Must buy kegs...

Just finished bottling two batches of beer, and feel acomplished in doing a good job... But man the cleaning, cleaning, cleaning... Arghhhh! Bottling is easy if your only doing the filling part (SWMBO and my oldest son) but I de-labled, cleaned, sanitized over 100 bottles, and did all the cleaning and sanitizing of the bottling equipment and filthy post fermention carboy... Twice!!! Maybe kegging would be easier... I've got the wife convinced... Only need to buy her a new fridge, so I can put the old one in the garage and use it as a kegerator and fermentation chamber. ohhh and I've gotta buy the kegging equipment too.

The thought of bottling is the main reason that I waited as long as I did to start brewing. Once I did the research into kegging, I jumped in. I started off kegging and don't think I would ever want to bottle.

Bottling sucks.

I don't love bottling but I do love the end result, my beer bottled with my labels. I really like to give my beer away and the label definitely adds a professional look and people do enjoy that aspect. BUT I so want to keg! So how do you give away beer when you keg it? Can you fill bottles from the keg? How long will they stay carbed? What do you do?

You can fill bottles from the keg but you have to do it a special way if you don't want the beer to go flat. Search for 'beer gun' or one of the alternatives, it basically involves letting the gas out of the bottle as it lets beer in, maintaining pressure, then you detach the bottle from the beer gun and cap it as quick as you can. Benefits include the ability to purge oxygen from the bottles, no worry about yeasty trub in the bottles, and possibly ending up with carbonated bottles a day or two after you've kegged the beer.

Today I bottled to batches, brewed another two batches and bottled a half empty keg. Bottling is easy when you have it down, just like brewing.

Well, time for a contrary opinion......lots of that these days on HBT. When I'd been brewing for something over a year, I gave kegging a good lookover, got a general idea of what I'd need, what it would cost, and what the maintenance would be. After careful consideration, I'm still bottling in 12 oz. longnecks and happy in that endeavor.
Not claiming I'll never keg- it just makes no sense to me in my situation.

maintenance?...you'd be singing a different tune if you made the move...

you only have to delabel once. always rinse your bottles after you open them, that way when its time to bottle you just have to sanitize. i use a sulphiter so that is easy. stick it out, it gets easier. I have started kegging recently and its awesome, but i still plan to bottle at least 50% of my beer.
might wanna rethink using a fridge as a kegerator. I had one "laying around" that i use.the problem i have with it is I was expecting it to be dual purpose and its just not. the 2 kegs take up too much space and I lost all my shelves. I am just gonna get a small chest freezere. I'd rather use the fridge space more effeciently.

I got tired of bottling as well and moved to kegging. Plus there is something wicked cool about having your own beer on tap at home. I am however starting to miss having extra bottles on hand since I only have 3 taps and I like variety, so I am going to start making bigger batches so I can keg and bottle some to keep on hand...

You can bottle kegged beer "on the cheap". I use a picnic tap with a racking cane shoved into the end of it. A #2 drilled stopper fits into the neck of the bottle and the racking cane goes into the hole. You open the tap and squeezing the stopper, regulates the beer flow.

There are a few threads here as well as Youtube videos. It works great and no sediment on the bottom of the bottles.

If you ask me, bottling can be fun too and I do both. Me and the SWMBO make a pretty good team and can knock out 52 longnecks in no time flat! Kegging may be a little quicker but nothing about bottling is really that hard. Plus, I love being able to stash bottles in the closet for that really special time when all you want is one of those perfect little beauties you brewed 8 months ago that you crave at that exact moment!

I rinse the bottles when I empty them. Then, I run them in the dishwasher right before bottling. I use the door of the refrigerator as a table to set the bottles on during filling and pull up a chair to be comfortable. When I am done, I just close the door and all the spillage goes into the dishwasher. (Just don't put a lot of weight on the open door - it isn't made to handle it).

Just delabeled close to 80 bottles... what a b**** haha. Used oxyclean and warm water to soak for an hour, after which I now do not recommend trying to delabel any Widmer Hefewezein bottles.

Now have enought bottles for 4 full batches . I def want to get into kegging, but now that its all delabeled, I just rinse well after each use as sanitize and its not a big deal. Bottling is not that bad

For me I guess it's a grass is greener on the other side of the fence type of thing. After bottling six batches I got tired of it and went to kegs. Now after kegging six batches I am thinking about bottling my next batch.

The worst thing about bottling is when you cap the bottles too tight and 30% of your beer is ruined by bottles snapping at the neck upon opening.

I simply don't like bottling because I don' want to have to chill a bottle a day before I want to drink it. It would be much nicer to simply have 5 gallons ready to go. I just need some cash and a job before I can get into it. Thank god for craigslist.

Good advice guys, having a surplus of delabled bottles and being diligent in rinsing will certainly make it easier in the future. As will my speed and efficiency in filling and caping. Couple relative questions about cleaning bottling equipment, first: do you and if so how do you dry the rubber tubing, raking cane, auto-siphon, etc... prior to packing away for storage. Secondarily: I feel my buckets and carboys are real clean, But they have that stale beer smell. Any tricks/techniques for eliminating this odor? or is it just part of the equipment now?

I have two kegs and added a dual-tap tower to kegerator. I haven't bottled since. The cleaning and sanitizing of all those bottles is just a ***** to do. The kegs are so much easier to clean and saniztize, and your beer is ready to drink sooner if you force carbonate. Win-Win in my opinion.

I enjoy bottling. I like having the tangeable item to carry around with me and even give some out at parties. If done correctly bottling 5 gal batches really doesn't take to loing and is definetly not to hard.

I also like the fact that I can age my beer in a bottle. Luike keeping a fridge in my basement labeling my beer with the date bottled and keeping a few out of every batch and in the future maybe in a few months drinking them.

I bought my keg system at kegconnection and had great stuff and nice shipping and service. To bottle by the keg, you can use the Biermuncher bottle filler and it work great and easy to do. Really cheaper than a beer gun!

I'm still on the fence, I want to keg but I really do like having the bottles.

Keg the beers you think you will drink fast, bottle the beers that you wont.. best of both worlds.

I have a Double IPA Kegged and will be kegging a Pale Ale and Apfelwein shortly.

We have a Porter, Stout, Cream Ale bottled since we got the kegging set up, I will be bottling a 2nd batch of Apfelwein to age it.

I think we will be bottling half our batches, and kegging the others.

With 3 taps (2 faucets and a picnic inside the fridge) we can have one "good" beer for us, one "average" beer for the masses, and the Apfelwein for all.