Options for bottling/kegging

[SkrekkOgGru]

Hi,

I'm only in this area until xmas, but have a batch ready to bottle NOW. I have the following equipment available:

1. ONE primary fermenter
2. Enough 1.5L soda bottles to contain the brew
3. A fellow brewer has agreed to loan me 2 cornelius kegs.

Advantage cornelius kegs:
1. No bottling!!
2. Can force carbonate to start drinking TOMORROW =)


Advantage bottles:
1. Can do it without the hassle of loaning kegs
2. Can cool it (dunno how to with the kegs)
3. "Correct" carbonation?



I dunno, what say thee?

 

[amazinglarry]

you could always do both. Buy some carb tablets and bottle some of it, then keg the rest. Just make sure you recalculate the volume of the beer when determing the volumes of carbonation you want. Also, I don't know many people who bottle condition in soda bottles, are they plastic? If so, is this something you've done before? You don't want to be making beer dirty bombs.

 

[SkrekkOgGru]

I've bottled onto plastic bottles before, they came with my Coopers DIY beer kit. I'd rather not buy carb tablets. Any way of doing this with regular sugar?

Can I just calculate how much sugar I need, mix it straigt into the primary and just bottle?

 

[Joemama474]

You can use table sugar, but boil it in water first. Corn sugar is gooder. Either way, boil
em up in some water, place in bottling bucket, add beer, bottle.

But kegging is sooooooooooooo much more awesome.

 

[MmmmBeer]

You won't want to mix in the primary and stir up all the trub. Rack to your bottling bucket and add the boiled sugar while racking so it mixes up and maybe even sanitize a spoon to stir a little bit with then bottle.

Good Luck

 

[cullen]

I've always bottled.

1. It's cheaper.
2. It's easier to give a few to friends.
3. You don't need a kegerator.
4. You can cool down a warm bottle in 30 minutes. A warm keg?
5. You don't end up running out of CO2 at inconvenient times.
6. I can have 12 different varieties from different batches cold at any one time.
7. You keep bottles out of landfills if you get your stock from people who emptied commercial beer.

By contrast, I understand that it's easier and quicker to keg than bottle.

 

[jagec]

I've always bottled.

1. It's cheaper.
2. It's easier to give a few to friends.
3. You don't need a kegerator.
4. You can cool down a warm bottle in 30 minutes. A warm keg?
5. You don't end up running out of CO2 at inconvenient times.
6. I can have 12 different varieties from different batches cold at any one time.
7. You keep bottles out of landfills if you get your stock from people who emptied commercial beer.

By contrast, I understand that it's easier and quicker to keg than bottle.

1)True
2)True, but you can always fill bottles from the keg when you want to give some away. For cheap!
3)True
4)You waited for a month for the beer to ferment, and now you can't wait a little bit longer for the keg to cool? Sounds like you're drinking the beer too soon anyway!
5)True
6)All the more reason to upgrade to a large keezer and add more taps.
7)Tell your planet-raping friends to recycle the bottles instead of throwing them in the trash.

 

[SkrekkOgGru]

You won't want to mix in the primary and stir up all the trub. Rack to your bottling bucket and add the boiled sugar while racking so it mixes up and maybe even sanitize a spoon to stir a little bit with then bottle.

Good Luck

My primary IS my bottling bucket Now what? =/

 

[TomSD]

Dump the boiled sugar in a sanitized keg, rack to the keg, use CO2 to bottle it. This assumes you have a picnic tap and CO2 you can borrow too.

 

[amazinglarry]

My primary IS my bottling bucket Now what? =/

I think you just answered your own question about whether to bottle or keg. You can rack it to a corny, you'll also have to sanitize whatever line the beer is running through from the keg. Also, even though the beer isn't carbonated the force of pushing out of the keg and disruption of the beer while it fills the bottle will cause it to foam. This is a tremendous pain in the ass way to fill bottles and would highly recommend just force carbing the keg.
The other alternative in the future would be to buy a blichman beer gun to fill your bottles after force carbonation. Just FYI, I know you don't want to buy anything addition.

 

[cullen]

The other option, of course, is to buy a bottling bucket.