Apartment kegging

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bernerbrau

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I'm thinking of making the switch to kegging because bottling takes way too damn long. I figure I'd keg-condition instead of force-carbing for now since CO2 seems expensive.

Trouble is I live in an apartment, and my kitchen is rather small, so I can't figure out an unobtrusive place for a kegerator.

Who else kegs their beer in an apartment? Is it worth it, or do I wait until I have a house?
 
Well if you want to keg now, I'd recommend getting a mid-sized fridge: one that doesn't have a freezer compartment. Takes up the least amount of room for two cornies and you can have a tower on top. Depends on whether you've got the space in your living room/ den. I suspect you can find a corner for a couple taps ;)
 
You could keg, condition, then pull of growlers as you need to refrigerate. Might take a few attempts to get the carbonation levels right wit hthe temp changes and all, but doable.
 
I bought a kegerator from sams that sits in my "dining room". It fits 3 kegs and is the size of e mini refrigerator.
 
I too think that naturally carbonating the beer and using a mini fridge to chill before serving is the best way to cost-effectively get into kegging.
 
I live in a crammed apartment. I bought the magic chef 7.2 freezer, fits 6 kegs and it's 34X34X24, so it's very efficient for it's size. I'd say buy something and make it look as nice as possible then put it in your dining room or living room. Or like others are saying, just buy a small mini fridge that'll fit 2 and tuck it away in a closet or something.
 
Out of curiosity, how long does it take you to bottle a batch?

I know your question was not directed at me, but I JUST finished brewing and bottling a batch tonight. I started at 7:30 and I'm in a small apartment. I just finished getting everything cleaned up at 12:30AM.

But, to answer your question, I had about a dozen bottles to wash. I had another dozen already clean. I use 0.65 liter Grolsch-style bottles. It probably took me 1:30 to boil priming sugar, cool, transfer to bucket, sanitize, bottle, clean up the 2-beers I dumped on the floor. :) I'm like you, I have been thinking about doing kegging. But honestly, after seeing this video:[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC7MDb0IuLs]YouTube - Kegging 1 of 4[/ame]I see that it is going to take time no matter what method I choose. I know I'll eventually do it, but while I'm in an apartment in Paris, I'm going to stick to bottling.
 
Bottling day I normally boil 2/3 - 3/4 cups priming sugar in a cup or two of water then cover and stick in the fridge until cool. Then I fill a 5 gallon bucket with warm oxyclean solution and rack into each 20-oz bottle 1/3 full. Scrub each with my bottle brush, then dump. Then I triple-rinse each bottle from the tap (fill, dump, fill, dump, fill, dump), give the bucket a good spray down, and fill it with star-san solution. I rack the star-san into the bottles until the bucket is empty, so I know how many bottles are needed. Once the bucket is empty, I give it a good shake down to get rid of the excess sanitizer and dump the priming solution in. I then rack the beer on top of it, dump the bottles, attach my bottling wand, and fill while my wife caps. The whole thing takes about 4-5 hours.
 
I don't really have a spot in the dining or living room areas; I have a large hutch and dining table in the dining area which takes up all the wall real estate. The couch takes up one entire side of the living room, and across from it is the TV where it would really kind of stick out. I can't put it in the laundry closet because there's a washer and dryer in there, which leaves maybe the guest bathroom, bedroom closet, or the deck outdoors.
 
It takes me no more than 1-1.5 hours to bottle a batch of beer. (I always bottle or keg alone- never with a helper). If it took me four hours, I'd have quit brewing long before now.

Some tips: bottles are ALWAYS cleaned when they are emptied. That means pour the beer into a glass, then rinse the bottle very well with hot water until squeeky clean. Set upside down in the dishrack in the sink. No one ever drinks out of a bottle, and they are never left to get grungy. Then, they are put away in the box upside down when they are dry. The equipment is always cleaned when I'm done using it.

So, on bottling day, I take out the clean bottling bucket and the clean bottles. I use a mix of 12 ouncers, 16 ounces (Grolsch) and 22 ounces. I use a vinator and a bottling tree. If the bottles are dusty, I give them a quick hot water rinse. Then I start boiling the priming solution. I turn off the heat and let it cool. I squirt two squirts of star-san into the bottle with the vinator and stick on the bottling tree. This whole process takes less than 10 minutes.

Since my bottling bucket is already clean, I simply rinse it with hot water and inspect it. Then, I add a gallon or so of my sanitizer, put the lid on it and shake it up very well. I open the spigot and drain it out through the bottling wand back into the jug I store my sanitizer in. I sanitize the siphoning gear at the same time, and set it all on a clean papertowel. I have the caps in a bowl, covered with a little sanitizer.

I rack the beer into the bottling bucket and into the priming solution. I then open the dishwasher door, and line up the bottles on it. Fill up each bottle, put up on the island and set a cap on it. Cap those bottles, and refill the dishwasher door. It takes about 3 times of filling/capping to do a batch. Finish capping, and then wash the bottling gear, and the empty fermenter, with oxiclean and water. I take off the spigot and wash it well. Then, I rinse everything well with clean water and put it away. The hardest part for me is putting all the bottles in milk crates and keep it someplace warm until they are carbed up.

When I keg, I do basically the same thing. I clean the keg when it's emptied, so I just have to sanitize the keg and siphoning stuff. I siphon the beer into the keg, and close it up. I seal with a couple of shots of co2 and set it next to the kegerator, and label it. It takes about 20 minutes total.

So, there is a time savings but I like kegging better because of the storage issue. It's alot easier to store 7 kegs than 400 bottles! I still use all of my other stuff, since I do bottle at times, but I got rid of about 300 bottles recently. I have a few bottles of beer in my wine cellar, but not too many.
 
I've also read that you can auto-clean and sanitize bottles the night before in the oven... something like 12 hours at 180. I'd have to check again what the specifics were. That would definitely speed things up on my next bottling day.

The other problem with bottling is I have back pain from sitting at a computer at my job all day so bending down to fill bottles hurts.
 
I've also read that you can auto-clean and sanitize bottles the night before in the oven... something like 12 hours at 180. I'd have to check again what the specifics were. That would definitely speed things up on my next bottling day.

The other problem with bottling is I have back pain from sitting at a computer at my job all day so bending down to fill bottles hurts.

You can't clean bottles in the oven. You can sanitize in the oven. They still have to be clean to start with.

I sit on the floor (or a very low chair), and fill the bottles on the dishwasher door, because I'm old and can't bend very long. There are other ways, though. You could lift your bottling bucket higher (like set it on a milk crate) and bottle on the counter while sitting in a chair. There are plenty of ways around not having to bend.

Most of my "techniques" come from being old, small, weak, and lazy. I can give MANY work-saving techniques!!!!!

I'm 45, and 135 pounds. Believe me, I don't work any harder than I have to!
 
+1 on the dishwasher door. It's GREAT for the messes. Any overflow when you fill the bottles just ends up in the dishwasher when you close the door.

A big help is getting someone to assist with bottling. My 15 year old daughter fills bottles while I cap 'em and bottling takes us a half-hour or less. We make sure all our bottles are washed and ready the night before and give each one a couple sprays with Starsan to sanitize them right before we start.
 
I think you're bottling the hard way. I always work with a partner, and can bottle a 5 gallon batch in 45 minutes, probably less. I wash every bottle after I pour from it, and store it in a cabinet or dish rack. Then, the night before I load my bottles into the dishwasher. When I get home from work, fire up the dishwasher on its sanitize setting, and by the time we're done with dinner and have everything racked to a bottling bucket, they're ready to go. Bottling bucket goes on the counter right next to the dishwasher. Bottles get filled, passed across the counter, where the capper caps them and writes the batch number onto the caps, then drops them into cases.

Granted, it sounds like kegging has less fiddley work to it, but you may want to consider refining your bottling system.
 
I could definitely understand the 1-1.5 hour bottling time. 30-45 minutes is near impossible. When you are in an apartment its most likely that your brew stuff is scattered in 3 different places. Taking everything out and putting it away probably takes 20 minutes in itself.
 
I could definitely understand the 1-1.5 hour bottling time. 30-45 minutes is near impossible. When you are in an apartment its most likely that your brew stuff is scattered in 3 different places. Taking everything out and putting it away probably takes 20 minutes in itself.

I do it alone, and a great portion of it is collecting things from other places. The actual "work" time is probably 30 minutes or so. Priming sugar and bottle caps are in one place, the bottling bucket and tubing is in the basement, the carboy is in the laundry room, the bottles are in the basement, etc.

But, still, it can't really take more than an 1.5 hours total, even alone, if you have everything clean and ready to go for bottling day. I've done it more than 150 times, though, so I've got the system pretty well organized.

I bottle much bigger quantities of wine at a time- this weekend, I'll bottle 11 gallons. I'm soaking some yuckky bottles today, so on bottling day, I just have to quickly sanitize and go.
 
I've got it down to 1.5 hours as well. The vinator/starsan combo and making sure your bottles are clean after you empty them makes all the time difference. I just pull the bottles from the cases, give them a quick blast with a bottle blaster, 2 squirts on the vinator and then onto the bottling tree to be filled. Processing and filling all 43 500ML bottles takes me about 45 minutes. I use PET so I screw the caps on as I go, they're just sitting in a bowl of starsan waiting to be used.

I don't even bother cooling the priming solution, just put it in the bottling bucket and rack the beer right on top.
 
Mosquito, to clarify, the 45-ish minute time is starting from a point where I have all of my bottles sanitized and ready in the dishwasher, so it's probably more than that start to finish. I generally combine bottling and brewing days, so I'm usually waiting for my boil to finish while I do my bottling.
 
Yeah, lately I've been letting mine stack up. I bottle 20 gallons at a time. Start to finish it takes about 3-3.5 hours (with a helper) including sanitizing the bottles, taking everything out and putting it away. Usually we just set everything up and put on a movie or the baseball game. A nice not so intense movie is great. Like.... the Star Trek series for instance. Nothing you need to pay too much attention to.

I can't wait to get all my equipment to keg. Although I'm having a hard time letting myself spend that much money so it may be awhile. Bottles are EVERYWHERE though.

kitchen counter, hall closet, entire walkin master closet, bathroom, above kitchen cabinets, on the porch, even in the living room end tables. Kegging could eliminate all of that.
 
If I pull a couple bottles or growlers off the keg, how long do they normally stay carbed? I know some of the carbonation would have to come out of solution in order to repressurize the bottle... Would I just need to tap at a higher pressure? Also, does the keg stay airtight by virtue of the pressure differential? In other words, would I have to mechanically secure the keg for conditioning until enough carbonation can be built up?
 
If I pull a couple bottles or growlers off the keg, how long do they normally stay carbed? I know some of the carbonation would have to come out of solution in order to repressurize the bottle... Would I just need to tap at a higher pressure?

I often bottle a few 1L EZ top bottles to give to family and friends. This is after I've forced carbed and have been using the tap. Carbonation stays about the same as naturally carbonating (assuming of course you did enough force carbing). The easiest thing to do when you're filling the bottle is to set the PSI really low....that way there's just enough to let the beer flow, but not enough to develop a big froathy head. Since you're filling already carbonated beer up to the top, there isn't much space for CO2 to drop out and pressurize.

Also, does the keg stay airtight by virtue of the pressure differential? In other words, would I have to mechanically secure the keg for conditioning until enough carbonation can be built up?

Well I'm assuming we're talking corny kegs....they stay airtight due to the internal pressure being higher and there being pretty strong O rings on any valve. It's easy enough to tell when you've got a leak (normally it's from an O-ring not being sealed right). There's a hissing noise because of the higher pressure gas escaping. Usually it's a slight adjustment or adding some food grade lube on the O ring that will seal it. The keg stays airtight if it's 5 PSI or 30 PSI.
 
Well, I would plan on doing natural carbing inside the keg, and yes, cornies. That's why I'm wondering if I need to do anything extra to ensure it stays airtight before it gets up to pressure.
 
If I pull a couple bottles or growlers off the keg, how long do they normally stay carbed? I know some of the carbonation would have to come out of solution in order to repressurize the bottle... Would I just need to tap at a higher pressure? Also, does the keg stay airtight by virtue of the pressure differential? In other words, would I have to mechanically secure the keg for conditioning until enough carbonation can be built up?
After you seal up the keg you'll want to connect it to the gas and purge the headspace. After doing this pressurize it to 5-10psi just to ensure that the lid is totally sealed. Some kegs will seal themselves with just the bail but some won't. Best to be safe and give it a shot of gas.
 
So, to be clear, keg-conditioning still requires a CO2 tank? There goes my harebrained money-saving scheme :rolleyes:
 
Well, I would plan on doing natural carbing inside the keg, and yes, cornies. That's why I'm wondering if I need to do anything extra to ensure it stays airtight before it gets up to pressure.

Well since you'd still have a CO2 tank for serving, what I would do is put your primed beer in the keg, attach the gas line (at like 5 PSI), make sure all you hear is gas *filling* the tank, then release the emergancy valve to get some of the original oxygen out, and then you can take your gas line back off. You're using a tiny bit of CO2 to double check that your fittings are sealed and it's also purging your headspace of oxygen. But then you have to wait a few weeks for it to carb:(:D
 
Well if I have to get the CO2 tank anyway, I should probably just force-carbonate :p What's there to that? Just higher pressure? Or does it inject CO2 at serving time? Sorry if I'm repeating noob questions here.

And doesn't a picnic tap forgo the need for CO2 to serve? I never joined a fraternity, so I barely know my way around a keg :D
 
So, to be clear, keg-conditioning still requires a CO2 tank? There goes my harebrained money-saving scheme :rolleyes:

Most people do it the way I and bradsul say. You also normally use the CO2 tank to serve the beer....some people elect to naturally carb to save more CO2. But, you can cask your beer: that system doesn't rely on a CO2 system at all. Cask systems can use a hand pump, and they're supposed to be naturally carbonated. But because there's not as much CO2, they don't last as long as keg systems....and they're normally served at a higher temperature to help with the lower carbonation levels.
 
Well if I have to get the CO2 tank anyway, I should probably just force-carbonate :p What's there to that? Just higher pressure? Or does it inject CO2 at serving time? Sorry if I'm repeating noob questions here.

I force carb because it's much faster and I can get to drinking my beer much quicker!!!! :ban: So what if it uses more CO2. I still seem to go through quite a few cornies before I need to get it refilled for around $14. Anyway, it's pretty easy to do: after you put your beer in your keg and seal it up...purge your headspace at around 5 PSI. Then adjust your PSI to 30. Some people shake the keg around....some people don't. If you really want immediately carbed beer, shake the holy bajesus out of the keg for 5 minutes. I'm a bit more lazy then that, so I keep it at 30 PSI for a day. I tend to agitate it a couple of times during that day. Then when 24 hours has passed, you then put your PSI to serving pressure. And that pressure is a little different for each setup....but typical CO2 serving pressure in our setups is 5-10 PSI.

And doesn't a picnic tap forgo the need for CO2 to serve? I never joined a fraternity, so I barely know my way around a keg :D

I wasn't into frats either. And I was already a beer snob, so it was only a few times when I drew from a tap. With those setups, they have a hand pump to build up enough air pressure to serve the beer.
 
Will the yeasties continue to improve the beer even under 30 PSI?

Well by the time I'm carbing my beer, it's already cold enough for all yeasties to be dormant. I personally like crash cooling the beer the day before. Then I rack to the keg, trying not to get any yeast sediment. But sometimes I do....so they do get kicked up while I'm carbonating. So the first pint you pull after carbonating might be cloudy or have hop particles in there. But once the keg is set at its serving PSI, those yeasties settle on the bottom and away from the out tube....so then your beer gets crystal clear. And the nice thing about bottling from a force carbed keg is that when you present your home brewed bottles, they won't have any yeasties on the bottom (so you don't have to explain all about decanting or give away any special yeast strain you want to keep for yourself) :D
 
I say put your kegorator out on the deck and just cover it. Go with picnic taps so you don't have any problems with towers or anything like that and you'll stay fine until you get a bigger place. I brew in an apartment and I lost my kitchen table a long time ago. My kegorator now resides there. Gotta sacrifise if you want to be an apartment brewer! :mug:
 

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