First Kegged Beer - I Will Never Go Back

Well, as I type this I am enjoying the first sips of my recently kegged English Brown Ale. I let it bulk age for about 3 weeks, racked to keg 1 week ago, and today it is perfect. I will never bottle again

And the congregation said AMEN.

Never is a long time, you may want to bottle a few for gifts or long-term aging. I think I've run fewer than 50 bottles in all the time I've been brewing.

welcome to the club


Get some flip top bottles... makes it easy to bottle, or pour some outta the keg for quick transport

Yeah baby...

Hey, ya remember back when you were a bottler and you looked for every opportunity to get your hands on some bottles?

Well, remove the word "bottle" from all those mental conversations you had with yourself and replace it with "corny keg".

You are bound to become a corny keg junkie. Oh, and ya might as well start shopping for a chest freezer...and a second CO2 setup, and did I mention you'll want to hoard all the cornies you can get your hands on? :cross:

Hells bells, since you can mass store now, ya might as well get your 10-gallon gear in line.

Yup, kegging is Da bomb! I told myself that I would still bottle a 12 pack from each batch, but I haven't for the last three batches. Even bottling a 12er seemed like to much work!

After a few years of religiously defending bottling over kegging, I finally saw the light a month ago too. Broke down, bought a kegging system, and I love it. Boy I was stupid to think bottling was better.

Having said that, don't drop off all those bottles at the recycling depot just yet. Bottling still has a place. For me, my 'session' beers now go right from the primary to the keg. But I still plan on bottling some beers, particularly anything that will benefit from a lengthy bottle conditioning, like I2PA's, Imperial stouts, barleywines, etc.

Yes it is,

My goal of having in my brewery 1,000 bottles of ale,
is not really working out.
It would if I didn't drink ale,
but I do.
Several times the homebrew hoard has approached 400,
but then slipped back.
Today I have more than 500,
if the 3 full primarys and 3 full secondarys are counted.
But by the time they are bottled I will have drunk two of them!

I am realizing the futility of bottling lies in:
not that it is too much work, I love work and do it well.
I just can't brew enough beer/ale to supply the demand {mine}
unless I go to kegging.
This is a fact in that I have tried to bottle my brew and just me,
living alone but for my hound and my horses,
drink more than I can produce unless I speed up the process somehow.

Yes, 1,000 bottles are a lot of bottles.
It takes a lot of time to fill 1,000 bottles,
time I could spend brewing more.
I have a temp. controller already,
and a big chest freezer I am on the lookout for.
Then but for corney kegs which will hopefully happen this summer,
I will make the transition from bottling to kegging.
Hell, I stay home all the time anyway,
A draft right here in my office on my desk.


Life is good,

now to try this thing out,

Glub Glub Glub


J. Von Knife

I dont see any problems w/ making 5.5-6 gallon batches, filling up your keg, and bottling the leftover....