Kegging Your Homebrew

I've recently started kegging my homebrew beer, and I have been very pleased with the results. I used to spend a lot of time bottling my beer, and I always hated the yeast sediment and how much of a hassle it was to take my beer anywhere. The keg has solved those problems. Now I can pump finished, carbonated beer straight to a growler or a soda bottle and it stays good for a day or so. I can also use a counterflow bottle filler and bottle carbonated beer that will stay fresh for long periods of time. I have not tried the filler yet, but I am eager to try it out and post about my results. I've heard they can be difficult. As you can see from the picture above the setup is not very complicated at all. The five pieces are the used Pepsi keg (not Coke, those use a different style of connectors) with the gaskets replaced, the CO2 bottle, a dual gauge regulator, the gas side line, and the beer side line and tap. I bought everything but the keg online at morebeer.com. You can pick up used kegs and gaskets at your local homebrew store, or sometimes online via craigslist or eBay. It took me a little while to get the carbonation level dialed in correctly, but since then I've been told the secret. Chill the beer to 40, crank up the CO2 pressure to 40psi, then leave it for 48 hours. Then release the pressure through the vent in the keg lid and lower the regulator pressure setting to around 9psi for serving. This is a lot faster than bottle conditioning and the beer is more consistently carbonated as well. Win freakin' win baby. By the way, when I first tried to use the regulator I had some trouble finding out how it worked. A quick google turned up that the screw set into the center of the regulator is used to raise or lower the pressure. There is a nut that you use to mark your position for the next time as well.