how long til kegging?

still planing my first brew so please be gentle.
How many people keg VS bottle? if you keg, did you start out bottling? How long did you bottle before switching over? Trying to figure out how many "batches" of bottles to invest in.

I kegged after my first batch. Here's why:

-Much easier
-I prefer draft beer to bottled beer
-My keg setup was pretty cheap (about $300 including temp controller)
-I could use my keg fridge as a fermentation fridge (kill two birds with one stone)
-Much faster (sanitizing, filling, and capping 48 bottles sucks)

I'll never go back to bottling. Though I'd like to bottle for some competitions, but I'll just do that off the keg.

I am going to keg my first batch as well. I have already collected a good 60 bottles, but after reading up on the forum here and getting smoking deal on 5 gallon cornys I couldn't pass up im going to couch up the extra coin for a CO2 tank and taps. plus I can bottle off the keg I do believe.

check out this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/kegging-why-did-i-take-so-long-202249/

and if you look at the very bottom of this thread you will sill similar threads that were already started. the search function is great on this forum since it uses Google instead of the crappy search most people are accustomed to on forums.

-=Jason=-

Bottled until this Friday when I Keg my Irish Blonde. I have to get rid of all these bottles...plus the cleaning....and time......and with a keg, my SWMBO can have 1/2 a glass of beer.

i started out bottling because I was in college and had zero cash to spend on kegging equipment. I had a few breaks in my brewing hobby over the next decade, partly because I started having kids, but also partly because I hated bottling the stuff.

I would think about brewing, and get all excited about it, but then I would think about the bottling day and my enthusiasm would be crushed. I had 1 batch that I had to dump because I couldn't get up the motivation to clean and fill 50+ little bottles, so the beer just sat there forever and turned on me.

I found a craiglist add for a pinlock keg, picnic tap, about 3 years ago 5# tank, regulator, and the quick connects for the keg for $100. Life is good now. I will NEVER bottle another batch of beer.

When I did bottle, I had enough bottles for 4 batches on hand.

I bottled as recently as two days ago, but I am done now that my setup from Kegconnection arrived today. I have been brewing for 2 years now and as long as you bottle in 22 oz bottles it isn't really that bad to sanitize and bottle them. I usually kept about a batch's worth of bottles extra around, but my killer was giving homebrew to friends etc and then waiting forever to get bottles back. This last batch I just bottled is a Belgian Ale that has been sitting in the secondary for 3 months as I waited on bottles to trickle back in.

My overall advice is bottle for a little bit to make sure you enjoy/like homebrewing, and if you do, get a kegging system, mine was long overdue.

wallerstedt said:

and with a keg, my SWMBO can have 1/2 a glass of beer.

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This is a real important one for me too. At first she REALLY didn't like the idea of a kegerator. Now that we have one she loves the 1/2 glass idea and really enjoys not having a closet full of 200+ bottles.

SWMBO is on board because I told he we can have soda on tap thats my gateway into getting the Keezer in the kitchen.

-=Jason=-

make sure you use separate lines and tapsfor your soda. I've heard people say that re-using the lines leaves the beer tasting like soda (mmmmm... cola flavored stout, anyone?)

cool thanks for the heads up Walker, will probably do a RootBeer my first batch.

-=Jason=-

rootbeer in particular is the one pople complain about. the flavor gets unto everything and is apparently impossible to get rid of.

Don't you still need to condition to get the yeast to clean up after itself? I understand that you don't need to wait for carbination as the co2 does that.

The yeast should clean up within a day or two of getting to FG. If not you should look into the fermentation process. Kegging or bottling make no difference.

Kegging can carb it faster. With high pressure and shaking it can carb in a few days but it's better waiting a week or two. My bottles carb in under a week and are clearer than out of the kegs. I honestly get better beer from bottles faster than the keg. It takes the keg two weeks to catch up. It's because it serves from the bottom were the least clean beer is. 12 oz clears faster.

I started kegging because I hated having all the bottles laying around. Bottling the beer really wasn't that bad but dealing with all the empty bottles was a pain.

Scut_Monkey said:

I started kegging because I hated having all the bottles laying around. Bottling the beer really wasn't that bad but dealing with all the empty bottles was a pain.

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Same exact reason I switched to kegs.

I just started brewing for the first time last week and I already have 3 different 5 gallon batches fermenting and they are all going in kegs!
When I bought my house 6 years ago it came with an old fridge so I bought a kit online and put a kegerator into it.
Now that i'm brewing I saw it wasn't much more money to go the kegging route!

I mostly keg (now) but I am bottling a batch of Brown Ale today. I made a 10 gallon batch and want to give away some to friends. Half in bottles and half in the keg.

went straight to kegging, i make alot of wine so i knew the bottle routine pretty well, but wine bottles are bigger so i knew i didn't want to take on any more empty bottle storage, santizing, etc. never looked back, craigslist freezer, some time, some taps and parts and the kegging makes making beer pretty effortless - using betterbottles as primaries/secondaries and kegs as secondaries/bright tanks and serving.

I'm finally starting to keg. And I've been brewing for about a year. I've got a batch in the primary that will be my first batch to be kegged.

Batches of bottles: i have about 120-140 bottles. I really didn't need anymore. My brews were drank fast enough, and if they weren't, I'd rack a batch to a secondary, and let sit there until I had enough empty bottles to fill. Definitely, definitely ask all your friends to save you their brown pop-top bottles. If your friends drink beer, you'll be blown away how fast you have more bottles than you need. It took me like 3 weeks before I told me friends to just recycle them again.


As for kegging. You're not missing out on much brewing experience by skipping bottling all together. It's more of a money/space issue.

If you have the money to buy a kegging setup, and the space to put one, go ahead. If not, bottling is still your best bet.

If you're looking for a cheap way to get a bunch of bottles: Throw a microbrew party. Ask all your friends to bring over a 6-pack or two of a craft beer. A. You'll get to try a ton of different craft brews, B. you'll get a TON of bottles.

As for me, i'm kegging, and never looking back.

I bottled for a couple years, and like most people, my brewing interest started to wane as I thought about sanitizing and bottling again. Mostly, going to kegs turns homebrewing from a "novelty" thing you do once in a while to something you can do often enough so that you are only drinking homebrew. I still bottle 2-3 bombers off the keg with a beer gun to "archive" some, its nice to have more than 2-3 (or however many taps you have) to choose from at times.

I started kegging ~17 years ago and have never looked back. When I do use bottles, I move it from a keg into a flip top bottle. If you follow some common processes, you can get carbonated, sediment-free beer into bottles.

A huge benefit to kegging is being able to pour a proper pint. I have been brewing for a year and I bottle and have about 5 batches worth (250 bottles or so). Storage isn't an issue for me and I find the bottling process relaxing at night while I watch TV. However, being able to transfer to a keg, force carb and then pour a full glass sounds very appealing.

I brewed and bottled three batches of beer before I opted for kegging. But, I saved most of the bottles. That wouldn't work now, because I'm working on increasing my frequency of brewing, so I'd have to keep bottles for each brew I'm working on.

That said, I still plan on bottling a few 6-packs here and there every once in a while. I currently have just over 100 bottles saved from other brewing sessions and 6-packs my brother and I have bought. Even though I could get the $0.10 for each one, it's worth it to have them on hand in case I want to bottle an entire batch.