to keg or to bottle, that is the question

whipped up a dunkelweitzen and I'm debating whether I should keg it or bottle it...

kegging = supper easy
bottling = getting yeast in each serving...

what say the peanut gallery?

Keg it all and bottle as needed. Best of both worlds.

I only get yeast in my glass if i either let someone else pour the bottle or i carelessly throw around the beer first.

the second happens a lot when i travel with beer in the truck of my car.

If you go with kegging to a corny keg, is it better to get a chest freezer as opposed to an old refrigerator (assuming I'd be using the picnic tap and nothing elaborate)? Are any modifications necessary to the chest freezer to keep the beer from freezing or can you set it high enough standardly to not freeze? I have been eyeing chest freezers at Lowe's for a relatively low price.

madewithchicken said:

I only get yeast in my glass if i either let someone else pour the bottle or i carelessly throw around the beer first.

the second happens a lot when i travel with beer in the truck of my car.

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With my wheat beers i enjoy some yeast in the beer. I'll give the bottle a good roll and let it stir up. Can't do it quite as easily if i keg the batch.

i've just not done a dunkel before and not sure if it's worth the pain to bottle it all.

shake the keg up

anderj said:

shake the keg up

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considered that, but an awful pain for each pour. what i need is to get a concrete vibrator and strap it to the side of the keg, and flip the swich for a couple seconds before a pour. Now that would be sweet!
unfortunatly those puppies run 3-600$

The hefe yeasts have such poor flocculation, you don't need to worry about doing it every pour. In fact, when I've had hefe's, etc., on tap, I only need to shake up the keg every 2 weeks or so.

The other advantage to kegging is that you don't have to wait for bottle conditioning. You can burst-carb and be drinking it in a couple days---and hefe's/dunkelweizen's are, imho, often better when they're young.

I've gone both ways. I like old school bottling. Bottle it!!!!!! Nothing beats a bottled beer IMO!

davefleck said:

With my wheat beers i enjoy some yeast in the beer. I'll give the bottle a good roll and let it stir up. Can't do it quite as easily if i keg the batch.

i've just not done a dunkel before and not sure if it's worth the pain to bottle it all.

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i guess if i paid more attention to your original post i would have noticed that yeast was a good thing.

bottling is my vote then. unless you keep some yeast on hand to add to each glass.

Keg it up! I've kegged my wheat beers, and they really don't start to get clear for 6-8 weeks. And usually by that point the beer is damn near gone anyways. If you really want some yeast in suspension, just give your keg a swirl before every drinking session.