Keg to Bottle Feedback Wanted

[Gytaryst]

I still bottle everything. I never could quite make the move to kegging. I'd be lying if I said the money had nothing to do with it. This hobby has proven to be WAY more expensive than I ever anticipated when I decided to try it out. But at this point I pretty much know it's expensive and I'm hooked, so it is what it is. I think more than the money is the idea that having beer permanently "on tap" seems... idk... fanatical... obsessive... over-the-top... It's odd because I have no problem storing 7 or 8 cases of beer in bottles. That doesn't seem weird or compulsive in the least. But having 5 gallons "on tap?" That seems like it's time for an intervention. But I digress.

I still don't think I'll ever go full blown keg to kegerator draft - but I have been thinking lately that I'd like to condition and carbonate in a keg and then bottle using a counter-pressure gun.

The clarity of my beer has never been a huge concern. Obviously I'd like it to be as clear as possible, but I've never bent over backwards or done any specific processes in my brewing for the sole purpose of clearing the beer. I might throw a Whirlfloc tab in the boil at 10 min (when I remember), and occasionally I'll cold crash and add some gelatin before bottling - but that's the extent of it.

All that being said, I've been seriously considering buying some kegs to use for conditioning. I'm interested in hearing feedback from people who do this to hear the pros and cons so I can decide if it's something I want to invest in. Here are some of my thoughts concerning all this:

[Sometimes] it seems like it would be nice to brew a nice clear pilsner and not have to worry about the sediment in the bottom of the bottle. Not all the time. My favorite style of beer is a nice big bottle conditioned Belgian Ale, stopping the pour and swirling the bottle to make sure to get every bit of yeast into the glass. But I want the diversity of being able to brew the lighter, clearer styles as well.

I'm not sure about artificial or forced carbonation. From everything I've read and learned so far I'm a huge fan of natural carbonation. I realize you have to give up a certain amount of clarity, and I don't know if it's possible to have zero sediment in the bottle, even if it is conditioned in a keg. I understand why commercial brewers filter and force carbonate. I'm not a commercial brewer, I have no financial motivation to go grain to glass in a matter of days.

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear the views of others on this.

 

[mredge73]

Nothing that you have mentioned would make me recommend kegging to you; you simply don't want to do it so why bother.

The benefits of kegging are: use any size glass as to drink as much or as little as you want, eliminate the need to bottle, to force carbonate to a pre-designed level, consistent pours, sediment reduction, pressurized fermentation, closed loop transfers, etc.
It will help you take your beer to the next level but is totally unnecessary.
The cons are cost, space, and portability.

 

[CudaJoe]

kegging was a good move for me from bottles. you can always fill a growler or self sealing bottle to bring beer to friends houses or for competitions.

Cleaning kegs, beer lines, and filling kegs / carb process, is easier and less of a risk than cleaning/ filling bottles. 5 gallons of beer in a keg and 5 gallons of beer across 52-54 bottles is still 5 gallons of beer..

 

[Gytaryst]

... 5 gallons of beer in a keg and 5 gallons of beer across 52-54 bottles is still 5 gallons of beer..

Yes, like I said, its a mental thing. I like the idea of all the benefits of kegging you guys mentioned, (which is why I'm looking into it). Conditioning an entire 5 gallon batch in one vessel, closed loop transfers, pressurized fermentation, filtering and sediment reduction... and all that. And I agree it would take the beer to the next level. Where we part ways is that when all of that is said and done I would still like to bottle it rather than serving it straight out of the keg.

I like bottles. The only place I could keep a kegerator is in the garage. I have chest freezers I use for fermenting so I don't want another one for a kegerator. When I have company I don't want them to have to go out to the garage to "pour" themselves a beer, nor do I want to keep running out to the garage for everyone all night. Grabbing bottles out of the kitchen fridge works fine.

My question was really for those who fill bottles from kegs. As you said, kegging can take your beer to the next level. It seems like if I do everything involved in kegging and then just bottle the beer after it's aged and carbonated, I shouldn't lose that "next level" benefit. I understand bottling is an extra step that most probably consider unnecessary.

I like the convenience of bottles. When they come up with an affordable way for home brewers to put beer in cans I'll go that way. I can put a couple sample bottles of every beer I've brewed in the kitchen fridge, (pretty much regardless of how many I have stored). I don't need a massive chest freezer or walk-in cooler to store 5 gallons of every beer I brew.

 

[CudaJoe]

When you bottle from a kegerator, you may loose alittle carbonation. I havent tried it before but slightly overcarbonating in the keg a few days before bottling may help hit your target carb level in the bottle. The reason is you will lose some carbonation from the small head space in the bottle. My experience without over carbing leaves the beer undercarbed enough for some one to comment on it but still decent enough to drink it fine.

My kegerator is in my kitchen next to the living room. I can understand not wanting to walk to the garage for a pour. Just need 1/2 liter and 1 Liter glasses!

 

[mredge73]

It is harder and messier to bottle from keg, but defiantly doable.
I really only do it for competitions. You will need a counter pressure filler or a beer gun and have to do all the normal bottle washing.
You can build your own counter pressure filler pretty easily if you want. You still need a way to get it down to nearly freezing; so still need a temporary kegerator.
Bottles need to be frozen too. Still need a C02 tank, even if you want to naturally carbonate. Might as well put a faucet on the door...
If I want to take beer somewhere I grab a growler, fill from faucet (with adapter) and drink it within 2 days or so.

 

[ericbw]

You'll spend MORE money with this scenario. You'll pay for everything you need for kegging minus faucets. But your beer gun or counter pressure filler will make up that cost, maybe more.

You'll also still need bottles and caps, and you'll have to clean and sanitize all of it, too.

So money is not really a consideration. Space is - you don't have room for a keg refrigerator. Probably because you insist on having luxuries like a washer, dryer, bathtub, etc. There's no getting around the space issue.

And the fact that you like bottles. That's personal preference. If you don't mind bottling day, then I think you have a good thing going already!

 

[SlitheryDee]

I really don't mind bottling either, but I do have a kegging kit on my amazon wishlist anyway. For me, it's just an aspect of brewing that I want to explore. I do like clear beer, and I've mostly been able to get that from bottles, but I would like to see just how clear it is coming from a keg. Then there's the fact that you can carbonate anything in a keg. One day I might want to make a non-alcoholic beer and force carb it, or I might want to make an insanely high alcohol beer and force carb it. It's harder to do the first one in bottles and impossible or extremely slow to do the other. I actually like the idea of having a batch "on tap". It's an odd luxury that I've never seen anywhere around here, and I think it's cool. Oh I'll be kegging eventually for sure.

 

[Paladen]

Here is a DIY counter pressure bottle filler I came up with,partly from stuff I had laying around .Filled about twenty bottles from keg so far. Some have held decent carbonation,some not so much,definetly a learning curve to any of these. Wanted it to fill a few bottles now and then to give away and competitions

 

[Gytaryst]

Washing bottles does get monotonous, but I'm not as adamantly against it as I've heard some express. Mostly I do prefer bottles, (for many reasons). And then there is the space/energy/kegerator aspect. I have a 5 cu ft chest freezer with a heat/cool temp controller. It's great except I can only fit one carboy in it at a time. When there's nothing fermenting I set the temp at refrigerator temp so we can store extra refrigerated items, or I unplug the controller and use it as a freezer. I thought about buying a bigger one so I could fit two fermentation vessels in, but then I couldn't have different temps for each. I bought a refrigerator on craigslist a few weeks ago but sold it within a few days for what I paid. It was 115-118*F, the thing ran constantly and had a 1/2" of condensation inside. Every time I opened the door all the cold air would dump out the bottom and the temp would spike, causing it to work even harder. With the chest freezer once it hits temp it pretty much stays there. I can open the top and only the warm air comes out. The cold air stays in the freezer. So the goal is to get another 5 cu ft freezer. The idea of putting a third one out there just for draft beer doesn't interest me. I have the space - but having kegs of beer on tap isn't important enough for me to devote space to a third freezer, nor do I want to pay to run 3 freezers in a garage.

I could continue to simply bottle and bottle condition the way I have been, but there are a lot of benefits to be gained with kegs.

I'm still just pondering. One day I wake up and I'm ready to put the whole thing on craigslist and move on to other things. The next day I'm at the LHBS dropping $150 on more equipment I can't live without.

 

[Yooper]

Just remember that to bottle carbonated beer from a keg, the keg needs to be carbed up, cold, and then you can use a beergun to fill cold bottles. It's not hard, but it's NOT convenient.

If you want to continue to bottle, that's great and there are ways to minimize the sediment in the bottles. Bottling from the keg, just to do it, is a huge PITA for most of us I'd think.

It's the same amount of space as having a kegerator, with the same amount of line and the same c02 tank. Instead of having a faucet and filling a growler, you'd get a beergun and fill 55 bottles. So, it would actually take up a bit more space because you'd need the keg fridge, all of the things to go with it, PLUS the 55 bottles.

I love kegging, but it is because I fill growlers and 2L bottles and things to take beer to go. No way would I do all this and still bottle all of my batches.

 

[eric19312]

Yes you are rare candidate for not kegging. There are benefits to bottle conditioning and refermenting in the bottle for some types of beer. You may lose those benefits bottling from kegs. Bottling from kegs with a beer gun or cp filler is pretty good for minizing oxidation but not as easy as bottling from a bottling bucket and re fermentation also scrubs oxygen. I use my beer gun mainly for bottling beers like IPAs for competitions. Like a six pack off the keg... For beers I want to age in the bottle I'm bottling bucket and priming sugar all the way.

 

[logdrum]

One other option I've used when I want to naturally carb, is to fill a keg with the non carbonated beer & your priming solution ( I use gyle) mix thoroughly & CO2 force into bottles. Eliminates the need for chilling the keg & the hassle of a counter pressure filler. That being said, I much prefer having a selection of beers on tap.

 

[PADave]

I'm in pretty much the same situation as you. I don't mind bottling, and like all the advantages of doing so. Always said I didn't want to keg. But everyone I talked to said how much better kegging is. Back in January I bought a single keg setup off CL. Haven't used it yet, but just got my CO2 bottle back full, so my next brew will be going into a keg. Going to give it a shot.

 

[Jtk78]

I bottle and don't plan to move to kegs in the foreseeable future. At least not at this house, and we just finished year 1 of a 10 year plan. I don't mind bottling day. I give away quite a few 6 packs (6 - 6 packs in the last 2 weeks), and take many for myself when I'm going to get togethers, so it works for me.

However, I certainly wouldn't buy a keg set up just to continue to bottle. As others have said, more money, way more cleaning, and more time. I bet if you bought the keg setup, you'd only bottle 1 more full batch with it. I imagine you'd get over your own hurdle pretty quick.

 

[Gytaryst]

I bottle and don't plan to move to kegs in the foreseeable future. At least not at this house, and we just finished year 1 of a 10 year plan. I don't mind bottling day. I give away quite a few 6 packs (6 - 6 packs in the last 2 weeks), and take many for myself when I'm going to get togethers, so it works for me.

However, I certainly wouldn't buy a keg set up just to continue to bottle. As others have said, more money, way more cleaning, and more time. I bet if you bought the keg setup, you'd only bottle 1 more full batch with it. I imagine you'd get over your own hurdle pretty quick.

My goal has never been to cut down on the amount of "work" that goes into this. It's not like I'm putting in 12 hour days 7 days a week trying to keep up with demand and looking for ways to save time. I've never minded bottling - it's part of the hobby. When someone says filling bottles from a keg with a counter pressure gun is more work than it's worth - that seems like a subjective statement to me. I don't know - I've never done it. I have no doubt that it's easier to just keg and serve it from there. But again, my goal is not to find the "easiest" or fastest way to brew beer.

It's entirely possible that after I purchased everything I need and bottled an entire batch from a keg with a counter pressure gun, I might come to the same conclusion - that the extra work and expense is not worth the end result.

I'm retired and drink 99% of what I brew myself. Since my wife and I adopted our 3 year old granddaughter our social life has come to a screeching halt. We don't go out and no one (except occasional family) comes over. Most of the people I know (including my wife) don't drink. Of the few people I know who do drink, they either drink Bud Light by the case until they pass out, or they drink 3 or 4 Bud Lights a year, or they drink wine. I shared a few 6 packs when I first started but got negative feedback. Not because it was bad beer, but because it wasn't Bud Light.

I drink 2 - 3 beers a day, (pretty much every day). Before I started home brewing, drinking beer to me was going out on Friday night and drinking a 12 pack of Bud until I was hammered. Since I started brewing I probably drink twice as much as I ever did, and yet I honestly can't remember the last time I was drunk, (it's been years). I appreciate beer now. I have a hard time sharing something I brewed with the lets get hammered on Bud Light mentality crowd.

In short - I have absolutely no need for a kegerator with a bunch of handles. I currently have 4 or 5 different batches I've brewed sitting in bottles in cases in the pantry, and I usually have a mix match of 6 or 8 bottles in the fridge. If I feel like drinking a stout, I grab a bottle of stout. If I want an APA or an IPA, I grab that. To do that with kegs I'd have to have a kegerator the size of an SUV in my garage cooling 25 to 30 gallons of beer all the time. Not worth it to me.

I prefer ales over lagers 9 times out of 10. But on those rare occasions when I do want a lager, I want it crystal clear with no sediment in the bottle. I'm just trying to figure out the best way to achieve that without breaking the bank.

 

[mredge73]

You don't want to move into kegging and everyone agrees with your reasoning why.
Using a keg strictly as a "bright tank" just doesn't make a lot of since on this level; this is what everyone is trying to tell you.
Remind me what the point of this thread is again?

 

[Sadu]

I'm gonna go against the grain and say that you should start kegging. I got into kegging not because I wanted taps, but a convenient place to lager full batches. Plus getting sick of having lots of bottles at various stages of carbonation.
Not gonna lie - bottling from keg is harder and more time consuming than normal bottling. However, if you drink the first half of the keg and bottle the rest once your next brew is ready this cuts down the work big time. You get the best of both worlds - less bottle cleaning, beer is ready faster, no sediment in your bottles, dont have to drink a whole pint, still have a good selection of beer styles in your fridge at any time. I bottle in a mix of glass and PET since its very fast / easy to bottle into PET.

 

[Morrey]

I'm gonna go against the grain and say that you should start kegging. I got into kegging not because I wanted taps, but a convenient place to lager full batches. Plus getting sick of having lots of bottles at various stages of carbonation.
Not gonna lie - bottling from keg is harder and more time consuming than normal bottling. However, if you drink the first half of the keg and bottle the rest once your next brew is ready this cuts down the work big time. You get the best of both worlds - less bottle cleaning, beer is ready faster, no sediment in your bottles, dont have to drink a whole pint, still have a good selection of beer styles in your fridge at any time. I bottle in a mix of glass and PET since its very fast / easy to bottle into PET.

I am taking your "you should start kegging" statement to reflect my feelings, and if I had not started kegging when I did, I think I may have simply quit brewing. That's how much I disliked bottling.

BUT...HOWEVER...there are times that bottling is a must for me. Sharing bottles with friends, going to parties or bottle shares pretty much means bottling some off the keg. Using a beer gun is tricky, but soon enough you get the tricks figured out. Certain situations lead me to carb in the bottle...say an effervescent mead needing to be bottled conditioned. I like Hefe's in a bottle so I can swirl up the yeast in each pour. Bottling has its place, and in my ideal brewing world, I have learned to keg and bottle with equal enthusiasm.

 

[mongoose33]

It is harder and messier to bottle from keg, but defiantly doable.

I would disagree on that--I didn't find it any more difficult, plus there are all the advantages of kegging.

I've done the beer gun thing, and the poor-man's beer gun (bottle filler w/ stopper to counter-pressure), but what I do now is simply use my growler filler to fill bottles and cap them on foam. I have Perlick flow-control faucets that help with that.

**************

To OP:

Once I knew I could force-carbonate beer in the keg, and knew I'd never have to deal with the dregs in a bottle, I was hooked on kegging. I'll fill bottles from time to time to kill a keg to make room, or to have extras to take with me to an event. I'll do a growler occasionally, but it's nice to have bottles available. No worry about decanting to avoid the dregs, easily portionable...

You do know, don't you, that if you start using a keg, you're only a hop, skip, and a jump away from a keezer/kegerator? To have a basic tap setup you need a CO2 bottle, regulator, a freezer or refrigerator, a faucet, a controller (Inkbird e.g.) and some quick-disconnects and some lines/fittings. You make a collar from some wood, and you have a keezer.

And the beauty of it is you don't have to have everything at once. My keezer started w/ 3 faucets, but I could have started with one. Mine has 5 now, as I twice added a single additional faucet.

If you can find a cheap small chest freezer, or a refrigerator, this doesn't have to cost a ton. And once you start doing it, my guess is you wouldn't want to go back.

You could start with a small chest freezer--7.2 CU feet is a good size, though some start with a 5.0 cu ft freezer. The smaller one makes it tough to have more than 2 kegs going, whereas the 7.2 would allow you to have as many as six kegs in there. I have five taps, and the sixth keg is the next beer, or is force-carbing, or just conditioning.

You could start with just the freezer, a keg, a CO2 bottle, a regulator, an Inkbird, and a picnic tap. That's what I did--I had kegs in a fridge fed by the CO2 and picnic taps to serve. Eventually I did a more permanent setup.

Then when you had more money and/or more motivation, build a collar and add some faucets.

I just helped my son build a keezer; he bought a freezer for $168, I supplied the rest. You can see that build in this thread here, and it's an interesting approach--the collar just sits on the mouth of the freezer, nothing is permanently attached.

 

[Gytaryst]

... Remind me what the point of this thread is again?

To get as wide a range of feedback from people who have bottled from a keg as possible so I could make an informed decision on whether or not it was something I wanted to invest that much money in. Or as yet another place for d!ckheads to post useless irrelevant unnecessary opinions that have nothing to do with the point of this thread. I thought adding that to the title would have made it too long. Kudos to you for realizing that was the point without me having to state it.

I'm gonna go against the grain and say that you should start kegging.

I've never had a desire to keg - still don't. This thread came about because I decided to start brewing more lagers. That led me to thinking about how I could adjust my brewing process to be better suited to bottling crystal clear, light colored, sediment free lager. To bottle or to keg was never part of the equation.

... if I had not started kegging when I did, I think I may have simply quit brewing. That's how much I disliked bottling.

That might be the overwhelming majority consensus among home brewers - I don't know. I can't say I "like" bottling, anymore than I can say I "like" standing over a boiling kettle for an hour, or crushing 12 pounds of grain, stirring the mash, scrubbing out equipment, santizing things, etc, etc. When you get right down to it, it takes a lot of work to brew beer, and I'm retired. I go out of my way to avoid work as much as possible these days.

It takes me 3 to 4 hours (depending on how energetic I feel that day) to bottle a 5 gallon batch. That's from the time I go out to the garage and grab a couple cases of empties to the time I'm drying and putting away the last piece of equipment. If I had to do it 8 hours a day 5 days a week, yeah, I'd definitely hate that. But 3 or 4 hours once or twice a month . . .

To my way of thinking, if the goal was to drink beer with the least amount of effort possible I'd just drink the store bought stuff and have my wife pick it up when she's at the store so I wouldn't even have to put the effort into going to get it. That's never been the goal for me.

I would disagree on that--I didn't find it any more difficult, plus there are all the advantages of kegging.

Thanks. I've never done it, (which is "the point of this thread" to answer someone elses question). From what I've seen on youtube videos it didn't appear to be anymore difficult filling bottles from a keg than from a bottling bucket. But I'm also aware that you can edit videos, and if you're trying to sell a product you're not going to post a video of someone struggling to use it. I'm also aware of the fact that if you hate bottling you're probably not going to be a fan of bottling from a keg. I don't know, call it intuition - kind of a sixth sense I have.

My goal was/is to have all the advantages of kegging in bottles. I just wanted to get some feedback to help me decide if that's something worth pursuing. The idea of having crystal clear sediment free beer in bottles is pretty appealing to me so I'm thinking I'll probably give the bottling from a keg thing a try. If it doesn't work out I'll sell that gear and go back to bottling from a bucket.

 

[Morrey]

it takes a lot of work to brew beer

It certainly does! In this sweltering summer heat, it takes a huge amount of dedication to spend 4 hours outside with propane burners adding to the heat wave. It takes a heck of a lot of work to brew.

I have always said there are two basic tasks in this world....those that give you energy, and those that drain your energy. My wife asks me to vacuum the floor and that darn near kills me - a real energy vampire. BUT, brewing charges my batteries and I love it. Yep it takes a lot of work to brew beer, but I am energized when I finish cleaning up. Guess it's what you call a passion.

 

[Gytaryst]

It certainly does! In this sweltering summer heat, it takes a huge amount of dedication to spend 4 hours outside with propane burners adding to the heat wave. It takes a heck of a lot of work to brew.

I have always said there are two basic tasks in this world....those that give you energy, and those that drain your energy. My wife asks me to vacuum the floor and that darn near kills me - a real energy vampire. BUT, brewing charges my batteries and I love it. Yep it takes a lot of work to brew beer, but I am energized when I finish cleaning up. Guess it's what you call a passion.

I would say passion. My wife would probably say obsession. I've had quite a few hobbies in my life and this is without a doubt the strangest. It's labor intensive - I'm not. Science is a huge part of it - I ranked science a couple notches below math in school... and I DESPISED math. I think if I sat down and made a list of all the different aspects that go into brewing beer, individually they would all be things I have always avoided or at best never had an interest in. Agriculture, metallurgy, cooking, science, chemistry, microbiology, hard work, patience, waiting, expensive . . .

I pretty much hate every individual aspect of home brewing - and yet it's the most fascinating and addictive hobby I've ever taken on.

It's not even because I get to drink awesome beer. I've brewed some "decent" beer mixed in with a lot of "Well what can we learn from this" batches. Currently I have a case and a half of buttered popcorn IPA, (Safale US-05, possibly underpitched or too old). I have it stored at about 78F thinking, (hoping), it might eventually clean up. So far it hasn't. I have a case of a sour Dubbel that wasn't supposed to be sour... or a Dubbel. It was supposed to be a Quad - 21 lbs of grain and 2 lbs of candi sugar with an estimated OG of 1.100. Due to major problems with the mash I ended up with an OG of 1.055. I call it W.O.G. for waste of grain. It's drinkable, (one at a time), but it's not very good. It tastes kind of like Sierra Nevada Otra Vez, (which I can't stand). And finally I have a case and a half of a delicious chocolate raspberry stout that just keeps getting better and better, except I have to pour it thru a strainer to keep the excessive floaties out of the glass.

Needless to say my passion for brewing is not because of the great beer I get to drink. I actually can't explain it.

 

[Sadu]

The hard part of keg to bottle is dialling in your gear. I'm maybe 10 batches into kegging and still getting things right. You need to balance beer temperature, hose length, gas pressure, bottle temperature and filling technique. When it's right then filling bottles is easy and I love that you can bottle a 6 pack then leave the rest for later. But when things aren't balanced, you pour a bottle with 50% foam and mega wastage. Those bottles have a short shelf life and end up oxidised and flat. That is the frustrating part. I had this happen to a batch due to a bad liquid disconnect, a hefe with a bit more fizz than what I'm used to, and air getting into my hose due to a bad seal. So for me the frustrating and hard part is getting all this balanced.
But once you have it all working, its really great. I brew lots of lagers and really appreciate the tiny amount of sediment you get in the bottle. It means I can give beer to friends without having to give pouring instructions every time.

 

[mongoose33]

One of the biggest realizations i had when bottling from a keg via faucet was that the faucet needed to be cold. I have learned that the first "bottle" is actually a glass of beer I then enjoy while I bottle. That glass chills the faucet which drastically reduces foam.

 

[Sadu]

One of the biggest realizations i had when bottling from a keg via faucet was that the faucet needed to be cold. I have learned that the first "bottle" is actually a glass of beer I then enjoy while I bottle. That glass chills the faucet which drastically reduces foam.

You know what, this is one of the huge benefits of keg-to-bottle. When you are bottle conditioning you end up with a half bottle of warm uncarbonated beer with hop bits in it. When you keg-to-bottle you get to enjoy the hose chilling sample plus the half bottle at the end.:beer:

 

[Stehag]

I've been just where you are now.
When I started brew beer, I made some ale, some porter and a stout. But my favorite is lager !!
I looked up what was available to buy and tried to find a way to brew with that.
There was a lot of stuff to buy but it did not fit together. Cornelius kegs was to high for my refrigerator but even to small. I want to brew about 8 gallons at the time when I brew.

My lucky star is that I have a workshop and I can almost do whatever I want. I started to welded some kegs that fit in a party cooler that I found, after that I builded a counter pressure bottle filler and today I brew lager in my kegs, ferment under pressure, force carb and counterpressures to bottle.
I am very pleased with the way the system works and I have no problems to wash the bottles.
But then I like to drink beer from a bottle.

I brew about 140 gallons beer / year and everything is served in bottles.

The beer will be better if you can lager and conditioned it in a keg, and it is so much easier to chill a couple of bottles then a whole keg.

 

[triethylborane]

if I had not started kegging when I did, I think I may have simply quit brewing. That's how much I disliked bottling.

Yes, Im in that camp as well. Bottling is a chore in my opinion and I don't like it. Kegging requires clean up and maintenance, but there is a certain monotony to bottling 5+ gallons that sucks.

 

[SpeedYellow]

I've tried 3 methods for bottling from kegs: (1) counter-pressure filler (too complicated), (2) pressurized "burping" method (doesn't work well), and (3) bottling from tap (works but higher risk of contamination). I've found that each method still requires you to keep the bottles COLD. So I keep the bottles in a pitcher of ice water, meaning that bottling 5 gal would be a huge pain. No thanks.

 

[JimRausch]

Hmm- I've scanned the posts and don't see my main reason for still bottling after 5 1/2 years: I have 18 different varieties of beer available in bottles at last count (maybe even more than that now). Whatever my preference, I have it. I challenge anyone in the homebrewing kegging community to have that many taps.
Is bottling a chore? Yes. Is it irksome? Nope, not for me. And I know I'm the rare oddball out there, but oh well..............

 

[Sadu]

I've tried 3 methods for bottling from kegs: (1) counter-pressure filler (too complicated), (2) pressurized "burping" method (doesn't work well), and (3) bottling from tap (works but higher risk of contamination). I've found that each method still requires you to keep the bottles COLD. So I keep the bottles in a pitcher of ice water, meaning that bottling 5 gal would be a huge pain. No thanks.

It's really not that much of a big deal. Firstly you don't have to bottle the whole thing at once. You can bottle 6 at a time or whatever. Plus every pint you take from the tap is one less bottle to deal with.

You can stick the bottles in the freezer and they get cold quick. I put 8 bottles in the freezer while I setup, then take 4 out and fill them and the next 4 bottles goes into the freezer. Each bottle gets 10 mins or so in the freezer which is plenty. So it's not like you have to chill the whole batch of bottles in one hit.

I find it does take maybe 1.5x - 2x as long compared with regular bottling if you try to do the whole keg at once. But there are other advantages that make up for that, and not having sludge in bright lagers is a big one for me.