A case against kegging - Bottling is better

[DKershner]

If the amount of sugar used to prime a beer changes the taste, I'll eat my keg!

12 volume CO2 beer, comin right up!

 

[Houblon]

Kegging, where you force carbonate, while fast and easy takes away that fantastic flavor that you get bottling. Bottling is basically like a cask ale, naturally carbonated. Bottling, which some say is a pain in the butt just makes a better tasting beer.

So if you want the best tasting portable beer - you should bottle, if you want convenience and speed, go with kegging. In this respect - more work = better tasting beer.

So I guess you better tell Achouffe,Duvel,Huyghe Brewery(Delirium Tremens) that kegging is no good as you know far more than they do about beer/brewing.

Next if you think your beer is soo much better than why don'y you enter contest and prove to everybody your brewing skillz. Hey you just might be the next greatest thing.....

Sorry if you only had crappy AG , but I would bet theres just as many crappy extract brewers too.

Your post is nothing but trolling.

< edit to add >
BTW I keg and bottle along with corking some bottles(Belgian/French beers)

 

[StoutFan]

Wow, all this from an "editorial" comment. My 2¢ is that many(not "all" or "none") homebrewers have 2 areas they brew in: Specialty beers that have many hours or days in planning to be a perfect, whatever beer. And second, the staple beer they brew for friends/family/gatherings that is more of a social brew than a tasting brew. With this in mind, bottling can be better for taste in your specialty beer, OR, you might want to force carbonate with Co2 to relieve any off flavors that might come from the natural conditioning process. And bottling your social brew can put undue stress on the occasion of drinkatude, as bottles can break in a car ride, OR, keg's don't allow you to have the joy of cracking open that nice bottle of homebrew. Now, I know this is going to turn into some big thing, judging on how many people can not take things at face value and agree to disagree, but that is my take on the fact that IT DOESN'T MATTER, BOTTLE OR KEG!!!! It's a personal thing, why does one have to be right and the other wrong. Can't we all just have a brew and chill out?

 

[Desert_Sky]

what about those who carbonate in the fermenter and keg out of that? You can pressurize most conicals allowing for "natural" carbonation.

 

[user 22118]

I'm not saying anyone makes better beer then the other.

This statement goes to the core of why we are raising a bunch of pansy kids. Somebody has to be better no matter what. That is why first prize is supposed to be given to the best, not to everyone.

That aside, opinion, opinion, opinion is all that anyone here is saying. Even if you have "facts" to back them up, it is still an opinion because it is all just a taste test base. I was recently surprised by an extract beer that tasted nice. I was also recently not surprised by an AG that tasted foul. Good beer and bad beer can be made by the brewer. After a great run, I just made up a foul tasting batch. It doesn't matter how it is made. And when it is served, I find that bottles typically have a little bit better carbonation than my kegs. So when I want to drink a bunch of beer, the keg is typically softer and therefore goes down a bit better. The bottles are typically a little bit more "harsh" (wrong word, but for the purpose here it kinda works). So I really enjoy having my IIPA that is 10% from the bottle because it makes it pop and stand out.

My stout I totally dig from the force carbed keg though. It tastes perfect!

PS...I brew AG 10 gallon batches and bottle condition half and keg half. Reason: I tend to drink the kegs more readily than the bottles and so this is a great way to "save" beer for a later date. It sucks holding up a whole keg in order to age a beer for 6 months or a year.

 

[malc]

I am by no means an expert, and up until now I have only done extract and mini mash recipes. I have, however, had one experience where my buddy and I brewed the exact same 10 gallon batch of pumpkin ale. We kegged half and bottled half. I have a kegerator and he doesn't. The kegged, force carbonated batch tasted better to me when they were green, but as time went on, they approached a similar flavor. Does that even ake sense? The one reason I would prefer kegging is that I feel like I have more control over the carb level. I am sure that it can be controled with priming sugar too, but I have always just followed the basic 3/4 cup per five gallons. I don't know if this qualifies as evidence, but it was my experience.

 

[user 22118]

I think the problem is that you are deciding your beer was better than some kegged all grain beer. A lot of home brewers decide their beer is better than all commercial beer. I have tasted badly technically flawed beer from people making this claim.

Bingo! I was so proud of a Stout that I made last year that I was saying how phenomenal it was and this and that. I took it to a probrewer friend and he threw it down the sink and completely sunk my ship. Diacetyl. Mother f***er! I couldn't beleive it. I went back to the drawing board and realized that when I brew five gallon batches using my setup (fermenting in a sankey) I don't get enough heat to produce the fermentation that I am looking for and therefore had run into a Diacetyl problem. So I started making 10 gallon batches pretty much exclusively in order to control my fermentation temps.

 

[jdc2]

Bingo! I was so proud of a Stout that I made last year that I was saying how phenomenal it was and this and that. I took it to a probrewer friend and he threw it down the sink and completely sunk my ship. Diacetyl. Mother f***er! I couldn't beleive it..

Then why didn't you tell him to go f himself then? Why would anyone
toss a beer down a sink because it had some diacetyl in it? Ever had
Smithwick's? Don't you know yourself what diacetyl tastes like? I find
it hard to believe that there are people claiming their beer is great
when it isn't.

I went back to the drawing board and realized that when I brew five gallon batches using my setup (fermenting in a sankey) I don't get enough heat to produce the fermentation that I am looking for and therefore had run into a Diacetyl problem.

What?
Jim

 

[Edcculus]

Then why didn't you tell him to go f himself then? Why would anyone
toss a beer down a sink because it had some diacetyl in it? Ever had
Smithwick's? Don't you know yourself what diacetyl tastes like? I find
it hard to believe that there are people claiming their beer is great
when it isn't.

Jim

The big "D" can be the death of commercial breweries. Its very hard to control, and can often come from a bacterial infection. While that not Matt's case, commercial brewers in my experience are very averse to diacetyl. I'm assuming West Coast brewers more so, since they are probably using Chico yeast.

 

[jdc2]

The big "D" can be the death of commercial breweries. Its very hard to control, and can often come from a bacterial infection. While that not Matt's case, commercial brewers in my experience are very averse to diacetyl. I'm assuming West Coast brewers more so, since they are probably using Chico yeast.

Yeah, but a little diacetyl in your homebrew doesn't make it throwable,
especially if the op thought it was great to begin with. Some styles
require diacetyl, and there is always *some* in your beer, even if you
can't taste it. Smithwick's makes it beer intentionally that way, and it sticks out even more at the cellar temp they serve it at.
Jim

 

[user 22118]

Then why didn't you tell him to go f himself then? Why would anyone
toss a beer down a sink because it had some diacetyl in it? Ever had
Smithwick's? Don't you know yourself what diacetyl tastes like?

In my mind I was exclaiming my unhappiness that my beer wasn't as good as I thought it was. Plus, the guy is an experienced brewer that I can call at any time. I am not about to call him out on something that he knows 1000 times better than I do after 5 batches. When you are producing beer and attempting not to have Diacetyl, then it is not a good thing to have it. Sure there are a few classic cases that have it and the fact that it is now a popular beer that has been brewed in that style for a long time, "D" is acceptable. In my beer though, nope. I don't want to drink buttered popcorn. Ever. A year ago, I did not know how to perceive "D" in such small amounts. As soon as he mentioned it, I got it big time and it just killed that beer for me. I then became sensitive to it and realized what I was trying to find when smelling my other beers. Also, I figured out how to remedy it by brewing larger batches.

I find
it hard to believe that there are people claiming their beer is great
when it isn't.



What?
Jim

That there is the key to the statement. When I was just sitting at home and drinking my beer without trying commercial examples, other peoples beer and not really looking at how others are making the beer, I didn't see the flaws in my own brew. This happens to a lot of people and unless you get the outside opinion by someone who knows more than yourself, you will always be drinking the best beer in the world.

I think that Yooper put it best. She is making beer the way that she wants to drink it. It might not be the way others like it and it might have flaws that she doesn't percieve. But it is the beer that she enjoys and so she keeps brewing it that way. If she brings it to a party and the keg floats though, then is it not at least a tasty beer?

Too often we get used to what we are making as the only way to make something whether it be food, beer or whatever. Until we find out that another way tastes as good and maybe even better, I beleive that we stay stuck in a rut. I remember how a friend of mine didn't like to eat pork. He then tried some great ribs, some pulled pork and an amazing new way to eat it. The man now is making pulled pork once or twice a month. Same thing with kegging and bottling. Until there is a good example out there that tastes the way you want it to, you won't try something new.

That was a freaking long tangent...

 

[Desert_Sky]

The big "D" can be the death of commercial breweries. Its very hard to control, and can often come from a bacterial infection. While that not Matt's case, commercial brewers in my experience are very averse to diacetyl. I'm assuming West Coast brewers more so, since they are probably using Chico yeast.

not really....If diacetyl is a problem then the brewer is pushing the beer out to fast and not leaving adequate time for the yeast to clean up after itself. Diacetyl is one off flavor that the yeasts will fix themselves.

Reusing yeast time after time will sometimes inhibit the ability of subsequent generations to clean up the diacetyl as well.

 

[user 22118]

Yeah, but a little diacetyl in your homebrew doesn't make it throwable,
especially if the op thought it was great to begin with. Some styles
require diacetyl, and there is always *some* in your beer, even if you
can't taste it. Smithwick's makes it beer intentionally that way, and it sticks out even more at the cellar temp they serve it at.
Jim

If you don't want perceptible Diacetyl in your beer and it has some, then are you making the beer in the way that you intended?


Chimone, you are correct on pushing too quickly. I also had the problem of a 63* fermentation. I wasn't able to warm up the ferment and so the yeast never removed the Diacetyl when I was doing five gallon ferments. Ten gallons made it possible to get a warm enough fermentation temperature that it would remove the "D" in the end.

On that note, I found that the warm conditioning of the beer for bottle conditioning helped remove a lot of the Diacetyl that was present in the keg early on. This was last year and took a couple of months to figure out.

 

[iamjonsharp]

probably already been talked about in the ten pages of posts here (which I could only manage to read through the first few), but there should be more discussion on beer styles in regards to force carbing vs natural carbonation.

obviously, all brewers have the ability to naturally carbonate in bottles (assuming they have bottles). some brewers have equipment to keg, where you can force carbonate or naturally carbonate in the keg.

if you have kegging equipment, then you have more tools at your disposal to carbonate your beer. in order to produce a beer with certain desired results, you may choose to force carbonate or to naturally carbonate.

discounting a brewing method or tool available (i.e., force carbonation) and saying it is worse than another method or tool available (i.e., natural carbonation) in regards to all beer styles is just silly.

what is less silly, and would make more sense, would be to say that certain beer styles are better if naturally carbed, while others may be better suited for forced carbonation. or, that you choose a carbonation method in order to produce results that you desire.

this is in-line with your observation that naturally carbed beer vs forced carbed beer has a different taste

simply making a blanket statement that a brewing method or tool is inferior to another is completely ridiculous.

 

[jdc2]

.
That there is the key to the statement. When I was just sitting at home and drinking my beer without trying commercial examples, other peoples beer and not really looking at how others are making the beer, I didn't see the flaws in my own brew. This happens to a lot of people and unless you get the outside opinion by someone who knows more than yourself, you will always be drinking the best beer in the world.

All due respect, I don't believe that is even close to being true, unless
the homebrewer is some kind of egotist who denies reality to make himself
feel good. Why would someone brew who had never tasted beer and didn't know what good beer tastes like? I brewed many mistakes before getting
the process down, and I had no trouble tasting the errors of my ways.
An outside opinion may make some detail apparent that you weren't aware
of, but anybody knows bad beer when they taste it. You said you brewed
a stout and there was a small amount diacetyl in it. Why would that
be a flaw so bad the beer would be tossed down the sink? Obviously a
stout has lots of flavor in it so a small amount of diacetyl may be
unnoticed or even taste good if it melds with the other flavors.
Jim

 

[Denny]

Diacetyl is one of those things that people have widely varying thresholds. What is unnoticeable to one person can be undrinkable to another.

 

[rico567]

Mmmmmmboy! 104 posts in less than 30 hours! When I read the title, I knew this one was going to be a barn-burner. Guess I have no basis for comparison. I like my bottled beer a lot, and have no desire to move to the expense, complexity, and maintenance of kegging, keezers, what-have-you. Just a K.I.S.S. brewer here.

 

[TwoHeadsBrewing]

Mmmmmmboy! 104 posts in less than 30 hours! When I read the title, I knew this one was going to be a barn-burner. Guess I have no basis for comparison. I like my bottled beer a lot, and have no desire to move to the expense, complexity, and maintenance of kegging, keezers, what-have-you. Just a K.I.S.S. brewer here.

To each their own...but to me kegging IS a much simpler process. After the setup that is. Getting equipment dialed in, checking for leaks, carbing and pouring right can take a bit of work. But after that, it takes me less than half the time to keg 10 gallons than it would to bottle 5 gallons. And if I want to bottle, I still can...just pull out the trusty BierMuncher bottle filler and fill away.

This thread is awesome, yet another one of those "Glass vs. Plastic", "Liquid vs Dry Yeast", "Aluminum vs. Stainless" threads. Isn't their a sticky out there listing all the various methods of making beer?

 

[nebben]

....

Because AG brewers "normally" make 10 gallon batches they keg. While many mini mashers bottle their 5 gallons.

I don't know where you are finding evidence to support this claim. I do AG, and I have yet to do a 10G batch. 10G means a bigger fermenter, bigger boil kettle, and 2 corny kegs or 100+ bottles on bottling day. This evidence plus the fact that more 5G ingredient kits than 10G exist (if any 10G kits, AG or extract) , and every intro-to-homebrewing equipment setup I've ever seen has been 5G or smaller, I would conclude that it is far more likely that someone who turns to AG will continue brewing 5G batches instead of 10G, at least at first.

Flash forward to The Great Taste of the Midwest. What was the hottest beers with the longest lines? The Cask ale's . People were tripping over themselves saying how GREAT naturally carbonated ale is.

Cask ales, unless you meant to describe something else, are ales that are drunk with the residual CO2 still dissolved in solution after fermentation. They are not ales that have added wort or sugar at bottling/kegging time to produce bubbly. The CO2 that is in the beer when it finishes fermentation is what the cask ale has. Dispensing is done with gravity from the "cask" without pressurized CO2. Cask beer should be drunk in a matter of days or else it runs the risk of spoiling since air displaces the beer that is poured into the glass.

Cask beer is a different animal than what is in a bottle or keg with a CO2 injection.

So here is my thought. Kegging, where you force carbonate, while fast and easy takes away that fantastic flavor that you get bottling. Bottling is basically like a cask ale, naturally carbonated. Bottling, which some say is a pain in the butt just makes a better tasting beer.

So if you want the best tasting portable beer - you should bottle, if you want convenience and speed, go with kegging. In this respect - more work = better tasting beer.

Racking to a keg, putting on 30PSI, rocking around and cycling this several times to quickly carb up the beer is arguably the quickest way to carb up your beer. Quick and best aren't necessarily the same thing if you're talking about quality though. Check out Bobby_M's sticky about force carbing if you haven't seen it: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/keg-force-carbing-methods-illustrated-73328/. Three weeks in the keg is like three weeks in the bottle. Time helps improve an ale regardless which method you use.

Perhaps your argument that force carbing produces inferior beer is if you're talking about the 30psi/rock'n'roll/purge,repeat method and drinking 1 day old beer.

 

[BierMuncher]

Kegging is better.

There. I said it.

People don't get excited about coming over and pulling out a bottle opener. They do get stoked about lining up to this and pouring a fresh draft.

Just another cooler at a backyard picnic is...well...just another cooler. This on the other hand....

Now...if you'll excuse me...I want to go pour myself several 3-4 ounce samples and enjoy without cleaning bottles.

 

[WIP]

Those last two are the sexiest beer pictures I have ever seen.

 

[Montanaandy]

"Those last two are the sexiest beer pictures I have ever seen."

I will never look at a trash can again in the same way...Montanaandy

 

[WIP]

"That sure is one trashy girl, but I find her sexy"

 

[Beerbeque]

As one who also loves fine Champagne and California sparkling wine, I would agree that that bottle conditioned beer is superior to force carbed beer for the same reason that naturally carbonated,bottle conditioned sparkling wine is superior to force carbed (Charmat process) bubbly.

 

[BierMuncher]

As one who also loves fine Champagne and California sparkling wine, I would agree that that bottle conditioned beer is superior to force carbed beer for the same reason that naturally carbonated,bottle conditioned sparkling wine is superior to force carbed (Charmat process) bubbly.

Sorry...but a flawed comparison. Unless you've ever seen Champagne or bubble wine served on tap.

 

[nebben]

Sorry...but a flawed comparison. Unless you've ever seen Champagne or bubble wine served on tap.

The owner of my LHBS would lead you to believe that a kegged champagne is superior indeed [while sitting in front of his mountain of corny kegs he wants to sell to you].

 

[permo]

Homebrewed, cask conditioned ales and lagers are great....arguably the complexity and flavor can exceed that of kegged and force carbed beer.

However, kegging and force carbing beer is cool and there is nothing better than pulling a fresh draught of your own homebrew.......

That all being said, if I go through the trouble of brewing up an extremely complex and expensive ale, like a strong scotch ale...it goes in bottles.

If I brew up a simple pale ale to consume shortly and share with my friends...that is a different story.

 

[Bobby_M]

What I think is most rich is that the thread was already a cluster with a brazen claim of one packaging method being superior but the old extract vs. AG debate got thrown in for good measure. It's like starting an anti-smoking thread and including a rant about abortion.

What ever happened to a little humility. A simple "hey, has anyone else noticed that bottled beers seem to taste better or is it just me?" would have been very tasty. The same basic discussion would have ensued but everyone would feel just a bit less irritated. It must be the Nazis fault.

 

[WIP]

What I think is most rich is that the thread was already a cluster with a brazen claim of one packaging method being superior but the old extract vs. AG debate got thrown in for good measure. It's like starting an anti-smoking thread and including a rant about abortion.

What ever happened to a little humility. A simple "hey, has anyone else noticed that bottled beers seem to taste better or is it just me?" would have been very tasty. The same basic discussion would have ensued but everyone would feel just a bit less irritated. It must be the Nazis fault.

Agreed, blame the Nazis

 

[Bobby_M]

Frankly, I say put up or STFU. I have 4 all grain, keg carbonated beers going to War of the Worts. Grinder may send any number of 12oz yeast cultures to said competition and we can settle it right there. Of course, certified BJCP judges can't possibly know what they are doing right.