Does kegging really save any time?

[Diaperload]

The bottles are cleaned when used, yes, but you do not sanitize them before filling them?

Yea, they get sanitized. I have an 8 gallon bucket filled with a star-san solution. I can put roughly 1/3 of the bottles in the bucket at a time. This part actually takes some time. I'd say 10-15 minutes.

 

[ICWiener]

I can put roughly 1/3 of the bottles in the bucket at a time. This part actually takes some time. I'd say 10-15 minutes.

A vinator and a bottle tree will save you a ton of time. I consider them to be essential pieces...don't know what I'd do without mine.

 

[PistolsAtDawn]

A vinator and a bottle tree will save you a ton of time. I consider them to be essential pieces...don't know what I'd do without mine.

A $1 spray bottle for StarSan works well too.

 

[ICWiener]

A $1 spray bottle for StarSan works well too.

In a pinch, absolutely.

 

[Larso]

I'm with Tytanium. I recently installed a second little bottlers on my bucket and bottled 44 bottles in just over 20 mins(got the idea on here from double barrel bottling by Papers I think), thats not including all the prep. I reckon I can sanitise >40 bottles in about 5 mins using my vinator(possibly quicker). I rinse bottles after use and have accumulated hundreds so I don't need to wash them. Making up the priming solution takes a minute or 2 unless you include standing and watching it boil.

Just timed bottling today using double barrel bottling bucket, 44 500ml bottles in 18.5 mins. Then capped all 44 bottles in 8.5 mins

 

[1MadScientist]

I keep kicked kegs sealed until the day I want to refill it.

Rinse all the gunk out with a garden hose attached to a spray nozzle. Mix about half gallon of iodophor with potable water, pour, seal, swish around getting a 2 mins. contact time, drain most, reseal, hit it with 2 secs. of c02, push remaining amount out.

 

[northcal]

I just rinse the keg out with water from the hose. Scrub the insides with a carboy brush, fill with oxyclean solution and let sit until I need it next. Then dump it, rinse with water and fill with iodophore solution. Dump that and fill with new beer.

Pretty easy. You don't need to disassemble the kegs very often.

Best,

 

[passedpawn]

Kegging is awesome. I don't feel like listing all the reasons, but time is only one of them.

 

[kh54s10]

Clean bottles? I just rinse bottles out as I drink them. No need for the extra cleaning. Cleaning the bottling bucket takes me less than a minute. Takes under 1 minute to weigh the sugar. 2 minutes to boil water. I don't boil the priming sugar for more than 30 seconds.

Takes me about 45 minutes to bottle a batch.

Well I am just cautious on cleaning so I jet each one then sanitize on the vinator. I doubt that you only consume 2 minutes cleaning the bucket and 1 minute weighing the sugar including getting the package the container plugging in and setting the scale etc.

The OP complained about 30-40 minutes. I doubt anyone can bottle a full batch in that time.

I could probably trim a little off my bottling time but I doubt I could get anywhere near 30 minutes!

 

[ICWiener]

fill with oxyclean solution and let sit until I need it next.

And you've never had any problems? Oxyclean says right on the box not to let it sit and soak in stainless steel. I let it sit in one of my boil kettles for about 3 days once and it left pits in the kettle walls.

 

[radiodome21]

I bottled my first time and then bought a kegging system. I hated it. Took me forever when I factored in the time spent cleaning 50 bottles and then filling them. Also wasted a ton of water too.
When my keg is empty I fill it half way up with hot water and run it through my lines. That's it. When its ready to be kegged again I then rinse it with water, run it through and then run star San through it. Then I open it up and then transfer my beer directly into the foam bucket that my keg has become.
I read here and other places that kegs don't need to be broken down and cleaned after ever batch. That's what I've been doing this far and I couldn't be happier.
I hated bottling. So did my wife because I used the whole kitchen. And with 2 kids running around it made it even worse.

 

[Yooper]

Kegging is awesome. I don't feel like listing all the reasons, but time is only one of them.

Ha- here's one! I have a beer glass in my hand while I'm on the computer. If I spin my chair 180 degrees, I have three taps right there. I can have a fresh beer, in a small (or large) quantity, cold and read to drink. If I get off of my chair, there are more selections.

 

[QuercusMax]

On Monday I took the day off to help my wife around the house, and I cleaned 8 kegs. 3 of them were brand-new-to-me kegs (old 3-galllon pin locks) that still had coke in the bottom of them. The rest were kegs that had beer/yeast sludge in the bottom of them. Here's what I did to each keg:

• Released CO2 pressure
• Removed lid, sprayed/scrubbed off any sticky/dirty stuff
• Sprayed out inside with hot water from kitchen sink sprayer
• Removed posts, took old "Coke" plastic wrap off the "new" kegs, stabbed my fingers in the process
• Scrubbed out posts, inspected poppets
• Used dip tube brush on gas/liquid tubes
• Replaced o-rings that looked to be in bad shape
• Lubed said o-rings

Once I had done this for all the kegs, which took approximately 5 minutes / keg, I did the following:

• Put hot PBW in, sealed lid, hit with C02
• Shook up PBW, sprayed it out of gas post
• Pushed PBW to next keg with C02
• Removed lid, rinsed lid and keg with hot water

I did these steps while spreading mulch - I'd spread 2 bags of mulch, go back inside and set up the next keg. I've also done this in the past while watching TV, doing dishes, etc.

For the last keg I just took the QD off one end of my jumper and pushed the pbw into my drain.

Then I put starsan in one keg, shook it up, and pushed it to the next keg, and so on till they were all sanitized. At the end I had a nice keg full of starsan which I used to clean my picnic taps.

So compared to bottling, this is a gigantic timesaver, and doing this to 8 kegs is much more managable than cleaning and storing 16 cases of bottles! Even if they're already de-labeled, dealing with bottles is a huge time suck.

The only downside I see? My kids used to help me bottle, now they've started bugging me about when we'll bottle again, since they had so much fun.

 

[DrunkleJon]

On Monday I took the day off to help my wife around the house, and I cleaned 8 kegs. 3 of them were brand-new-to-me kegs (old 3-galllon pin locks) that still had coke in the bottom of them. The rest were kegs that had beer/yeast sludge in the bottom of them. Here's what I did to each keg:

• Released CO2 pressure
• Removed lid, sprayed/scrubbed off any sticky/dirty stuff
• Sprayed out inside with hot water from kitchen sink sprayer
• Removed posts, took old "Coke" plastic wrap off the "new" kegs, stabbed my fingers in the process
• Scrubbed out posts, inspected poppets
• Used dip tube brush on gas/liquid tubes
• Replaced o-rings that looked to be in bad shape
• Lubed said o-rings

Once I had done this for all the kegs, which took approximately 5 minutes / keg, I did the following:

• Put hot PBW in, sealed lid, hit with C02
• Shook up PBW, sprayed it out of gas post
• Pushed PBW to next keg with C02
• Removed lid, rinsed lid and keg with hot water

I did these steps while spreading mulch - I'd spread 2 bags of mulch, go back inside and set up the next keg. I've also done this in the past while watching TV, doing dishes, etc.

For the last keg I just took the QD off one end of my jumper and pushed the pbw into my drain.

Then I put starsan in one keg, shook it up, and pushed it to the next keg, and so on till they were all sanitized. At the end I had a nice keg full of starsan which I used to clean my picnic taps.

So compared to bottling, this is a gigantic timesaver, and doing this to 8 kegs is much more managable than cleaning and storing 16 cases of bottles! Even if they're already de-labeled, dealing with bottles is a huge time suck.

The only downside I see? My kids used to help me bottle, now they've started bugging me about when we'll bottle again, since they had so much fun.

How about a few batches of root beer or some sours or such that you can bottle for one here and there.

 

[passedpawn]

How about a few batches of root beer or some sours or such that you can bottle for one here and there.

I've kegged both sours and root beer.

I ended up dumping the sour beer. No way I could drink all that beer, and it was taking up space in my keezer. Plus, I had a ton of sour beer already in bottles. So, yeah, sour beers should be bottled.

I love kegging root beer. It's always on tap at my house. Downside is that you have to dedicate lines and a keg for it, because the root beer flavor will not come out of material and it will bleed into your beer. I know this from experience.