Keg or Bottles

Do you prefer kegs or bottles? This question also goes out to cider makers as well.

first vote!!

I perfer.... other. Kegging is nice but bottling is convienent (espically in the winter). With the 10g batches ive been doing i bottle half and keg half and that is a good balance IMHO.

I prefer bottles. I've only kegged one batch so far, but for what I do with my homebrew, it was actually a bigger pain to deal with than bottling. Half the reason I like brewing is sharing my brew with friends and family, and that's kinda hard to do with one 5 gallon container when I've got people in 3 or 4 different cities that want to try some. Bottling can be a pain, but it's just so much easier to distribute out to friends.

I like filling one big bottle over a bunch of little ones.

I like the ease of kegging, but I like the portability of bottling.

My keezer is on the 1st floor of my house, and my living area is on the 2nd floor so I have to make a few trips down the steps when drinking kegged beer. Of course that is a benefit because I am burning calories while doing so.

I find bottling very soothing. Like phenry said, I share my brew with friends and family for tastings and notes. It wouldn't work so well to take the keg with me when I visit them.

Plus, there is something fun in setting up a bunch of bottles, turning on some music, opening a homebrew (or 3) and sipping on that while filling bottles. I just make sure I have a few hours set aside and enjoy a nice, relaxing afternoon.

Other - both!

Kegs hands down...

I make beer and cider. I prefer kegs, but I bottle a few as well. When I bottle:
-To bottle carb a sample while the rest is batch aging, for taste tests.
-Extra beer in fermenter...don't want to be wasteful.
-Small batch, not worth wasting CO2 on headspace.
-Going to a friends house.
-Like the batch and want to save a few for a later time.
-Insurance policy against having a keg empty unexpectedly.
-The urge to make a bottle label (sounds like a weird reason...but it's fun)
-Show my wife that I'm keeping all those bottles for a reason...after I promised they'd all go away after I started kegging
-Being surrounded by bottles makes me feel like a monk.
-Despite all the work, bottling is somehow cathartic. Even more so when you have this underlying knowledge that you don't have to bottle beer.

Other. I keg everything, but bottle a few from the keg once it's ready to serve for portability and storage.

I voted keg as I have only bottled one full batch ever and thought it was a royal pain in the arse. I do bottle 2 bombers from every keg to age and taste later just for fun. I recently opened a bottle of my 1st beer ever. It was only a year ago and came from a kit wheat that was just ok. I have growlers to take to parties and share with friends.

I like bottles because I like to take them to friends houses

I perfer Kegs. I have five taps and it allows me a great selection. I do own a beer gun so I do bottle a few here and there when I want to take them some place. I don't dislike bottling but I perfer to keg. I can keg a beer in under 15 minutes so I can do it when I have a small amount of time.

I brew 10gallons so 5gallons in bottles to share and 5gallons in keg for me.

I just started kegging after Christmas, and I don't see ever going back. The convenience that comes with kegging (once you have the setup) just can't be beat by bottles.

I do miss some of the portability that comes from bottling, but I've got plans to invest in some sort of home-made beer gun, as well as a few growlers.

Kegs definitely. Takes a 5 min to keg 10 gal, versus hours to bottle and a PITA.

Who says you can't take kegs places? I do all the time. Plus if I just want to take a few beers places I either fill a growler or 2, or turn the pressure down and fill a few bottles straight from the tap. I actually got a medal in a recent big competition from filling my bottles from the tap, and they spent over a month in the bottles.

That being said, beers I want to age I bottle. My 16% stout I force carbed in a keg then bottled from there with a beer gun. All these wild ales will be in primary for around a year, then bottling, and aging, cracking one open here and there.

Here's another "other" vote. I usually keg, but I make a lot of small batch beers (1.25 Gal), that I don't want to have sitting in my kegerator for that long. These are also usually specialty and seasonal beers that I like to share with friends.

Kegs hands down. If I want to transport some beer I just grab the beer gun and fill some bottles or a growler, and I don't have to worry about the beer getting cloudy with sediment as I take it over to a friends house. Nothing better than to pull a draft beer that you made....from a keggerator, that you also made.

I have 11 different beers in bottles and I like to choose what kind I would like at any time. I can keep all 11 varieties in the refrigerator at one time but the expense of kegs, kegerator and 11 taps seems a little much. Oh, I forgot that one still in the fermenter and the one I want to brew tomorrow and ...... I might have 15 varieties before I kill the first variety.

votes still being counted. but kegging seems to be the way. but i like the other option as to doing both.

Kegs - and fill a few bottles while filling the keg to set aside.

keg, but you can only have so many kegged... so you end up bottling a lot as well.

I just got tired of cleaning all those bottles year after year.

I bottled for about a year and got a system down, dishwasher, caps soaking in Star San, priming sugar on the stove.....blah....
Kegging is so much faster, a few days force carbing blame your good to go.

kegging.

when i need to transport my masterpiece, i just fill up a growler from the keg. stays carbonated for about 5 days or so depending on temperature.

Kegging all the way, I plan on making a beer gun though so I can bottle a few to bring to my parents or friends or whatever

I must be a sick individual, because I love to bottle. It's very hands on and almost theraputic to me. I kind of get in a groove and it doesn't take very long. Also I like to share my craft with others and 1 liter bottles are easy to give and most of the time I get them back too. The freinds and associates that I share with really appreciate a good well made beer, so I give them a liter to taste test. Most of my brews have been extracts and not very innovative or different, but have turned out well so far. I'm still a relative noob because I have been brewing less than a year and less than 50 gallons of brew 5 gallons at a time. I'm stilllearning and accumulating AG equipment. Hope to be Ag brewing by July if I dont have any more unplanned trips to the hospital. Have a great day and hope this helps folks interested in bottling.
Bob

Disintegr8or said:

My keezer is on the 1st floor of my house, and my living area is on the 2nd floor so I have to make a few trips down the steps when drinking kegged beer. Of course that is a benefit because I am burning calories while doing so.

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You just need to run a long tap line to the 2nd floor

I'd prefer to keg, but I can afford to bottle.

I bottle, but I just started brewing. Getting a good system now, and the folks at the bottle depot are pretty cool, they set aside the 500 mL and 650 mL bottles for me to sell back to me. $0.25 a bottle plus a little soak in bleach cleaner and they are pretty much brand new, clean and de-labled. And most match because they come from the local craft breweries.

Kegs for sure. I bottled my first two batches and bought my kegging set up. I have 7 kegs, so plenty of pipeline.

I currently bottle as that is all I am able to do. If I had the space I would key for sure, but living in a 1 bedroom apt. I just am not able to do it.