand tall larder fridge,  free to 80 Euros
5kg Gas tank filled 50-60
Kegs secondhand or reconditioned 44 (last bulk buy) to 65 from HBC
Fittings and pipework 50
Regulator for gas 45-55
Taps 25-35
Extras
Blichman beer gun 100
Dip tube cleaner brush 5
Spanner for corney posts 7
Spare corney posts and poppets 30
What did I forget?

She would kill me if she found out

[Mike]

Ha!  Thanks for that.  So you're talking about €300 for a basic set up? 

[Spud395]

Thats a good list and pretty accurate I reckon, but 1 keg is next to useless.
You need to get ahead with your brewing as we all know, depending on consumption and whether you want to have a variety of beers on the go at one time or not.

I like to have some choice (3 beers at least) and allowing for ageing/conditioning like to go 3 deep with my kegs, so I'm looking at a minimum of 9 kegs.

[Spud395]

This seller on Ebay gets great prase from the guys over on Jims, I've not dealt with him myself but he comes very highly reccomended.

Message him for the best deals I believe!

[Ciderhead]

This seller on Ebay gets great prase from the guys over on Jims, I've not dealt with him myself but he comes very highly reccomended.

Message him for the best deals I believe!

Norman sold me my first set up which was a full three keg set up including lines taps reg and a 2kg full gas bottle .............me reminiscing about my first tapped beer. He's pretty solid, mind you I bought when there was parity against sterling so it was cheap

[Damo]

Yeah, I'd also recommend Norman.

The good thing about norm's kegs is that they come with disco's and beer/gas line.

I think you'd need to buy at least 2 to justify the shipping charges

[Shanna]

Hi there,

As far I know candirect who I organised the kegs from should be able to get more. They are however in Germany so transport costs approx €300 for a pallet of 60 kegs is a minimum for a group buy.

Declan

You can build it up as you come across stuff, which is cheaper than going out right now and buying everything you need.

Cornies are the biggest expense simply as you will buy several of them. In the first group buy Jacob spotted chat on a Polish homebrew forum about cheap cornies, and to cut a long story short they ended up costing us only €15 each. But it looks like that deal will never be repeated. Declan's recent one was good, at €44, but typically they'll cost you €65 off the shelf.

Keep an eye in the For Sale section here, Adverts.ie and Donedeal for all the stuff you need as you will get deals every now and again.

Declan might be able to tell us if there are more €44 cornies left, and who knows, maybe someone will organise another group buy if there are.