5 Liter Heineken keg

Nice find, please tell me you drank the beer before you cut it open!

>Nice find, please tell me you drank the beer before you cut it open!

Well, I did have help.

Becks makes a 5L keg which is almost exactly the same as the Heineken keg, but uses a different pouring mechanism. The Heine keg is pressurized by a contraption inside the keg (it is tapped like an aerosol can) which can be removed once the top is cut off, while the Becks keg uses carbonation pressure and gravity feed through a tap at the bottom of the keg (shown extended in the photo). The keg weighs 18.9 oz and the 'lid' weighs 0.5 oz. (1.8 oz more than the Heine keg + AGG lid).

The Becks keg is sealed with a rubber stopper with a hole in the middle (gray part in the photo inset), and in that hole is a hard plastic plug (tan part in the photo inset) with a wide cap. When the carbonation pressure runs out you push the plug down into the keg, and then the keg will flow by gravity. After the beer and the stopper are removed, the plug can be liberated from the keg with a bit of finesse. I pushed the plug back into the stopper in the opposite direction (as in the photo) and when it is set back into the hole (with the stopper inverted) it makes a non-sealing 'lid' that rattles when the water begins to boil. The stopper/plug combo can also be used to seal the keg so it can carry liquid.

Obviously, this pot should only be used to boil water or thin soup, since you can't scrub the pot or the tap out. If the pot is full and it comes to a rolling boil, boiling water will shoot out of the hole in the top–beware. The lid can be cut out, of course, to make a snow-melting pot.

So far the tap at the bottom of the keg hasn't melted, although I've been careful to use this only with a canister stove and to keep the flame reasonable. I wouldn't expect it to last long with a stove that caused flames to go up the side of the pot.

You can buy those kegs empty from the homebrew shop.

Nice find, I purchased mine on ebay. I left the handle on, makes it really easy to pour the water out. I was surprised to find they are light weight for their size.

I used a small alcohol stove to try and boil 1 gallon of water in the keg. The stoves capacity is 3 ounces of fuel. It failed to boil the 3 gal. but did get it to 195-200 degreesF. The stove is made from a FancyFeast cat food can.

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5 Liters? Yikes, that's HUGE! I thought you were going to show us how to make a bear canister out of it! ;)

> 5 Liters? Yikes, that's HUGE! I thought you were going to show us how to make a bear canister out of it! ;)

Jason, that's brilliant! I saw your smiley on that, but I checked and these kegs _do_ fit easily inside a green UrSack. I don't think the keg would offer quite as much volume as you'd get using the hybrid's aluminum sheet insert, but after the first day that probably won't matter. I don't have the right kind of calipers to measure the keg wall thickness, but I'll bet it's close enough to the hybrid insert. Multi-use! Also, it's about the right size for stuffing my down quilt, in which case it doesn't take up extra room in the bottom of my pack.

Hi Douglas,
Well you know I was just kidding. I actually saw one of those kegs in the store yesterday and it looks too small to be a bear canister. But, does look good for family cooking. Nice work!