Around 9 months ago I bought an EdgeStar 5L mini keg dispenser, along with the co2 tap kit. My thought was that I would love to have beer on tap but neither want to commit to drinking 60 some odd pints in a month nor want to commit to drinking 60 some odd pints of the same beer. So, the 5L thing seemed perfect. And it is, to be honest. It's roughly a 12 pack worth of beer, stays fresh for a month (I've only had it last 2 weeks or so at the longest) and I can pour half a glass if I want without worrying about wasting. Only problem is the selection isn't that great. I've gone through around 20 5L so far, my favorite being Kostritzer and a home brew heffe my sister and I made. I've also run Warsteiner, Bell's Oberon, Breckenridge Summerbright and Christmas ales through it. However, we only seem to consistently have the Kostritzer (thankfully) and Warsteiner available, and one of my reasons was variety so constantly drinking Kostritzer, much as I love it, defeated the purpose somewhat. Now here's where it gets interesting. I've been following the uKeg and other pressurized growler stuff going on and while they all seemed neat, I don't really want to buy a $120 growler and have it taking up room in the fridge when filled. So, given that we have 3 different growler fill places in the area that each have 40-50 beers on tap (with a little overlap between them, but not much) and a bunch of breweries around, my thought was to retrofit the mini kegerator to fit a growler. Problem is, they're either too tall or too short and the tap for the Edgestar would have to be modified (no biggie, they're avialable and around $20 a piece). However, I did find one growler that fits about perfectly made by Shinecraft, which happen to be local to me (and sold at local breweries and the growler fill places). It also, being metal and flat bottomed, works well with the cooling system in the EdgeStar, which uses a chiller plate on the bottom instead of a traditional refrigeration setup. So, I emailed them to see if I could order a couple of extra caps to experiment with and gave it a try. I used a wood drill bit that matched the rubber grommet size for the 5L mini kegs and drilled s spare top out, put one of the grommets in and then put the tap in, and lo and behold it fit quite well and almost to the very bottom of the growler. Only problem is that the growler would now no longer fit in the kegerator as it was a fraction of an inch too tall. However, it did fit if angled, but this (I thought) would cause problems with the cooling system as now the bottom wouldn't be in full contact with the chilling plate. Then I thought, well I can just grab one of those gel freezer packs that keep your lunch cold and wedge it in the angled space above the chill plate and below the growler and it should (in theory) keep the whole thing cold. In the end, I got exactly what I wanted. I can now go get my growler filled and put it on-tap. I tested it out and purposely (and with some difficulty as it was a friday) did not drink the whole thing right away but over the course of the next 3 days. The last beer was as fresh as the first and even though angled, it only left around half a beer in the bottom when it tapped out, and I just poured that into my glass and drank it. My other concern, that it wouldn't be able to stay cold due to contact with the cold plate, turned out to be fine. It uses around half a co2 cartridge per growler (a 5L mini uses a full one), so one cartridge will work with two growlers. As the top of the beer chamber in the EdgeStar is plastic, I may just cut a notch in it for the growler to fit fully upright - and this would also possibly allow traditional glass growlers to fit, but my goal was for it to work with minimal modifications. If I could find a slightly thinner top for the Shinecraft growler, I may be able to fit it upright with no issues, but in the mean time I'm just going to use it as-is as it works. I thought I'd share as I can't be the only one that wants the variety and freshness of growler fills but not be committed to drinking it in one sitting (though lord knows I can and have). Total cost was around $180 for the kegerator, $20 for a spare tap (not necessary as it didn't need modification, but it's nice to have a spare), $60 for the Shinecraft growler (ouch), and $2 for a spare cap. A pack of 12 c02 cartridges (the kegerator comes with 3) was $19, so less than a buck a growler for c02. I'll post some pics later if anyone is interested.
