So we were a bunch of lightweights this year and I ended up coming home with almost 5 gallons of Yuengling. What’s a fellow to do? Why, make a jumper and push it into a corny keg of course.
So an hour and some questionable, drunken sanitation practices later, I have a corny of YuengALingALing on tap. Stop on by! Not sure how long it’s gonna last.
I like what we’ve done in the past. Someone orders a keg of something big - Bigfoot, Celebration, Fantome (ok, that was just me) and then you and two other buds gather a corny a piece, jumper and transfer from the keg to yours and split the costs.
Damn hard to beat that.
I’ve always assumed it could be done in theory, but I never actually tried it before. Remarkably easy. It’s a good thing I buy a half dozen of any random little bit of hardware that looks useful.
Also, I should have a breathalyzer lockout on my laptop.
I’ve done it a few times, both with leftovers like you’ve got, or with a new keg like Drew mentioned. No problems at all.
I would have stopped by, but it’s nearly 3000 miles 
lol! they should do this for cell phones too…although it would totally ruin a show like ‘jersey shore’…or spare us a show like ‘jersey shore’
i had never thought of a transfer like this, very intriguing.
I heard about a bunch of guys who went in together on a keg of Samichlaus and bottled it with a CP filler with good results and significant savings. It was probably Drew, that sneaky bastard.
Any time I get one of these “Well, why don’t I just…” ideas regarding beer, I think of Bill Murray in Ghostbusters. Trust me, Ma’am. I’m a homebrewer.
I am interested in how you did this.
Did you use a sankey to corny keg connections and bleed of the keg pressure as it filled?
Yes, my sankey tap has been fitted with ball-lock QD posts, so I just charged up the empty corney, put the gas line back on the sankey, made a jumper with a black “out” qd on each end and connected it up to the two out posts. Then just sat there and bled off pressure whenever the line would start to get foamy. Worked pretty well.
Nice work! I will have to remember this trick next time I’m debating on spending the extra $$ on a specialty keg.
I always do mine by filling a keg FULL with starsan. I mean FULL! Then seal it up, and push the starsan out with CO2, so the keg should have as little air in it as possible. I think this will help keep the beer longer, since many commercial kegged beers have no yeast to absorb the O2 and prevent oxidation. It might be overkill though.
Then I just push from the commercial keg to the corney, venting like you said. Works like a charm.
That’s a nice idea. I’ve just bled the cornie a couple of times w/ CO2 like you do right after you rack to the cornie, but it’s a crap shoot to know if you’ve used too much or not enough CO2 to get all the O2 out. I think I’ll try that next time I push from a commercial 1/2 bbl into a cornie keg.
This is actually my process for all of my kegs no matter what beer is heading into them. Is it perfect? Not a chance in hell, but man it makes me feel better
i assume that the commercial keg was not being served as at a picnic using a hand pump to maintain pressure and using proper co2 as the source?
Why, is it bad to use the hand pump?
;D
Introduces O2? Plus, we always got foamy brew because kegs were always overpumped IIRC…
I would have stopped by too (I’m less than 15 miles away)…but found this thread too late!
I’ve transferred leftovers from commercial kegs as well with no problems. Usually though, if is something bland like Coors or Bud, I’ll dump a couple bottles of Guinness or something into it to give it a bit more flavor. Works surprisingly well, too.
Not too late… Seems to be doing ok so far, except that it needs to recarbonate. I forgot to turn the gas back on.