First time mashing: can I keg a 4 gallon batch?

Greetings.

Today I did my first all-grain brew (welcome to the 'club,' me!). While on the whole it went well, I ended up with a total of 8 gallons (was shooting for 10--but with 1st time using a tun, 1st time doing a 10-gal batch & new equipment to boot, comes a learning curve!).

I have transferred into 2 carboys ~4 gallons each. That's all well & good I suppose.

But my question is this: when it comes time to keg/bottle, can I do two 4-gallon kegs (without issue), or would I be better off doing one 5-gal keg and just bottling the remaining 3 gallons?


Any thoughts/previous experience would be most welcome.

Cheers,
Chad

You can absolutely keg 4 gallons or less for that matter. Just be sure to purge the headspace with co2. Think about it as you drink from the keg the volume lessens but doesn't affect the quality of the beer.

Keg em up, yer good to go!

RDWAHAHB.

You're already worrying about something that's at least 3 weeks in the future!

:cross:

You can totally keg them both in 4 gallon kegs. Just be sure to adjust you co2 pressure for the extra headspace or else it won’t be as carbonated as you would like. Personally I would do 5 gal in the keg and bottle the rest but I have bottled most of my beer and usually keg half and bottle the rest so I can see how it ages etc.

I rarely get exactly five gallons. By the time I rack to the secondary and then to the kegs and taken gravity samples I've lost maybe a half a gallon. Keg them in any quantity you want. As was stated above, be sure to purge the air out two or three time.

No problem. I've kegged 2 gallons of apple wine, 3.5 gallon of GF Pale and 4.5 gallons of an ESB. Just purge the head-space.