Chapter Six: Make Yer Own, Chapter Two: Stocking a Cabin Bar
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Keg Shower

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Showering in the wild, remote bartending, or off-grid dishwashing are inconvenient without the proper equipment: The Keg Shower is it. Make one and liberate yourself from municipal plumbing.


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“Shower Rock”

This Cabin Dweller’s Textbook hack utilizes parts easily found at your hardware store and home-brew shop, and with a little mechanical aptitude is simple to assemble. Fill a reclaimed 5-gallon soda keg with water; attach a CO2 tank and regulator. Connect a modified sink sprayer and you’re off to the races.

Side benefit:  water absorbs CO2 and will be noticeably fizzy after 24 hours under pressure. Have yourself a bubble-shower. See if you can go back to flat. Then mix a proper Gin & Tonic, and top it off with a splash of soda water from the keg to double your pleasure.


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Get these things from a local or online home-brew supply shop:
tank, regulator, hose and ball-lock gas connector

tank, regulator, hose and ball-lock gas connector

  1. 5-gallon ball-lock soda keg. (Rugged stainless steel. It can literally survive a tumble down a rocky hillside. Parts still manufactured and easily procured .)
  2. 20 oz CO2 kit:  it should come with a 20oz CO2 tank, a regulator, gas line, and a ball-lock gas connector (often gray or white). Get the CO2 tank filled at a scuba, paintball or home-brew supply shop.
  3. ball-lock beverage connector (often black) with 1/4″ hose barb and coupler.
  4. a few feet of 1/4″ inside diameter, food-grade tubing
click to zoom. faucet sprayer, hose barb, hose clamps, tubing, and ball-lock connector.

click to zoom. faucet sprayer, hose barb, hose clamps, tubing, and ball-lock connector.

Get these things from a hardware store:
  1. faucet sprayer
  2. 1/4″ hose barb threaded to fit end of sprayer hose
  3. hose clamps x2
A few tools you’ll need:  two crescent wrenches, and a flat screwdriver.

Connect the threaded hose barb into the female end of the faucet sprayer. Slide a hose clamp onto one end of the 1/4″ tubing and then press the tubing onto the hose barb. Tighten the hose clamp. Slide another hose clamp onto the other end. Press the tubing onto the hose barb of the beverage connector. Tighten the hose clamp. IMG_0562Wash out keg and fill with potable water. Lube gaskets with keg lube to prevent leaks. Connect the sprayer unit to the keg’s “out” post. Connect the gas line to the keg’s “in” post. Turn up the dial on the CO2 regulator to pressurize the keg to about 20 psi.

For a warm shower, leave keg in sun for several hours or heat a couple gallons of water on a campstove and add to keg. Carbonation will develop after about 24 hours and will continue to increase until equilibrium is reached.

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