FlyGuy
Well-Known Member
After vehemently defending bottling as a generally better practice than kegging, I finally caved. I have brewed 3 batches of beer in the last 5 or 6 weeks, and none have made it farther than a secondary. I have just been dreading bottling day too much (let alone bottling three batches).
So, I broke down and bought a kegging system. I fully reconditioned two of the kegs today (took about 1 hour total, not counting soaking time), and filled them tonight. Holy $#!t that was easy! Feeling kinda pumped about my accomplishments, I decided to just bottle that last batch and get it over with. Despite being very well prepared with clean bottles (but not sanitized) and everything else basically sanitized and ready to go, I just spent the last 3.5 hours on that $#@^*#$@* chore! Yeesh.
Normally, I can bottle much quicker than that. But I realized that even with the time I took stripping apart each keg, scrubbing it by hand, replacing all the seals, etc., etc., I still racked two kegs full in almost half the time it took to bottle one batch of beer. Geez I have been a f^@&!#g idiot.
To anyone out there contemplating a kegging system -- buy one! You won't regret it. But don't throw out all your bottles, either. I am sure I will still do some bottling (they really are nice for travel or barleywines or other such unordinary things). But I don't think I will have wrinkle-hands for a while again, either!
Sorry -- long night of work -- had to rant!
So, I broke down and bought a kegging system. I fully reconditioned two of the kegs today (took about 1 hour total, not counting soaking time), and filled them tonight. Holy $#!t that was easy! Feeling kinda pumped about my accomplishments, I decided to just bottle that last batch and get it over with. Despite being very well prepared with clean bottles (but not sanitized) and everything else basically sanitized and ready to go, I just spent the last 3.5 hours on that $#@^*#$@* chore! Yeesh.
Normally, I can bottle much quicker than that. But I realized that even with the time I took stripping apart each keg, scrubbing it by hand, replacing all the seals, etc., etc., I still racked two kegs full in almost half the time it took to bottle one batch of beer. Geez I have been a f^@&!#g idiot.
To anyone out there contemplating a kegging system -- buy one! You won't regret it. But don't throw out all your bottles, either. I am sure I will still do some bottling (they really are nice for travel or barleywines or other such unordinary things). But I don't think I will have wrinkle-hands for a while again, either!
Sorry -- long night of work -- had to rant!