From buckets to conical, and bottles to kegs

[Komodo]

This is a bit of a ramble, talking things through with myself but welcome any thoughts.
I've brewed for a long time. I remember talking with John Palmer back in rec.crafts.brewing when we were all building the 3-tier systems. Quit the hobby once, and picked it back up after reading Brew Like a Monk. I vowed to keep it simple, considered brewing batches as small as a bottle, explored BIAB, etc. But equipment tends to find you, and it's hard to say no.

Currently, I tend to brew 10G batches or Belgians, and only bottle vs keg due to space constraints and no fridge. So I end up brewing it bursts because it takes awhile to drink. I'd prefer to brew more regular and smaller batches. I'd also really like to streamline my process more to save time, and reduce unnecessary efforts.

As of now I've got:
15.5g keggle with a 1/2" ball valve, and a 1/2" whirlpool port. Both use Camlock connectors.
8g pot with 1/2" ballvalve
22g pot with 1/2" ballvalve
1/6 bbl keg with no valve installed, sometimes use as fermenter/secondary
5g Kimax carboy
A bunch of brew buckets. No valves.
A bunch of bottles
pump for whirlpooling, camlock silicon hoses
A recently found 13g conical that needs a little work, but not bad

The conical had me real excited, when I went to get it I was told it was 7g but it ends up that it's 13g. As I piece together the necessary hardware to make it supreme, I feel like I'm headed back to 10g batches, and 5g in it would be way overkill. It's also bigger, which puts a pinch on space.

To add to this, bottling is a drag and my least favorite part. I've always wanted to keg, but don't have the space or fridge for it. I do have a nice small fridge that actually big enough to lager a 6g plastic bucket in. I'm contemplating adding a simple kegging setup with a couple 3g kegs. I could fit one in the fridge, and store the other until the first is blown.

Ponderings:
- Can I keep beer in the second (third, fourth) kegs at room temp, while one is in the fridge for serving?
- Is so, should it be carbed or not?
- should I still keep some bottles and keg some, bottle some?
- Is this 13g conical overkill, or ok for 6g batch, and there when I need it?
- Should I trade the conical for a 8-10g if I can find one?
- I've also considered fermenting in a 10g corny. It would also be easy to keep buckets if needed.
- I'm using wraps on the buckets with a temp controller and it works excellent. The wraps don't really fit onto this conical the way the legs are attached.
- what to ditch, and what to keep to really have things that work.

Things I'd love to streamline:
- I'd love to never bottle again. Or minimize it.
- I'd love to never rack again. Gravity is OK, IDK why I don't have valves on my buckets. Interested in pressure transfers.
- I'm not super wound up about low O2 brewing, but not opposed to any place it can be minimized.

 

[AlexKay]

One liter EZ-Cap bottles cut your bottling time by a factor of three. The down side is that then you have to drink a lot of beer at once. The up side is that then you have to drink a lot of beer at once.

 

[Barbarossa]

Doesn't a unitank means you can ferment, then carbonate and serve with from it? Saves the bottling am kegging?

 

[Komodo]

Doesn't a unitank means you can ferment, then carbonate and serve with from it? Saves the bottling am kegging?

Yeah, I'm improperly using the term. In it's current state it's a conical. It's lid is a flat disc that's pressed down from overhead with a crude clamp. It is a heavy gauge, one piece, non-welded cone though. Im working on sourcing a lid so it's possible it could be pressurized at some point. I'll edit the above!