Kegging on a Budget

Kegging used to mean a stainless keg, a big gas cylinder, a regulator the size of a fist and a spare fridge to put it all in. The stainless and the big cylinder were the parts that ended the conversation, usually with whoever looks after the household budget.

• DifficultyEasy
• Hands-on timeAbout an hour
• Ready in2–10 days
• You'll needA small keg, gas, a regulator and fridge space

Big Beer, Small Setup #

The modern way is smaller and much cheaper. Lightweight PET kegs, gas from a SodaStream bottle or a pocket-sized cartridge, and a tap that clicks straight onto the keg. No stainless, no big cylinder, no beer lines snaking through the house and no drilling holes in anything.

One thing has not changed: beer still needs to be cold. You will need fridge space, and a keg is taller than most fridge shelves are apart. Expect to take a shelf or two out, and if the household fridge is already full, a second fridge or a bar fridge is often the answer. Measure the space before you buy the keg.

It is the same idea as full-size kegging: gas in one post, beer out the other. It has just been shrunk down to fit the way most people actually live. If you want the full-size setup, our main kegging and regulator guides cover it. If you want fresh draught beer this weekend without remodelling the kitchen, read on.

The Kegs #

Oxebar kegs are made from tough amber PET, the same family of plastic as a soft drink bottle but much thicker and built to hold pressure. The amber colour keeps light out, which matters, because light does to beer roughly what sunshine does to a forgotten sandwich.

Keg	Holds	Fits	Good for
4L PET Oxebar Keg with Cap and Handle	About 10 stubbies	A fridge, often with a shelf removed	Trying kegging, small batches, taking a few beers to a mate’s
8L Oxebar Keg	Nearly a carton	A fridge with shelves removed, or a spare fridge	The sweet spot for most people. Holds a party’s worth at a fraction of the size and weight of a full keg
Oxebar 20L Amber PET Keg & Pressure Fermenter Tank	Most of a full brew	A spare fridge or kegerator	A full batch in one keg, or fermenting under pressure and serving from the same vessel

Out of the box, the 4L and 8L come with a plain cap, like a giant soft drink bottle. To turn one into a proper keg, swap the cap for a Tapping Head Kit. It screws on in place of the cap and gives you a gas post, a beer post and a dip tube, which is everything a stainless keg has, minus the weight and most of the cost.

For a keg at the BBQ, slip it into an Oxebar Neoprene Jacket (4L or 8L). It is a stubby holder for your keg, and it works on exactly the same principle.

The Gas #

Small kegs can run on small gas, but they do not have to. There are four sizes, and the right one depends on whether you keg once in a while, regularly, or own a SodaStream already.

Gas	Regulator	Adapter	Best for
16g CO2 Cylinder Cartridge / Bulb	MK II Regulated CO2 Charger	None, it screws straight in	Occasional use, topping up a keg at a picnic, the glovebox emergency kit
74g CO2 Cartridge	Mini 360 Core Actuator Regulator	Mini 360 core adapter for 74g cartridge	Regular small-keg use when you want something portable
450g CO2 Bottle (SodaStream)	Mini 360 Core Actuator Regulator (our pick)	SodaStream Cylinder Adapter or Deluxe SodaStream Cylinder Adaptor	Anyone who kegs regularly. We sell the 450g bottles at both shops
2.6kg CO2 Gas Cylinder (or a 6kg for big setups)	MK 4 Regulator (Type 30), or the Mini 360 Core Actuator Regulator	None for the MK 4. Type 30 Adapter for mini regulator for the Mini 360	The Oxebar 20L, several kegs at once, or a spare fridge set up as a kegerator. A full 20L keg goes through small bottles quickly, and a refill costs less per keg

A 16g bulb is enough to serve a small keg, but carbonating a whole keg from flat will empty several of them. That is why bulbs are the top-up option, not the main event.

Our pick for most people is the Mini 360 Core with a SodaStream bottle. The regulator sits right on the cylinder, swivels a full 360° so the bottle can sit at whatever angle fits your fridge, sets the pressure properly like a full-size regulator does, and the gas is cheap and easy to get. If you already own a SodaStream, you already own the most expensive part.

If you later upgrade to a 2.6kg cylinder, the Mini 360 comes with you: add the Type 30 Adapter for mini regulator and it fits the big bottle too. Nothing in this guide becomes wasted money when you grow out of it.

The Pour #

The tap is where small kegging got clever. You no longer need a beer line, a shank and a hole in the fridge.

Tap	How it works	Best for
Nuka Tap Mini FC Disconnect Kit	Clicks straight onto the keg’s beer post. No lines at all. Built-in flow control	Any keg in a fridge. Open the door, pour, close the door
Bronco Picnic / Party Tap	A simple hand tap on a length of beer line	The cheapest way to pour, and fine for the esky
Pluto Beer Gun	Fills bottles straight from the keg	Taking a few bottles to a mate’s without bringing the whole keg

The flow control on the Nuka Tap Mini is worth more than it sounds. It lets you slow the pour with a little lever, which tames a foamy keg without fiddling with the gas pressure. On a short, tiny tap with no beer line, that is the difference between a beer and a beard of foam.

Three Setups That Just Work #

If choosing parts feels like assembling a spaceship from a catalogue, start with one of these and adjust later.

1. The Starter Keg #

Fresh draught from whichever fridge you can clear a space in, poured without taking the keg out.

• 4L or 8L Oxebar Keg with a Tapping Head Kit
• Mini 360 Core Actuator Regulator on a 450g SodaStream bottle, with a SodaStream Cylinder Adapter
• A short length of EVA Barrier line and a Duotight 8mm Disconnect – Gas
• Nuka Tap Mini FC Disconnect Kit on the beer post

2. The BBQ Keg #

Carbonate at home, then carry the whole thing to the party under one arm.

• 8L Oxebar Keg with a Tapping Head Kit and an 8L Neoprene Jacket
• MK II Regulated CO2 Charger with a few 16g bulbs, to keep the pressure up as the keg empties
• Nuka Tap Mini FC, or a Bronco Picnic Tap if you are feeling thrifty

3. The Split Batch #

One 23L brew, three different beers. Keg it into two 8L kegs and a 4L (with a few bottles left over), then dry hop one, add fruit to another, and leave the third as it is. Same effort as one brew, three times the conversation at the fridge.

• Two 8L and one 4L Oxebar Kegs, each with a Tapping Head Kit
• Mini 360 Core on a SodaStream bottle, moved from keg to keg as you carbonate, or a Duotight 2 Way or 4 Way Manifold to gas them all at once
• One Nuka Tap Mini FC, swapped to whichever keg is tonight’s favourite

Filling, Fizzing and Looking After PET #

Small kegs fill and carbonate exactly like big ones, just faster and with less lifting. Our main kegging guide covers each step in detail. Here is the short version:

1. Clean and sanitise the keg and tapping head.
2. Fill from the fermenter through a hose to the bottom of the keg, with no splashing. Leave a few centimetres of headspace.
3. Fit the tapping head, connect the gas, and purge the air from the top by pulling the pressure relief valve a few times.
4. Carbonate cold in the fridge at about 10–12 PSI for 7–10 days. A small keg cools faster than a big one, so it often carbonates a little sooner.
5. Pour at about 8–12 PSI.

A nice trick with PET: squeeze it. A properly pressurised keg is firm, like an unopened soft drink bottle. A soft keg is either empty, leaking or out of gas.

How much pressure? Our keg carbonation calculator gives the right PSI for your fridge temperature.

Looking after PET kegs #

• No hot water. Warm is fine, but very hot water can soften and warp PET. Clean with Sodium Percarbonate in warm water instead.
• No scourers or stiff brushes. Scratches give bacteria somewhere to hide. Soak, do not scrub.
• Keep them out of the sun, and out of a hot car on the way to the BBQ.
• Drink within a couple of months. PET lets in a tiny amount of oxygen over time, so it suits beer that will be enjoyed fresh. Fortunately, this is rarely a problem in practice.
• Retire a keg that is dented, cloudy or deeply scratched. At these prices, it is not worth the risk.
• Stick to the pressures in this guide. If you ever want to go higher, ask us first.

Even Smaller: Fizz It by the Bottle #

Sometimes you do not want a keg at all. You want one bottle of something, fizzy, now. For that, there is the U-Fizz Carbonator & Drink Maker, which looks like a soda water machine and behaves like one that has been to university.

A normal SodaStream is strictly a water machine. Put anything else in it and you will spend the afternoon cleaning the ceiling. The U-Fizz carbonates the drink in its own bottle, under its own cap, so it is happy to fizz juice, iced tea, cocktails, wine, ginger beer and homebrew, and it goes to about twice the fizz of the usual flavour-friendly machines.

The brewer’s trick: take a bottle’s worth of beer straight from the fermenter and fizz it in the U-Fizz. Two minutes later you know exactly how the batch will taste carbonated, before you have committed it to bottles or a keg.

1. Chill it first. Cold drinks soak up gas far better and foam far less. Warm drinks mostly just foam.
2. Fill the bottle no higher than the fill line, fit the Infuser Cap and lock the bottle into the machine.
3. Add gas in short presses, a little more than you think for beer and a little less for juice.
4. Let it settle, then release the pressure slowly with the Infuser Cap before you take the bottle out. Slowly is the important word, especially with beer and anything sugary.

It runs on the same 450g CO2 Bottle (Sodastream) we sell for small kegs, so if you already have one for your kegs, you already have the gas.

More ways to fizz small #

Part	What it does	Good for
Red Multi Gas Post Carbonation Cap	Screws onto an ordinary PET soft drink bottle and gives it a gas post, so it clicks onto your keg’s gas disconnect	Fizzing a bottle from your kegging gas, and taking a bottle of beer to a mate’s place
Carbonation Cap Tee Adapter	Screws onto a PET bottle and takes two Carbonation Caps, one for gas and one for beer (with a dip tube, sold separately), so the bottle becomes a tiny keg you can pour from	A two-litre keg for the esky, or pushing cleaner through your beer lines
SodaStream Filling Adaptor with Bleed Valve	Refills a 450g CO2 Bottle (Sodastream) from a 2.6kg CO2 cylinder	Never running out of small-bottle gas on a Sunday
36 inch FreedomOne Sodastream Adapter Hose	Runs a screw-in SodaStream from a 2.6kg CO2 cylinder instead of its small bottle. It screws in where the small bottle goes	Households that drink a lot of soda water, and are tired of swapping small bottles
36 or 72 inch Quick Disconnect FreedomOne Terra Sodastream Adapter Hose	The same idea for the newer Terra-style machines with the push-in cylinder. Fitting it means drilling a hole in the back of the machine	Terra owners who drink a lot of soda water

When you are ready to grow, everything in this guide moves up with you. The regulator fits a bigger cylinder, the taps and disconnects fit stainless kegs, and the small kegs become your take-away kegs. Small kegging is not a cheaper version of the real thing. It is the real thing, just in a sensible size.

Happy brewing, and may your fridge always have room for one more keg.