PSA: Responding to bottling issues with "you should keg"

[crazybluerider]

I get the same feeling when I seal up a keg. Then I get an extra hour to drink beer.

You don't drink beer while you are bottling?

I keg most of my beer now but I still bottle a few. Like the beer I make for my girlfriend. I don't drink very many of them and it takes her a couple months to drink the rest. I don't want precious space tied up in my keggerator with that. :fro:

 

[Bernie Brewer]

You're all doing it the hard way, bottles... kegs... I just siphon from the carboy to my mouth.

ROFLMFAO!!! That's funny right there, I don't care who ya are!

 

[amandabab]

My armchair observation has been that, many former bottlers who have moved on to kegging don't miss the inconsistency or labor of the former and see the kegging as a form of evolution.... Ie. I don't see a lot of keggers lamenting their situation and looking to go back to strictly bottling.

Kegs have benefits, but also have their own completely different set of problems.
cleaning, tanks, regulators, hoses, gaskets, o-rings, poppets, manifolds, staining, rust, (wait SS doesn't rust, feric oxide), faucet cleaning, faucet troubleshooting and maintenance , line foaming.

discussed openly amongst keggers, but double secret when bottlers are present.

i think throwing 5 cornies in the trunk of my car for 4th of July is easier than the same amount of bottles, but day to day, bottles are less hassle.

 

[homebrewdad]

Kegs have benefits, but also have their own completely different set of problems.
cleaning, tanks, regulators, hoses, gaskets, o-rings, poppets, manifolds, staining, rust, (wait SS doesn't rust, feric oxide), faucet cleaning, faucet troubleshooting and maintenance , line foaming.

discussed openly amongst keggers, but double secret when bottlers are present.

i think throwing 5 cornies in the trunk of my car for 4th of July is easier than the same amount of bottles, but day to day, bottles are less hassle.

lol @ secret!

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I keg, then bottle...how's that for the worst of both worlds?

Truthfully, that's the better option. You can carbonate & clear in the keg, then put nice clear beer into the bottles. You don't have to worry about being perfect with mixing the priming sugar, or whether you have enough yeast left to carbonate, etc.

Kegging to carbonate, then bottling w/beergun off the keg, actually *does* solve a lot of bottling problems.

(Except for cleaning, sanitizing, capping, scrubbing labels off, etc, of course!)

The only downside is that you have to have a kegging setup to be able to do it, and once you have the kegging setup, it's really easy to get lazy and not bottle any more.

But work-wise, there's very little difference between siphoning into a bottling bucket and then filling your bottles from the spigot vs. siphoning into a keg, sealing it to carbonate, and then filling your bottles under pressure.

 

[29thfloor]

You should ask them how many breweries have moved on to only kegging if that's really a better way to do it. (The answer is probably somewhere around 0).

 

[bellam87]

You're all doing it the hard way, bottles... kegs... I just siphon from the carboy to my mouth.

Hilarious!

 

[H-ost]

Actually it seems to be much easier and more common for breweries to start with kegs and then move to bottling, at least that is what I see with all the micros around here. On a large scale I think kegging would simpler and cheaper the only downside being you can only serve growlers to kegs directly to the customer.

 

[rawlus]

You should ask them how many breweries have moved on to only kegging if that's really a better way to do it. (The answer is probably somewhere around 0).

I don't think the homebrewer has the same distribution and packaging concerns a commercial enterprise might have. Unless the argument is homebrewers bottle to make it easier to ship to many different retail locations.

 

[rawlus]

Actually it seems to be much easier and more common for breweries to start with kegs and then move to bottling, at least that is what I see with all the micros around here. On a large scale I think kegging would simpler and cheaper the only downside being you can only serve growlers to kegs directly to the customer.

There are a bunch of micros in my area that started as keg only and moved to bottles later on for distro reasons. Even then, most don't bottle all their stuff, just the staples. The special and seasonal beers are kept keg only for simplicity among other reasons I am sure.

While there are some potential maintenance issues with a kegging system overall, I haven't found the equipment difficult to maintain or for it to provide any real problems that needed resolution. Putting a new beer on tap is as easy as racking from fermenter to a clean keg, putting it into the keezer and hookingit up. A 15min process and that includes the racking.

 

[keesh]

I am still bottling, and the only reason I want to keg is so I can carbonate faster. The only reason I'd want to carb faster is if I am making an IPA or something similarly hop-aroma-centric. Other than that, I don't mind anything about bottling at all.

 

[hillybilly]

I think this has gotten off topic yes I agree the answer t a bottling question is not you should keg. If you explain why kegging would solve the problem and is the best solution to the problem you can say you should keg because......

 

[amandabab]

I think this has gotten off topic yes I agree the answer t a bottling question is not you should keg. If you explain why kegging would solve the problem and is the best solution to the problem you can say you should keg because......

thats the thing though, kegging is never the answer to a bottling problem.
fixing the issue with bottling is.

 

[oakbarn]

Guilty! But Keggers Unite! We is better!

 

[brew2enjoy]

The OP obviously kegs. He had the time to create this thread

 

[E-Mursed]

I keg, then bottle...how's that for the worst of both worlds?

Bottled 2.5 kegs this way last weekend.

Gotta love the Blichman Beer Gun!

 

[brettwasbtd]

I am still bottling, and the only reason I want to keg is so I can carbonate faster. The only reason I'd want to carb faster is if I am making an IPA or something similarly hop-aroma-centric. Other than that, I don't mind anything about bottling at all.

You can force carb fast, but to me, just doesn't taste right! Still need to wait 2-3 weeks

 

[onthekeg]

The real "cool" micros keg and can. Bottles are for babies.

 

[Zamial]

<- moar bottles!

 

[mikeysab]

You can force carb fast, but to me, just doesn't taste right! Still need to wait 2-3 weeks

Ive had the opposite experience. For some reason, my kegged batches seem to have better body and better head. And i've done both to a batch. My esb in botttles seemed thin, with less body. The half I keggged was so much better. I dont know why, but thats the experience ive had with kegging.

 

[brettwasbtd]

Ive had the opposite experience. For some reason, my kegged batches seem to have better body and better head. And i've done both to a batch. My esb in botttles seemed thin, with less body. The half I keggged was so much better. I dont know why, but thats the experience ive had with kegging.

I am talking about kegging. I was referring to the set and forget method of leaving you kegs at serving pressure and that takes a good 2-3 weeks for them to reach the desired CO2 levels. Shaking at a high psi gave too much carbonic taste for me. The poster I quoted was saying he was hoping he would have carbed beer faster then when bottling, which isnt the case for me.

 

[homebrewdad]

<- moar bottles!

LOL nice pic.

For the record, even though I do not keg, I am far from anti-keg. I can absolutely see the benefits of it, but for now, bottling suits me fine.

What I am is anti-"post my asshatted comments for people looking for actual helpful answers", and it just so happens that keggers tend to do this a LOT to bottlers on this forum.

 

[bbrim]

I will admit it, I sucked at bottling. I never could seem to dial in the perfect carbonation level. It also took me forever. My favorite thing about kegs is how quick it is, my wife's favorite thing is that I don't have hundreds of bottles all over the place. I do miss taking 6 packs over to friends' houses. I also miss leaving the last few bottles of a batch to age 6 months. Now I just have 4 homebrews available to be, which is honestly still pretty awesome. I see pros and cons both ways but definitely don't take any advice from me on how to bottle because I am very bad at it.

 

[whitehause]

I have a 3 keg system, but find myself bottling often. The biggest advantage to kegging is quick carbonation(and a little less work) but that's about it.
Kegging is harder to share away from home, more money, more up-keep for seals,line cleaning,co2 refills,regulators,manifolds,ect. No cool labels, no cool bottles(I have a local pub that saves me Lambic, Chimay, orval, schneider weiss and other cool bottles).
Walking over and tapping a beer is nice, but there is something very satisfying about cracking open a bottle
Plus....what would I use that bar mounted bottle opener for?

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I am talking about kegging. I was referring to the set and forget method of leaving you kegs at serving pressure and that takes a good 2-3 weeks for them to reach the desired CO2 levels. Shaking at a high psi gave too much carbonic taste for me. The poster I quoted was saying he was hoping he would have carbed beer faster then when bottling, which isnt the case for me.

Agreed on the high-psi shake method. I overdid it once and screwed up 10 gallons of brown ale with that carbonic acid taste. I've also heard it can cause problems with head retention, as some of the chemical compounds in beer foam really only form once. I no longer use the shake method.

However, what I do is leave the new kegs overnight in the fridge set at 40 psi for 24 hours. That's enough to get me ~80-90% of desired carbonation. 2 days later, I'm good to go. It's not as fast as the shake method, but it's a lot quicker than set & forget. It's 24 hours to carbonated beer, and 72 hours to "perfect" carbonation.

 

[spearko520]

That same rule also stipulates that copy and pasting stuff is also frowned upon, yet a certain member constantly posts nothing but copy and pasted rants on an all too frequent basis. Seeing the same exact post dozens of times irritates me more than people saying search more... Should I start reporting those too?

it sounds like you just described the internet. 5% original content- 95% re- pitching!

 

[cheezydemon3]

Kegging isn't about being elite, it's about being evolved.
It is the all grain to bottling's extract.

BULLSPIT. Seriously. WTF?

I use my keg to prime and beers that I want to age and don't want in a keg, and there is something BEAUTIFUL about a bottle.

The ONLY time I pull out a "YOU SHOULD KEG THIS BATCH" is when the beer is SO big that the yeast won't carb it up. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, there is no option but force carbing.

 

[MadHopper]

This is perhaps my very biggest pet peeve here on HBT.

Some guy will post a question about bottling, or relate a issue he has had. Within half a dozen posts, some enlightened genius/comedic mastermind will respond with a comment along the following lines: "if you really want to fix your bottling problems, keg your beer! Hurr hurr hurr."

I'm not talking about those who advocate kegging in a "this versus that" type of discussion, nor am I bashing those who may bring it up in other appropriate situations.

No, I'm talking about the so and sos that seem to believe that they are somehow superior because they keg, and seem to gain some perverse joy out of annoyingly interjecting themselves into bottling discussions.

Some people bottle because it is more convenient for sharing or trading. Some bottle because they don't own kegging equipment, and may not want to invest in it now/ever. Some may just enjoy bottling.

Forums, and real life, would be better if folks would follow Wheaton's Law. If you aren't familiar with it, look it up.


Now, go ahead and flame me, keggers. :rockin:

This is the equivalent of asking on the internet for help on a PC problem and getting replies of 'Get a Mac'

 

[atom]

This is the equivalent of asking on the internet for help on a PC problem and getting replies of 'Get a Mac'

well if people would just keg and use macs there would be no homebrew or computer related problems!

 

[homebrewdad]

This is the equivalent of asking on the internet for help on a PC problem and getting replies of 'Get a Mac'

Hit the bullseye, you did.