Kegging and Consumption.

Anybody else notice that their consumption of homebrew has increased signifigantly since you started kegging??? Last week I kegged up a nice APA, put it on the gas and went away to work for the week. Got home late thursday night, had a few to celebrate the end of the week and went to bed. Here it is Saturday afternoon and the keg is about 3/4 gone. Granted, I gave a couple of growlers away to my brother in law and his buddies, but the rest is mine. Tell me I have not entered into a relentless cycle of brewing every weekend just so that production is equal to consumtion:cross:

It may settle a bit but the answer is Yes.

Not really, although I suspect it would have if I'd started at 28 instead of 48.

haha. i find that kegging actually reduced my consumption.

many times, i just want to see how the beers have aged, so i just get a little bit of each. can you imagine what would happen if i were to get a bottle of each of the beers i have in kegs? (that wouldn't happen though since i hate bottling that much... haha. if i hadn't gone to kegging, i may well have stopped brewing a long time ago...)

Now, I'm new at this, but I was under the impression that you get 66 beer from one batch. Of course that's the claim on the kits they sell so let's reduce that by 10 %. Let's call it 59 beer. Three quarters of 59 is 44 beer. Seven days in a week, that's six beer a day. Every day. Maybe an extra one on Saturday and Sunday.

I wanna drink with YOU!

generally you get around 50 x 12 oz beers from a 5 gallon batch. i usually get less due to boil off and leaving beer behind when racking, etc.

sometimes my beers stay for half a year on tap. i try to have potlucks and people over to help me with consumption. if you're even in austin, just let me know...

I take that back, ScoutMan. I wanna drink with gnef!

HA!

Unless you are alcoholic, I can't really see why a keg would increase your consumption. Granted its real easy to just grab a glass and pour, its equally as easy to open the fridge and crack open a bottle. If you really need to drink that much, its even easier to stop at the booze shop on the way home and grab a 6 pack

Alcoholics have a problem with beer, I just have a problem with no beer.
I'm a practicing alcoholic.

well at least you go the first step down

sirsloop said:

HA!

Unless you are alcoholic, I can't really see why a keg would increase your consumption.

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Uh oh. I think I'm in trouble....

Let me put it this way.

I have far fewer empties, now that I keg.

-a.

OK I had the same problem about making my kegs singlehandedly disappear. But if you look at it this way, it's 53 12oz. beers Right? But it's only 40 pints if you sucked every drop out of your secondary so lets call it 37 pints. Thats really not that bad. I have a couple of pints a night and lose a growler or two to neighbors. My kegs go in less than 2 weeks by myself. So no worries.....

or maybe Da Nile really isn't a river in egypt... Ah the hell w/ Egyptians!!!

I have yet to meet an alcoholic brewer. It's too damn much work

I do find myself drinking a lot more in general..I mean it's so easy when you always have beer on hand.


Dan

ajf said:

Let me put it this way.

I have far fewer empties, now that I keg.

-a.

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That's it in a nut shell. Empty bottles are both an indicator of consumption and an inventory control device. Without the empties to wash and sterilize, I forget how many I've had over the course of an evening., Now was I on my third or fourth pint???????????:cross:

Castle Meadow Brewery said:

OK I had the same problem about making my kegs singlehandedly disappear. But if you look at it this way, it's 53 12oz. beers Right? But it's only 40 pints if you sucked every drop out of your secondary so lets call it 37 pints. Thats really not that bad. I have a couple of pints a night and lose a growler or two to neighbors. My kegs go in less than 2 weeks by myself. So no worries.....
-a.

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Ahh, Safety in numbers. Thanks CMD, I feel better now. Note to self.....Buy more Cornies

ScoutMan said:

That's it in a nut shell. Empty bottles are both an indicator of consumption and an inventory control device.

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Lightweight. Kegs can be an inventory control device too. :rockin:

All kidding aside, I'd like to come up with a device that allows me to measure volume without opening the fridge. A scale with a remote display would be the most convenient but the most expensive. What other parameter could we measure that will give us an indication of remaining volume? Can't think of one offhand now, but that may have something to do with ethanol in my blood. No work tomorrow!

HAHA! Heck yeah... lets see... Ive got 2 kegs on tap and another 3 in the closet and 1 empty. I need to brew two batches asap to keep a full stock

Hmmm.. you know, I like it. I think I'm going to run with that one. Just keep 'em full.

I don't drink near as many beers since I bought 24 oz glasses! I only drink half as many beers as I used to!

I found that since I started brewing, I buy far less beer in the store. Therefore, my consumption has gone down, right? Don't know how the kegging will effect my consumption, as my Sanyo is sitting bare and my kegging equipment won't be here until next week.
I definitely don't brew enough, though. I am only averaging 6 batches per year...er...well...6 batches so far this year anyway.

I read the topic and thought...Kegging and Consumption? What does tuberculosis have to do with kegging? :cross:

Anyway, I find myself enjoying my homebrew more than swilling it down. Its more of a ritual than anything. Choosing the right glass, drawing a nice glassful, making sure there is a nice head on it to enjoy the aromas, looking at the color, and finally beginning the enjoyable task of drinking it.

I find myself going to the liquor stores to pick up singles of things I want to brew more than anything. Sometimes I'll grab a 12 pack of one of my favorites, and even those dont get swilled down.

Sadly I know my consumption (and guests) have went up as a result of kegging. It doesn't bode well for my attempted weight loss neither, but I digress.

It is harder to monitor and much more convenient to hobble over to the fridge and pour a pint opposed to cracking open a bottle.

lol.. yeah the ol "no evidence" factor Waking up the next morning and seeing X amount of bottles on the counter seems like a good check/deterrent

Honestly, this is one of the main reasons I may never keg.

I'm a pretty disciplined person--I almost never have more than one beer on a weeknight. But I really want to sometimes. I just think it's be too hard to be disciplined with a tap in the house.

Also, having teenagers in the house, it just seems like a dangerous idea. I know it's possible to rig up a lock, etc., but it seems like a real PITA.

I was drinking around 4 pints a night when I started kegging, now it's more the norm to have 1 or 2.

sirsloop said:

lol.. yeah the ol "no evidence" factor Waking up the next morning and seeing X amount of bottles on the counter seems like a good check/deterrent

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Ah yes, I keep a bottle tree on top of the fridge, that way when I finish a beer, I can rinse the bottle and put it up to dry. SWMBO calls it the "Tattle Tree", as she could keep tabs on me over the weekend. $400 bucks later, I fooled her...... However, since I started this thread, my consumption has decreased as the "new" has worn off of the kegging system. Although, when friends come over, they are way more intrested in the keg set up than last years hunting trophys, which is highly unusual.

Really, I think it should equal out in the end. Yeah, I'm sure i'll be drinking a bit more when I first get the keggerator, but over a couple batches it'll probably go back to normal. Same thing happens with anything new you get....

gnef said:

generally you get around 50 x 12 oz beers from a 5 gallon batch. i usually get less due to boil off and leaving beer behind when racking, etc.

sometimes my beers stay for half a year on tap. i try to have potlucks and people over to help me with consumption. if you're even in austin, just let me know...

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Hey Melvin,

I'll be glad to help you with some of that brew!

haha. hey, ed. i'll be visiting you some time when we get those bottle caps. you should definitely come up some time! i have a traditional mead, cyser, blackberry melomel, as well as hard cider in addition to the beers on tap, and 10 gallons of beer conditioning, and 10 gallons fermenting right now. haha. since we got our bulk grains/hops, i've been going a bit crazy.

I am not an alcoholic....alcoholics go to meetings.

It is easier to draw a pint....but I use a 10 oz glass and have at least 1 inch of foam, so my having 3 or 4 glasses a night are more like 2 pints anyway.

I get about 4 1/2 gallons into my kegs (I sample excessively during secondary :cross: ). Once it's carbed, if it is a great brew...I'll stick with it almost exclusively for a couple of weeks, while dipping into my other almost-empty keg.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with two of these in an evening (16Oz).

(And one in the morning )

BierMuncher said:

I don't think that there is anything wrong with two of these in an evening (16Oz).

(And one in the morning )

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One in the early morning, one in the mid morning, one in the late morning/early afternoon, two at noon, one in the mid afternoon...on so on and so on...

Tony said:

One in the early morning, one in the mid morning, one in the late morning/early afternoon, two at noon, one in the mid afternoon...on so on and so on...

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You been talking to my SWMBO again...?