How much brew do you keep on hand at any given time?

I am by no means a heavy drinker. I drink a beer most nights and on a weekend might drink a beer with my lunch and 2 at night. However, I'm always running out of beer.

I don't have any kegs, but with all of my bottles I have the capacity to keep about 13 gallons on hand (23 if you count the fermenters). I only have 2 fermenters. The fermenters are always full and the bottles are at different levels of conditioning and I always finish a batch of bottles before the next batch is ready to drink. As soon as I have 50 free bottles, i transfer from the secondary, primary to secondary and brew a new batch.

Because some styles take so long to bottle condition (like my imperial stout that I expect to hog my bottles for a good 6 months) i don't really have the capacity to keep up with my own mediocre drinking habit and I wish I was drinking much more.

I'm just curious what your guys drinking habits are, how much do you give away and how much beer do you keep on hand at any given time?

My drinking habbits vary depending on what I have going on, I'll go from drinking 2 to 3 beers a night to not having a single beer for a week or 2. I love beer but my life doesn't revolve around it. Now as far as brewing I tend to rotate every other brew with one that needs to be consumed immediately(mmmhhh, IPA's!!!) with one that would benefit from aging(stouts, belgians, etc...). So I'll brew a stout, followed by an IPA, followed by a belgian, followed by a wheat beer, etc... Which ensures that I always have beer on hand to drink and I rotate in the beers to age in the middle, and as those aged beers come of age, I have even more on hand, plus the beers that age can be kept on hand for quite a while.

Works for me, but 1 fermentor also keeps my belly full of beer. If you are having trouble keeping up with your consumption, you could upgrade to 10 gallon batches, or add another fermentor to the gear.

I have 7 kegs and 6 cases I try to keep them all full. I put bigger beers in bottles so they don't hog a keg.

Four kegs, four taps, and always at least one waiting in a carboy. Habits? Most nights I drink 3 or so. Some nights I drink more, some less, occasionally none. About half my beer ends up in the bellies of my friends/family/coworkers.

When I started, I had 50 bottles. That was 4 batches ago. I have been asking all friends to save their pop off empties, and so now I have about 100 12 ozers. I also have 48 22 ozers that I bought off a friend who moved for 10 bucks (STEAL!!!).
I just recently ran out. I have about another week until my peach cream ale is ready, I have an IPA moving into secondary tomorrow, and 2 more recipes to brew up. I try to keep about 100 or so on hand..... but at the end of the month I should have about 180 or so in bottles. I want to keep a variety on hand, and still be able to brew. I have stopped collecting bottles pro actively but will still keep any empties that are donated. I just don't like to wait to drink my beer, and brewing and bottling up 3-4 batches within a month keeps me set for a long period of time. I think that I will be set until the holidays, however I do want to have a beer that is pertinent to the season. (ie . . . spiced winter ale)

My drinking depends on a lot of factors ... I like to drink. And when I do I drink a lot. But I have been hitting the gym to lose this beer/vacation weight (all that caribbean beer sampling, and eating like a king packed on almost 10 lbs in a week!!!!)

Usually on a night when I drink , I usually consume about 6-10 12 oz bottles a sitting. I haven't had a beer in almost 2 weeks now due to heavy dieting and hitting the gym regularily. . . . . . but a 4th of july camping trip is coming up..... so there will be plenty of beer consumed then.........

I try to get a 5 gallon batch brewed about every 2 to 3 weeks. Like a lot of people half my beer goes to family & friends, so depending on my drinking habits I'd say I have ~50-60 bottles at any time.

Going to 10 gallon batches and then Kegging was really the only thing that would keep me from buying comercial beer because I would run out.

Now I have 6 kegs an 8 cases of bottles to use. I have 3 kegs full or in use, over 1 case of bottles full, and I have 25 gallons sitting in fermentors right now. I should be good for a while. I like to brew every couple to 3 weeks.

We keep six kegs in the keezer on tap, plus a keg or two waiting and conditioning. Right now I have four fermentors on line. Two five gallons carboys of a Mac & Jack clone, and two five gallon carboys of an IPA.
Doing ten gallon batches has really helped with keeping the pipeline full. It also allows ample time for primary conditioning.

Id say 30-40 gallons in kegs only. I have 36 1L ez-caps that I use to bottle condition my Trappist brews.

I'm usually lucky to have 2 on tap. I have 2 fermenters and they tend to be empty the majority of the time. I own 5 kegs and a 3G keg. Ideally I'd like to keep two 5G kegs on tap with one more in the keezer on gas and my 3G on tap with a bigger beer. Then keep my other 2 kegs filled on standby by with my 2 fermenters filled. But that has yet to happen.
I currently have one keg about 2/3 full on tap, one keg full lagering until September, about half a batch bottled and one in primary. Brewing 10G on the 29th, but 5 of that is aging until christmas.

I try to keep a 5 gallon batch fermenting at all times. I also try to keep at least 1 keg on tap at all times, 2 is preferrable, 3 even better! Then I've usually got 5-6 cases tucked away in the closet. This ensures I've got a nice variety.

Sounds like you have a good rotation going, you might just need to add another fermenter and 50 bottles to keep up.

6 keg keezer with 4 taps. So four on-tap and two conditioning. Usually two lagers in the lagerator and at least a couple of ales 'on-deck' to go in the keezer. Right now I have 6 in the keezer, 2 in the lagerator and 4 on-deck. Plus various bottles shoved in every open space in any fridge I have plus a few cases not refrigerated. I brew just about every weekend (except summer).

I try to stock up for summer since in Florida it's so hot so it's less fun to brew, more difficult to chill, and more work to maintain ale fermentation temps.

I try to keep 2 kegs conditioning in addition to the 3 on tap. Right now, I have a keg of blackberry wine and one of Apple wine as well.

It depends on what time of year it is. I brew 5 gallons every weekend, if I can, from about the first of March till about November. The winter in Grand Forks, ND is no place to brew. So come spring I'm lucky to have any beer on hand. Late fall I'll have 30 gallons or so of various types. A lot of my brew goes to friends, or is made for friends (they pay for the ingredients and I brew it).

My wife and I each have a pint every night. Occasionally one or both of us will have two pints. A 5 gallon batch makes 40 pints, and our rate of consumption is about 80 pints a month. This gives me a nice schedule, brewing every two weeks.

While I am brewing a new batch, I'll rack the previous batch to a secondary, and rack whatever is already in a secondary into a keg with priming sugar, and take whatever was kegged two weeks ago and put it into the newly empty spot in the kegerator.

Two weeks later when I am ready to brew, I just advance the batches to the next stage. New beer into primary, previous beer into secondary, prior beer into keg with sugar, already primed and carbed beer into kegerator.

I have 10 gallons in primary, 5 in secondary, another 5 conditioning in kegs right now. I have 5 gallons of beer on tap and another 5 gallons of root beer ready for the kids.

I recently introduced a BMC drinking buddy of mine to homebrew and he's hooked. I gave him one keg of a beer I didn't think was very good and was just going to dump. He drank it all in a week.

Now, I think I'll have to double my efforts to keep up with my new found popularity in my social drinking circle

Since I moved to 10 gallon batches and keep the pipeline full, there is generally 35 to 50 gallons on hand. Having 15 kegs helps.

My drinking can vary a lot - sometimes a pint or two most nights, sometimes I go a week or two and have none. About half of my brew is given away or drank with friends. I do most of my brewing between about Dec. and now, as that's when I have time and its easier to maintain cool temps. I probably have 10+ different batches at various stages of being drank to fermenting right now. By fall my selection will be thin.

OP: get yourself some more bottles. I ran short when I first started brewing, but now have accumulated a dozen or so cases of bombers and quarts. I always bottle all my availabe swing tops and drink those first so their available for the next bottling.

I stopped brewing for a few months while I reset myself. My beer was coming out with a tang that I personally hated, and I couldn't get rid of it, no matter what changes I made in terms of filtering, sanitation, etc.

So I built a brewstand, a fermentation chamber, and a keezer.

Turns out it was just the water. (Hard as hell, and packed full of chloramine).

Anyways - my beer is now, if I do say so myself, awesome. And having a five tap keezer helps a lot with the drinking too, but now I'm overwhelmed. I've got two IPAs, two Blondes, and a keg of Apfelwein on tap right now, plus Helles and cream stout in the pipeline. And am itching to get started on a Hefeweizen. The brewing has become as enjoyable as the drinking. Don't get me wrong though, I still have a dedicated beer fridge full of micros that I enjoyed for "research purposes".

Bottling also sucks - I read somewhere about a guy brewing 5 batches in his first year, building a kegerator, then brewing 15 batches in the following 6 months. I'd believe it - I seem to go through it much faster having it on tap. With bottles I'd have a beer, and that'd be that. With the kegerator, I find myself doing little "tasters" here and there (gotta make sure everything's okay!), or as a friend of mine puts it "whistle wetters". The occasional fillup, that sort of thing.

As to my consumption, it varies a bit. For some reason I feel a bit indulgent drinking during the week - I never used to. But drinking every night almost makes me feel like I have a problem. I'll have a beer probably 3 out of 5 school nights - but Friday and Saturday I'll make up for it. All told... probably 12 beers a week?

Some of you guys have some serious rigs! I don't really want to complicate my operation by going the keg route. I really enjoy the simplicity of using bottles.

I only have a 40qt kettle. My mash tun could probably handle a 10 gallon batch of anything but the high gravity brews. My kitchen stove would take all day to boil a 10 gallon batch if its even capable of doing so. I'd have to do a significant upgrade to get to 10 gallons. I guess that makes my christmas list easier.

Anybody making high gravity brew ever try to make two different brews from your runnings? That was one thing I was considering doing. I thought about getting another 40 qt kettle and using a little more grain than necessary for the OG I'm shooting for. Then, when sparging, collect the first runnings in one kettle the second in another. Transfer a little wort between the two if necessary to bring the OG up on the second runnings or down in the first runnings. It's just something I'm playing with doing to up my capacity (along with getting more bottles of course). If it was possible to squeeze an imperial IPA and an IPA into one mash tun that would be amazing, It seems like consistency might be a little more tricky.

13 cases of beer in the basement right now. 4 of those were bottled yesterday, so that means I have 9 cases (6 different brews) available to drink !

ubermick said:

I seem to go through it much faster having it on tap. With bottles I'd have a beer, and that'd be that. With the kegerator, I find myself doing little "tasters" here and there (gotta make sure everything's okay!), or as a friend of mine puts it "whistle wetters". The occasional fillup, that sort of thing.

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That never occurred to me, but my consumption would definitely skyrocket if I had a nice convenient selection on tap. Just a sip here, a sip there every time i pass by the tap.

get more bottles!

I've got a simple setup. two fermenting buckets, a carboy, and a 30 qt brewpot.

I drink more than you do, but since im trying to get a stash built up, most of my beers that im drinking right now are commercial (pryoff bottles that i can re-use), with a few HBs mixed in. i've got plenty of bottles stockpiled. i just need to brew the beer to put in them

I have a 10 Tap keezer that I keep full and enough kegs to fill it 2 times before running out. So 100 gal.

:rockin:

Need to keep the pipeline full. No sense letting those carboys sit around empty.

sm007thie said:

Some of you guys have some serious rigs! I don't really want to complicate my operation by going the keg route. I really enjoy the simplicity of using bottles.

I only have a 40qt kettle. My mash tun could probably handle a 10 gallon batch of anything but the high gravity brews. My kitchen stove would take all day to boil a 10 gallon batch if its even capable of doing so. I'd have to do a significant upgrade to get to 10 gallons. I guess that makes my christmas list easier.

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I'll warn you right here, right now. I used to say the same thing.

Matter of fact, I remember calling Morebeer when their deal of the day was their 15 gallon pots with welded bulkeads were on sale for $199, and snagging one. I went to pick it up (live near there) and when I saw how big it is, I immediately balked. "That's way too big... I need to return it, and get the smaller one. I'll take this 8 gallon pot for $159 instead - I'll NEVER do 10 gallon batches!"

That was about 6 months ago, and that pot is now sitting there redundant. (Should probably sell the thing, if I didn't love it so!)

Just sayin'.

I've got somewhere in excess of 500 12 oz. longnecks, and an assortment of swing-tops, bombers, and some cappable 750 ml sparkling cider bottles. And, recently, a gigantic Mad Elf swingtop that probably holds most of a gallon. The most I've ever had filled was last Fall, right before we went to China. I had most or all of 6 batches in longnecks, and two batches in secondary sitting until our return,when they were bottled immediately. So...how much beer. Figuring 50-51 bottles per batch (about what I get) X 8 batches, that's 37-38 gallons of beer. I'm just now getting finished with the last of that stuff, and ready to start on the 2010 production.

Note: Save time & typing: DON'T tell me I need to keg. I neither "need" nor "want" to keg. Different strokes.......

Right now I seem to have the opposite problem- I have about 4-5 cases of beer in the closet, but I also have 4 different brews fermenting, and three of them will be done by the end of the month. I'm gonna need some more bottles.

I just started brewing last fall, but ideally I'd be able to brew 5 gallons a month and be ok. I normally only drink a beer a night, and maybe 2 on weekends.

sm007thie said:

Some of you guys have some serious rigs! I don't really want to complicate my operation by going the keg route. I really enjoy the simplicity of using bottles.

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Think of it like this, instead of moving your beer from one vessel (primary or secondary) to another (bottling bucket), and then to 48-50 more (all of which have to be cleaned and sanitized) - you just go from carboy to carboy to keg.

Trust me, I'm not hating - I used to really love the idea of using bottles. I like glass, I like differently shaped bottles, it seems really authentic to me - all that. But damn, just knowing I had to do all that work seriously stalled my pipeline. Kegging simplified my life quite a bit.

I can also be a pretty impatient person, and bottle conditioning was really frustrating to me in that regard. But yeah, to each his own! Just not sure if I'd look at it as a "complication" of your current setup/methods.

Burgs said:

Trust me, I'm not hating - I used to really love the idea of using bottles. I like glass, I like differently shaped bottles, it seems really authentic to me - all that. But damn, just knowing I had to do all that work seriously stalled my pipeline. Kegging simplified my life quite a bit.

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Ding ding ding!

I brewed with a friend of mine, splitting a 10 gallon batch. When the time came to bottle/keg, I was finished and had it on CO2, even force carbing a little sample, before he was halfway through cleaning his bottles.

The nice thing too is that just by getting your bottle filler of choice (Blingman Beer Gun, counterpressure filler, or the cheap 'n' cheerful BMBF) you can still fill up a few bottles from the keg to take to a party/beach/wherever. (Or, just fill a growler!)

At least 60 gallons right now. I will add 10-20 more this week.

Burgs said:

Just not sure if I'd look at it as a "complication" of your current setup/methods.

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I guess the process itself isn't any more complicated. The added complication, to me, comes from building the kegerator or keezer and getting the rig going. I can definitely see the appeal in having a kegged system once it's up and running. Space is also a little bit of a consideration at the moment. Maybe once I finish med school I can afford a house with ample space for my hobbies.

I haven't built anything yet... my chest freezer was $150 brand new and will hold two kegs unmodified. I do want to add a collar and faucets soon, but it's not keeping me from drinking my brew!

Space is a valid concern though, especially if you're in an apartment I guess. I'm pretty sure there are minifridges that will accomodate 1-2 kegs without modification. You could just use picnic taps until you felt like adding a tower to it...

Well

My brewing closet has something like 9 cases of 4 different batches in various stages of bottle conditioning, and 10 gallons worth of ingredients waiting to be brewed

My fermenterator has 10 gallons of brew

Plus I've got a ****load of commercial beer in the kitchen/fridge

I have about 300 750ml (25oz) bottles in my garage. That said, I only have about 193 of them full at the moment. So I have 145l (38gal). It all varies in age from more than a year to less than two weeks in the bottle. I put half of each batch in glass, half in plastic, drink the plastic ones from 1 month and the glass ones whenever I run out of beer in plastic bottles. I haven't been drinking that much recently though. I get a bit neurotic about saving the ones in glass!