Considering kegging, wanna know my options

The least expensive route would be to get used/refurbished pin-lock or ball-lock 5 gallon soda kegs, but you would lose a lot of shelving in your existing fridge. Used 2.5 or 3 gal mini-kegs may be harder to come by, so you'll likely have to buy new. New kegs are expensive, but the mini would have less of an impact your fridge space, of course.

If you go the mini-fridge or kegerator route, be sure the inside is tall enough to fit a ball-lock 5 gal keg, as they are a few inches taller than pin-lock kegs. At some point you'll want to make bigger 5 gal batches, so if you're going to spend the money on a kegerator now, make sure you won't have to upgrade later when you want the 5 gal kegs.

Another space-saving consideration is to get a setup that uses smaller paintball style CO2 tanks (20 or 24 oz) instead of the usual 5 lb size tank. The regulator sizes are different, so they are not interchangeable without adapters. The paintball tanks are convenient to refill, too.

I don't have a local shop with kegs, but I've been pleased with Keg Connection online. http://stores.kegconnection.com/Categories.bok?category=*Homebrew+Kegerator+Kits

 

i started out SUPER cheap:
buy used 5 gallon ball lock corny keg: $~50 (about $35 back when i did this)
buy one of these: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/soda-keg-co2-charger.html
use priming sugar to carbonate keg; push out beer the the co2 charger. My local HB store carried food grade replacement cartridges for a decent price...

next step up: bought a standard regulator:~$80
bought paintball tank to 5lbs co2 tank adapter ~$15
20 oz paintball tanks are ~$25
you can fill them for less than $5

you can force carb with this setup, but i would suggest having at least two different tanks...

 

Pin locks are a litte cheaper.

 

5 litre kegging system: http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=61167

 

The paintball tanks can be refilled for only a few bucks. The big retail sporting goods stores will refill them if they sell paintball gear (Dicks, Sports Authority, etc). I've never played paintball, but we have a good local facility that I bought a second tank from, and they included 5 refills in the price. So, I don't recall exactly how much each fill would be. I went through six 5 gal kegs on one tank, though. I had to swap tanks on the seventh keg, which is why I bought a second one to have on hand.

I'm not sure how much the 5 lb tanks cost to refill.

 

I get my 5 lb CO2 tank refilled at a local beverage distributor for $8.

If you don't mind a little DIY, the Danby DAR440BL can be found for less than $200 and converted into a decent kegerator. After taking the inner door shelves out (they can just be unscrewed and removed, no cutting required) it will snugly fit two ball lock cornies and a 5 lb CO2 tank.

 

That is pretty cool. I might think about doing that.

 

Kegconnection.com

High quality, many options. Sent assembled.

 

http://www.homebrewing.org/Home-Brew-Kegs_c_223.html

 

The entry point for kegging is not cheap, even if you are "repurposing" commercial 1/6 barrel kegs. You can do it cheaper up front by using those portable chargers or starting off using a picnic tap but you're really just stretching out the expense. In particular, those portable chargers are more expensive to buy refills for over the long term than buying a larger CO2 tank and filling it. You also have to think about your long term wants. If you start off with a single tap tower but decide in a year or two you want two taps you'll have to buy another tower and they aren't exactly cheap. You would be better off just buying the double tap tower.

If you are going to keep brewing smaller batches and you're looking for a cheap, short term solution you might want to look at tap a draft or there are places online that have instructions how to convert those miller/coors home draft systems into reusable systems and you just buy CO2 refills. Those are both options that can fit in your fridge like the party pig but without the pig pouch issues.

 

By 'actual kegs' are you talking about corny (soda, ball lock/pin lock) kegs? And do you mean how do you get the beer into the keg? Usually through a siphon, i.e. you rack pretty much like you would when moving beer from say, a fermenter to a bottling bucket. The nice thing about a keg is that you can purge most of the O2 by filling the space with CO2, both before and after racking. The siphon goes through the big hole where the lid would normally be, though there are other, more advanced ways too.