Bottling and Future Kegging in an Apartment

[BlackQueenBrews]

Greetings All!

My first homebrew batch will be bottle conditioned next Saturday so, I’m really excited about that! I have a couple of questions:
1) How long did you bottle before starting to keg and, can you do both at the same time. I’m asking because living in an apartment, my space is limited so, even if I decide to keg, it will be a small refigerator setup. Also, I like the bottling idea (even though it’s labor intensive because you can have a variety of beers on hand for guests and others to try and rate for you).

2) I would like to, at some point build my own small kegerator set up but, I’m not that mechanically inclined. I’ve researched building your own and the videos seem pretty labor intensive but, I’m willing to take the plunge and learn how to do it, not just to save money but for the satisfaction of building my own equipment. So, any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Thanks All and Cheers!!

 

[kh54s10]

I bottled everything for a few years before I started kegging. I then bottled some directly from the keg to give away or take elsewhere. I also bottled big beers that would have tied up a keg for over a year.

My kegerator is in storage at the moment so I am bottling everything again.

Making a kegerator is not that difficult. If you need to run any gas or liquid lines through the walls of a refrigerator or freezer you have to be careful that you don't puncture any cooling lines. If you do you have a big chunk of scrap metal.

I used a medium sized refrigerator. It holds 3 kegs and the co2 bottle inside. I installed the faucets in the door. There are no coolant lines to worry about in the door.

 

[bobeer]

I bottled for about 2 years or so before I switched to kegs. I still bottle special beers that I want to age but they're usually packaged in corked and caged 750's but it's still the same process. I will bottle off the keg if I want to move on to the next beer which is pretty easy and I don't have any specialized equipment to do so.

Look on youtube for some decent how-to videos on how to make a kegerator. They're pretty simple to make as long as you know where the cooling lines are. You can usually find used ones for sale if you look long enough. It's a good idea to join a homebrew club as well so you can see what others have done and maybe even get some help or some used equipment for cheap.

 

[Staticsouls]

I hated and still lament bottling. I probably bottled for less than six months, before i scoured craigslist for kegs and got my co2 tank and regulator. Since then my beers have become much better due to the ability to close transfer. Ymmv

 

[Rackrunner]

You can definitely do both! I started off just kegging with 5 gal batches, but I do a bunch of different recipes and regretted not having a selection of previous brews on hand. I picked up a bottling gun (the Last Straw one from NB) and some swing top bottles initially to bottle directly from the keg. This was fine for bringing a few beers somewhere to drink the next day, but the carbonation didn't quite seem to hold up for long enough to keep around so shifted my approach a bit.

I bumped up my batch sizes a bit and I now bottle 6-12 beers directly from the fermenter, before kegging the remainder of the batch. Since it's only a few bottles, I just use carbonation tablets and let these bottle condition while I force carb the rest of the batch in the keg. Nothing fancy on the bottles, I just recycle from other beers and use a simple bottle capper.

Now I've got a nice little 'beer library' of previous brews to compare. The next time I make a recipe, I just replace the previous bottles with a fresh batch

Can't help with Q#2 - SWMBO insisted on a 'real' kegorator that looked nice enough to be seen by company.

 

[MyCarHasAbs]

Once you start kegging, you'll never look back.

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

I find that bottling can be more tolerable with 2 sets of hands. Between SWMBO and I we can get a full batch of bottling done pretty quick. Going from a wing capper to a bench capper sped it up a bit as well. We do not have the space to keg so I will have to learn to love bottling, as it gives me tasty beer.

 

[dwhite60]

When I first got into brewing I was in a 680 square foot apartment. Stacking bottled beer in the corner of the dining area really didn't take up a lot of room. There was a point I had seven cases of beer bottled stacked in the corner. Funny thing was it didn't hit me until I was in the middle of making another batch! As I was new to the hobby and everything in the hobby was geared to five gallon batches, that's all I made.

Had to have a few parties.

I still bottle everything almost thirty years later. I've never had room for a kegerator. There's always SOMEWHERE to store some bottles. Also, I do 2.5 to 3 gallon batches now.

All the Best,
D. White

 

[Jag75]

I bottle sometimes , depending on the beer style. Mostly keg . Just like was said earlier it's way better then botteling. If I'm botteling I'm usually doing it from a keg to take somewhere.

As of the kegerator this was my take . I looked into building my own . I didnt have the luxury of owning a fridge so I looked on CL and really couldnt find one decent shape. So I looked into a new one . I was shocked how expensive it was . I wanted it to be big enough for 2 -3 torpedo kegs . By the time I priced everything out I was saving about 100$ building my own compared to buying a cheap low end kegerator. I was afraid of breaking lines and ending up with scrap metal as KH54 put it because that's a real thing to think about. So I just bought one instead , saved me time and nerves as I'm not very good with stuff like that .

 

[jmcquesten]

I find that bottling can be more tolerable with 2 sets of hands. Between SWMBO and I we can get a full batch of bottling done pretty quick. Going from a wing capper to a bench capper sped it up a bit as well. We do not have the space to keg so I will have to learn to love bottling, as it gives me tasty beer.

To speed it up even more, you could add a 2nd spigot to your bottling bucket. Then attach a bottle filler wand to each spigot (with a 1" piece of racking tubing) and fill 2 at a time. Hand them to your capper and fill the next 2.

 

[Infantryjared1]

I bought a smaller chest deep freezer from best buy awhile ago, I think it was right around 100 bucks, when we had 5 kids in the house. Now we have only 2 and it is going to be my keezer. I am bottling for now..... But not much longer

 

[ajf1994]

I built a keezer before I started brewing in January. Four batches kegged so far. Knew I didn’t want to mess with bottling; brewing and kegging has been a great experience so far.