How Many Kegs Does It Take?

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How Many Kegs Do you NEED?

  • 1 or 2

  • 3 to 6

  • 6 to 9

  • 9 to 12

  • 13++++++++


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BigKahuna

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How many kegs does it take to keep you "In The Brew"? and as a secondary question, How many taps do you have? I'm starting with 3, 1 will be Apfelwein, 1 will be my Inter coastal Ale, and the third will be Specialty. I'm thinking 2 more are in order, and it's going to take 10 kegs to keep it all working.
 
I have 23 kegs and 23 cases of bottles, coincidence? I think not!!!:drunk:

I only have 1 tower with 2 faucets though. But I do have 3 CO2 tanks with 2 splitters and more than enough cobra taps with 6' hoses. ;)

Then there's the 4 ply manifold...for the keezer collar if I ever get around to it...that'll make it possible for 4 more on tap...:rockin:
 
I think it depends on a few things.

How many beers do you brew that benefit from long term aging.
If you can get cornies cheaper than secondary carboys ($17 better bottles), it makes more sense to bulk age in cornies.
How many faucets/kegger positions do you have?

I personally have 5 keg positions/taps/faucets so I like having another 6 or so for on-deck batches. In general I think you need twice as many kegs as taps.
 
I have 20 kegs, 4 faucets, and 6 picnic set-up's.

I had big ambitions for frequent brewing and long term ageing. Still do but, no time.
 
I only have 2 faucets and I need 4 kegs to keep them flowing. I'm thinking about getting a fifth for some stuff that needs longer aging that I want to have on tap. But I agree with Bobby_M that I'd say at minimum you want double the kegs for your taps.
 
I've got 6 taps and 8 cornies. If I can have all 6 on tap at any given time, I'm happy. I dunno exactly what you mean by "in the brew", though. I could get by with 2 or 3 taps if I had to...hell, I brewed for a year and a half before I got into kegging, so I could do bottles again if it really came down to it. But optimally, fully-operational is my happy place, and that's 6.
 
I have 2 taps (3rd coming soon) and 6 kegs is enough to keep my pipeline full, but if I have people over, I start to get worried and then the next batch might not get enough time for aging. So I have 4 more kegs getting delivered tomorrow. I think 10 kegs will keep the pipeline full, even if I don't get to brew for a month or so.
 
I dunno exactly what you mean by "in the brew", though......optimally, fully-operational is my happy place, and that's 6.

YOU SAID IT...IN THE BREW = Fully Operational.

I mean, how many kegs does it take to keep a tap going? I don't want to have to hang a dirty sock on a tap cause we kick a keg then don't have anything to go in it's place. I want to be able to swap out a fully conditioned and ready to drink beer.
 
How many kegs do I want Vs. how many do I have. Currently I own 14, but I could use another 10 or so to really be in the money. I have stopped using secondary carboys and just doing my secondary fermentation in kegs, then transferring from one keg to another.

Speaking of which anyone in massachusetts want to buy some 5 gallon glass carboys I thinnk I have about 12 of them but could sell 6 or so.
 
I've got four taps with room for two more, but one is soda water. 15 kegs, but only seven in use right now. I tend to brew in clusters, so that number varies. Come Fall, there'll be 3-4 ciders depending on the blackberry crop.

Right now I need to brew, but my back is out.
 
4 kegs and 3 taps...

as soon as we move to a larger apartment i'll be ordering atleast 4 more kegs...
 
I have 10 kegs and 3 taps. I'll let you know how many kegs you need if I ever get the last one filled before emptying the first. If you go through 1 keg a week and brew in 10 gall batches and ferment for 2 weeks and condition for 5 weeks and dont want to go dry hmmm. oh it hurts.. I need another beer.
 
I've got 2 taps and 8 - Edit: 10. Just bought 2 more. kegs. I want to be up to 14 kegs minimum by New Years'. I want to start doing a lot of higher-gravity long-aging beers that will eventually be bottled, but will probably be in a keg for conditioning for at least 3 months minimum.

I mean, -IF- I stick purely to 5-gal batches, I could "get by" on 8 for many years to come. But I want to hammer out the glitches and start brewing 10 gal at a time for anything "proven".... and do 5-gal for my test batches only. And at THAT point, I'll need 14, you betcha dontcha know?

And then once I wander off into the world of sour beers and bugs.... then I'll need a dedicated kegerator, dedicated lines, and dedicated kegs.... ;)

Oh! But the good news from the pillow-top chat last night..........is that SWMBO authorized me to buy another tap, shank, and lines for a dedicated Apfelwein tap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Got 2 taps at the moment and 6 kegs, this manages ok as i usually have a keg spare ready for the next brew, But i only brew about once a month, if you drink more then you could brew more.
 
I have 2 taps and 7 kegs. I just picked up 3 of them for long term aging of beers. As a general rule, Bobby is right. Kegs required = (taps x 2) +1.

I'll probably end up with more than 13 soon, because I brew much faster than I can drink it. I prefer kegs for storage because they have a much smaller footprint.
 
2 taps and 4 five gallon cornies and 1 three gallon corny for portability. I can't drink it fast enough to need more than 4 cornies, I had bought four more, but gave them away rather than let them sit in the garage collecting dust.


If the next house has more room, then I'll move up from the Sanyo to a keezer.
 
I have 4 ball lock faucets and currently have 8 ball lock kegs. I'm thinking I need at least 4 more kegs for naturally conditioning and aging of big beers, like the 999 Barleywine.

I'm still doing 5 gallon batches.
 
Currently 5 taps, soon to be 7, and about 24 kegs. But I like to condition for a long time in the keg, and I bring a lot to social gatherings.
 
six taps (5 regular and 1 stout) and I have 8 kegs.. definitely need a bunch more for further conditioning. I have a half-dozen carboys that are almost always filled as secondaries and as soon as I keg kicks, I'll fill it with something from a secondary and drop it in the walk-in for further conditioning.
 
I mean, -IF- I stick purely to 5-gal batches, I could "get by" on 8 for many years to come. But I want to hammer out the glitches and start brewing 10 gal at a time for anything "proven".... and do 5-gal for my test batches only. And at THAT point, I'll need 14, you betcha dontcha know?

I'm currently limited to 2 taps and 5 kegs. This is fine for now but like Chriso said, once I start brewing 10 gallon batches for proven favorite recipes, then more kegs may be needed, especially for beers benefitting from cellaring.

That said, I still like bottling certain beers, too, and probably always will bottle belgians, weird experimentals, and big beers, which won't be drank frequently enough to make them tap-worthy.
 
I've got three kegs with one tap now. My goal is to have three taps and a few more conditioning. I have been trying to get to the point where I brew 10 gal batches of house session ales which will get split into kegs and bottles. The bottles would then go to my brothers who share the work of brewing.
 
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