Last year, I made a “keg” of about the same size as my “Mr Beer” nano-micro-mini-keg using:
1 plastic “kitty litter” bucket. (three cats; you do the math on how many of these things I have laying around…)
1 plastic water spigot–the kind you would avoid putting in outside for your water hoses/sprinklers, whatever (because it’s cheezy and easily broken) but which is better, IMO, than brass for a cheapo brew setup.
1-male/female threaded coupler to fit the spigot–and a rubber “hose washer”
1-male/female threaded 1/2″ PVC coupler
1-male threaded/female Unthreaded 1/2″ PVC pipe coupler
2-1.5″ sections of 1/2″ PVC pipe
1-1/2″ PVC “trap”
(The last four pieces are used in constructing the airlock for the keg/bucket fermenter.)
I cleaned the kitty litter bucket very, very well with dish soap and water, then rinsed it and filled it with clean water with 1/2 cup chlorine bleach (yes, I soaked the lid in the bleach water for a few minutes before putting it on the bucket). I let that soak over night.
Traced the size of the water spigot end and the male/female threaded couplers in their respective places—the spigot about 1″ above the bottom edge of the bucket and the male end of the coupler (to the airlock) traced in the center of the snap-on lid to the
bucket.
Placed all the plumbing parts in the bleach water to soak.
When the bucket and parts had soaked overnight, I discarded most of the bleach water (reserving about a gallon for cleanup after finishing construction), rinsed them and laid everything out on clean paper towels.
Next, using a razor knife, I cut the holed on the inside of the traced lines and threaded the male threaded/female UNthreaded 1/2″ PVC pipe coupler coupler for the airlock into the hole on the lid and secured it with the male/female threaded 1/2″ PVC coupler on the inside of the lid.
Then, I threaded the hose washer onto the water spigot and the water spigot into the hole 1″ above the bottom of the bucket. I then secured that with the pipe coupler that fit its threaded piece.
Next, I rinsed the rest of the plumbing pieces yet again in bleach water, then clean water and assembled the airlock as per the graphic.
I then filled the bucket with the remaining bleach water, topped it off, shook the water around and then drained all that would drain through the spigot, dumping the rest from the top. Followed that with a thorough rinsing with plain water. Placed the top back on.
Well, this year I made another, but spent all of about $5 on a plastic spigot and a 3-piece manufactured airlock. Tonight, I racked some “apple wine” (yeh, I know there’s no such thing, but I used wine yeast to ferment some apple juice for hard cider, so that’s what I’m calling it. So there. :-)) from its primary fermenter into the new “kitty litter fermenter”. Slick as goose grease. I only transferred about three gallons (it was a 3.5+a tad gallon mix) and bottled the other half gallon or so in Grolsch swingtops with a lil bit of priming sugar to hopefully induce some carbonation. I’ll check one of the bottles in about a week or so to see if it’s OK.
Fun stuff. On the schedule: brew another batch of beer tomorrow as a reward IF I squeeze in the water pump installation for the lil Saturn econocar and maybe bottle the molasses beer this weekend (I’ll sample it and get it bottled if it’s ready).
Meanwhile, I have some racking out of another kind to do.