I recently invested in an 128oz mini-keg that fits in my fridge door. This lets me serve my homebrewed beer more conveniently than filling individual bottles. The downside is you can't tell at a glance how many more servings are in the keg.
The solution? I weighed the keg empty (~ 4 pounds) and now I can weigh the keg, subtract 4, and since a pint's a pound the world around, the number of pounds is approximately the number of pints left (in this case 5 pints).
@kyle I've been tempted to buy some mini-kegs for a while now, as for me bottling is the worst part of homebrewing.
Did you have any other inconvenience/problem so far with mini-kegs?
@draane Are you bottling directly from finished beer and carbonating in bottle, or do you already have a larger keg you carbonate in?
In my case I have the latter, and was filling bottles under pressure from a picnic tap attached to a larger corny keg in a fridge in my garage. Filling one min-keg is much easier.
The main inconvenience with this mini-keg is the need to re-pressurize the keg via the regulator and CO2 cartridge after each pour. But it only takes a second.
@draane A full-size corny keg kit w/ large CO2 tank might be better for carbonating the beer, and then can think about serving beer (maybe with mini-keg) later.
For a typical 5g batch you would need multiple of these mini-kegs, and at least one CO2 tank/keg to force carb (or you could seal keg and use yeast, like it was a large bottle) over 2-3 weeks, and another CO2 to serve. Cost adds up compared to regular corny keg setup + 1 mini-keg.
@kyle I'm carbonating in bottle. I started homebrewing just over a year ago so I have only the very basic equipment.
Is one CO2 cartridge enough to pour a complete keg or do you need multiple ones?