Kegging - overrated?

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by mattbk, Jun 1, 2012.

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  1. NiceFly

    NiceFly Initiate (0) Dec 22, 2011 Tajikistan

    I will not deny bottling some beers that benefit with age is a good idea.

    Pale ales, IPAs and IIPAs grain to glass in a week with kegging. Try that with bottle conditioning.
     
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  2. Ralphster5150

    Ralphster5150 Initiate (0) Aug 19, 2004 New York

    Everyone is entitled to have an opinion. If you prefer bottling, great. I find it to be too much of a hassle myself.

    However, I also like to share bottles. Here is what I do: I rack to my keg and then before carbonating I Pressurize my keg and fill up several bottles with un-carbonated beer (I put a hose on the end of the tap that reaches to the bottom of the bottles so as to not aerate the beer while filling the bottles) and then add the right amount of Coopers Carbonation drops before bottling. in 2-4 weeks the bottles are ready for gifting. Less expensive than a beer gun and also very simple.
     
  3. itsjustzach

    itsjustzach Initiate (0) Oct 23, 2006 Ohio

    I'd say the time/hassle aspect breaks about even for me. I always rinse bottles really well immediately after I pour them and put them on the bottle tree. Then I just sanitize them in the dishwasher on bottling day. I'd say the racking and filling process takes barely over an hour. I still give a definite edge to kegging though for the faster turnover for hoppy beers and the coolness factor of have draft homebrew in my living room.
     
  4. GregoryVII

    GregoryVII Initiate (0) Jan 30, 2006 Michigan

    To DunkelFester,

    "From the moment I kegged a batch for the first time, I knew I wasn't going back. How you say it only saves 'a week' is a mystery to me. When I do bottle condition a batch (and I still do it occassionally for corked 750 mL bottled belgians), it takes a lot longer than a week for the carbonation to fully develop. Usually more like a month."

    Keep it in a room above 70, use the proper amount of priming sugar and you are looking at a week, 2 on the outside for most styles. Maybe a month for something like a Belgian Tripel, which you can only get to proper levels of carbonation by bottling anyway, so kegging for time savings wouldn't make sense.

    "It takes me about 12 hours to carbonate a keg, and the first 11:55 of that is just the time it takes to chill the keg overnight before carbonating."

    A day to carbonate the beer, great. Is it really at its prime at that point flavor wise? I can get a bottle of beer carbonated in a week, but I find it usually tastes better after about a month in the bottle. Just because I could carbonate something in a day doesn't mean I would drink it at that point.

    "I brew 10 and 15 gallon all-grain batches now. If you don't think routinely cleaning, sanitizing, and hand-bottling up to 160 twelve ounce (or even 75 big bottles) *per batch* is a tedious chore? More power to you."

    Rinse bottles after use, place some tin foil on top, bake in oven and they are always good to go.

    "Variety? I keep up to 14 corny kegs in one modified chest freezer (with 7 faucets) and a half-barrel in a second upright fridge. If I tried to keep the same volume and variety on hand in bottles, I'd go nuts trying to keep up. It's over 900 bottles worth!"

    That's awesomely impressive, to be certain. I know I don't have enough equipment to control fermentation for that many batches at a time and I doubt most other homebrewers do either, so this one seems to be uniquely you.

    I am not against kegging at all and even own two corny kegs of my own. But it does seem sometimes that "chore" of bottling is often overstated and the benefits of kegging are a bit overblown.
     
  5. GregoryVII

    GregoryVII Initiate (0) Jan 30, 2006 Michigan

    Between carefully transferring with an auto siphon to my bottling bucket, the mini CO2 blanket the yeast create inside the bottle and by using oxygen barrier caps I have not run into oxidation issues in my bottling endeavors.
     
  6. mikehartigan

    mikehartigan Maven (1,397) Apr 9, 2007 Illinois

    The most expensive part of my kegging system was refrigeration. Not sure how you would eliminate that when bottling (500-1000 bottles consume a hell of a lot of space in the kitchen fridge)
    The time saving, to me, is on bottling day. Racking to the keg is no different than racking to the bottling bucket. With a keg, you're done. If you're bottling, you're just getting started.
    A growler can be filled from the faucet. 12 oz bottles can be filled with $5 worth of parts.
    If you spill even a drop, you're doing it wrong. The most I lose is the quantity of beer that is held by the whisp of foam that escapes when it reaches the top. I suspect you spill more than that from each bottle on bottling day.
    I use bags for dry hopping. Never had a clogged dip tube. As to the sludge in the first couple of pints, this is the stuff that you would have left at the bottom of the bucket at the end of your bottling session. Either use a secondary, or use the same care when you rack from primary as you do when you're bottling. (Not sure why your technique would be lax when kegging)
    I'm not sure what you mean by this. 500 bottles are a much bigger PITA to store, refrigerated or not, than 10 kegs. And if you drop a keg, there's nothing to clean up :wink:

    Different strokes, I guess. As I've said in the past, if bottling was the only option, I may never have started brewing.
     
  7. DunkelFester

    DunkelFester Zealot (571) Aug 24, 2004 Pennsylvania

    I don't feel like getting into a big debate over this, but what you're saying is exactly the point I was trying to make. Bottle conditioned beer isn't done conditioning in a week. Ever. Will it be somewhat carbonated in a week? Almost always. Hell, it's got dissolved CO2 in it before it even goes into the bottle. But as soon as you add speise or sugar or honey or maple syrup or whatever you choose to prime with, it takes time for the yeast to reactivate and do their thing. And then it takes time for the refermented beer to come around to peak flavor.

    You don't like fresh beer then? By the time I keg my beer, it's finished, and ready to drink. Period. So whether it takes me 12 hours or 12 days to carbonate it makes no difference. And yes, I start drinking it right away. There is absolutely nothing like hefeweizen fresh - straight out of primary & into keg, or a dry hopped IPA that went from carboy to keg one day and into my glass the next. This is something that isn't talked about a lot, but almost universally the fresher the beer, the better it tastes. I'm not talking about 'green' beer, mind you. I'm talking about beer that's been given just the right amount of time to finish in primary and mature in secondary (where necessary), then consumed. Why would I want to take my beautifully fresh dry-hopped IPA and store it in bottles at 70F for a month? There is no benefit whatsoever. Only wasted time, and the possibility that the beer won't taste as good as it did when it left secondary.

    Great. And I'm going to store 900 bottles where?

    That they would ALL be fermenting at the same time is exceedingly rare. There's no need to have 8 going at once. Each batch fills two or three cornies (or the 1/2 bbl) and, aside from special events (kicked 6 of them last Sunday, but only because I hosted a BBQ for ~ 50 - 60 ppl) - it's not like I'm blowing through them all at the same time.

    Look, I'm not out to rid the world of bottles - all I'm saying is that kegging makes it possible for me to do what I do. As such, the benefits of kegging (for me) cannot be overstated.
     
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  8. billandsuz

    billandsuz Pooh-Bah (2,023) Sep 1, 2004 New York
    Pooh-Bah Society

    kegging is overrated you say?

    having a keg of beer in your house is cooler than the other side of the pillow.
    having a keg of your own beer in the house? to make it and to have it in a keg is pure fucking magic. ask anyone.

    word fail me. that is my idea anyway.
     
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  9. hopfenunmaltz

    hopfenunmaltz Pooh-Bah (2,611) Jun 8, 2005 Michigan
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Kegging does have a down side in that there is the maintaince/replacement of the poppets, o-rings, and Pressure Relief Valves. You also can have leaks that let the CO2 tank drain out quickly.

    Posted by the guy with 3 tanks and regulators and 30 kegs.
     
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  10. GreenKrusty101

    GreenKrusty101 Initiate (0) Dec 4, 2008 Nevada

    The wheel and fire have down sides, too, but like kegging...make life a little easier : )
     
  11. DunkelFester

    DunkelFester Zealot (571) Aug 24, 2004 Pennsylvania

    LOL
     
  12. Longstaff

    Longstaff Initiate (0) May 23, 2002 Massachusetts

    My complete kegging system cost me $100 on craigslist with two cornies. Just like anything else with homebrewing - kegging can cost you as little or as much as you want to spend - patience and resourcefulness are always rewarded.

    Like someone else said, you must not value your time all that much, delabeling, cleaning, and sanitizing 50 or so bottles takes alot more time than a keg.

    I never got bottles to condition properly within 3 weeks of bottling - with a keg, I can have beer in perfect condition and ready to drink in 4 days.

    Beer gun is not necessary - I lower the pressure and fill right out of a picinic tap. I have a 3 year old barleywine that is just now starting to show oxidation characteristics (the good kind). Shouldn't be any spillage if you do it right - practice makes perfect. I do run some beer out of the line after changing the pressure in the keg, but that goes into a glass and I drink it. I waste maybe a pint or two in the beginning getting the beer to clear - nothing really to worry about - put a pint or two more in the keg to begin with if it bothers you.

    Keg hops must be bagged up - pantyhose or paint strainer bags from your local HD work well.

    I can fit two cornies of beer in my college dorm fridge (plus have room 10+ lbs. of hops) - there is no way I could get 4 cases of bottles/cans of beer in there.
     
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  13. mattbk

    mattbk Savant (1,099) Dec 12, 2011 New York

    OKOK, let's not compare kegging to fire...

    I think we can agree that kegging is easier, and that it costs more. I'm not sure about space. I've cellared ~500 12oz bottles in my basement at ~ 60 deg F (that's a 2x2x5 row of cases), but I'm not sure I would have room in my basement for a chest freezer to hold 10 corny kegs, since I can't stack them. You don't need to store all 500 bottles in the fridge... although it may preserve freshness a bit better over the long term. At the very least, the options seem approximately equal spacewise, in my estimation - except the freezer costs more than just keeping them in cardboard cases in my basement.

    We should also agree that (obviously) everyone has a different situation. I have a decent sized basement for cellaring, and I have a dishwasher for sanitizing. I don't have enough dough to go out and buy 14 kegs and a freezer. Each person will have different pros/cons for going one way or another. I'm just happy there are at least a few others that agree with me!

    I don't get bottle oxidation using the method gregoryVII said. I have had dip tubes plug due to very high levels of dry hopping, any bit of solid material that escapes the bag and pulled into the siphon can plug up the liquid outlet. I can't imagine how hartigan can fill into bottles, without the gun, or at least some of the stopper attachments shown here, without spilling... do enlighten us! My technique is no more lax when it comes to kegging, but it does require changes from bottling, just a fact.

    All that being said, as I started, I'm new to kegging. By the way others praise it, I was expecting a "hook it up and go" approach, and it has not exactly turned out that way... however, as i said, tips like the stopper filler and the rapid carbonation method fester advised are time and moneysavers that make kegging more worth it to me. Any other tips are appreciated as well. I'll keep working at it. And, that's just about all I have to say, thanks.
     
  14. pweis909

    pweis909 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,176) Aug 13, 2005 Wisconsin
    Pooh-Bah Society

    I'm fairly new to kegging also, and I see your points.
    -I don't think it saves me any time between packaging and drinking.
    -So far, every time I have kegged some sort of PITA issue has cropped up -- leaky orings, stubborn poppets.
    -I haven't developed my own system for kegging yet, so it is not as routine as bottling was for me. Sure, bottling might take me half a day, but it was time that I planned for, time I used to listen to music and podcasts and audiobooks, so it was leisurely multi-tasking. I'll probably develop my own best approach to kegging, and may eventually feel differently about this point.
    -Kegging just requires more gear, and accumulating more stuff runs against my grain.
    -I spent a lot of dough on the keg set up and to get it to the point where I can serve several beers or bottle from a keg so I can share more easily, I'd need to spend more.

    I realize now that there is an elegant simplicity to bottling that I might miss. I think for me, the solution will be to make some beers that go on kegs and some that go in bottles.
     
  15. MLucky

    MLucky Initiate (0) Jul 31, 2010 California

    I've felt this way from time to time since I starting kegging a year ago. Especially every time I need to refill my C02 tank, which costs me $18 for 5 lbs. I went through a really frustrating period of having a leak that was causing me to need a refill much more often then I should have, and it was a pain to find the leak, and it caused me to lose a tank or two of gas, and I was down of the whole process. But now that's fixed, and on the whole, I'm glad I got into kegging.

    For me, the biggest pluses are a) you can force carbonate and drink a beer on the day it's ready, rather than wait two weeks to bottle condition, b) you can 'keg hop' beers for better hop aroma than I ever got with bottled beer, c) you can adjust the carbonation if necessary, and d) you don't have to wash or store (many) bottles. For me, this makes it worth it. But I can completely understand others feeling like it's best to just stick with the cheaper option of bottle conditioning.
     
  16. DunkelFester

    DunkelFester Zealot (571) Aug 24, 2004 Pennsylvania

    Keep in mind, it's not like I just went out one day and plunked down a fat roll of $100 bills. When I started, I was on a tight budget too.

    It's been a slow progression that started ~ 7 years ago with one keg, a picnic tap, and a 5 cu. ft freezer. Then bought another keg. And another. That was all I could fit in that first fridge, and I was fairly content with that setup for a couple years. I picked up a few spare kegs, one at a time, whenever I needed extra capacity and had some extra cash. Then we moved from the tiny old carriage house we were renting into a house with a detached garage. Not long after that, the freezer died. Since I had to buy another one to replace it and I had lots of space in the garage, I bought a bigger one. Much bigger. IIRC, it's about 28 cu. ft. I bought it used on craigslist for $150. Built a collar for it out of 2 x 6 lumber. Started with 4 faucets. Then 5. Now 7.

    Continued adding kegs every now and then until I had enough to fill it. The idea was to have two kegs per batch. One on tap, and a second in reserve behind it.

    Eventually, I'll add a stout faucet and nitrogen mix tank and call it 'done'. Maybe. :wink:
     
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  17. DunkelFester

    DunkelFester Zealot (571) Aug 24, 2004 Pennsylvania

    I ran into that too. Do yourself a favor and buy a 20 lb cylinder and find a local place to fill it. It will quickly pay for itself. It only costs a few dollars more to fill a 20 lb cylinder, and it's enough gas that I only have to fill it 2-3 times a year. Keep your five pound filled as a backup.
     
  18. mnstorm99

    mnstorm99 Initiate (0) May 11, 2007 Minnesota

    2-3 times a year with a 20#? Holy shit.

    I have 2 five pound tanks and "exchange" each about once each year. Midwest Supplies exchange is $11.99, but I know filling it would be cheaper.

    FWIW, I'll NEVER go back to bottling, except my big ass beers which I keg and carb first anyway.
     
  19. mnstorm99

    mnstorm99 Initiate (0) May 11, 2007 Minnesota

    Also, I did not notice it, but my #1 reason for kegging is being able to choose the size of my pour. I often like an 8 oz. pour which isn't possible with a 12 oz. bottle. I also often fill my Imperial pint with my session beers. Total control over quantity...nice!!!
     
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  20. mikehartigan

    mikehartigan Maven (1,397) Apr 9, 2007 Illinois

    If you don't refrigerate the bottles, why would bother to refrigerate the kegs? No need to find money or space for a chest freezer to store them in. FWIW, 10 kegs (~500 bottles) take up about 2'x3' of floor space, give or take a few inches. I store mine in a closet.
    I use a tube, stopper, and keg connector - about $5 worth of parts. And all the parts are multi-taskers, so the marginal cost for a 'bottle filler' was zero.
    Then why don't you get sludge in the bottles? If you use the same technique, then you should get the same amount of sludge either way. I suspect the total amount of sludge in 50 bottles is the same as that found in the bottom of the keg. The difference is that you draw it out of the keg in the first pint or so rather than discarding an ounce or two of dregs at the bottom of each bottle, assuming, of course, that you decant it properly (another advantage of kegging is crystal clear beer without fining).

    I'm not arguing that kegging is not without its downside. Initial expense is the obvious one. And it's not plug and play (few things are) but it's really not hard to set it up correctly. Beyond that, it's all upside, as far as I can tell - and I've been doing this for a few years. I would just hate to see you abandon the practice based on bad experiences (most of us spilled beer while filling bottles until we got the hang of it), misinformation, or bad assumptions (refrigeration requirements for kegs are no different than bottles)
     
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