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.
Does kegging really save any time?
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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.
ICWiener
Well-Known Member
Eh...I've been bottling for 8 years. I've got it down to about 1.5 hours for a batch. I'll keg eventually, and I'm very much looking forward to it. But for now, I'll keep on keepin' on.
Well that right there's your problem. 10 minutes!? Good god, man.
Well that right there's your problem. 10 minutes!? Good god, man.
Clonefan94
Senior Member
Lot of overkill on the OP's keg cleaning.
I rinse the keg, add a big scoop of oxy, fill with water, let it sit overnight.
Next day, I force water through both disconnects, then drain and rinse keg.
I clean the lid with soap and water, then rinse and place back on keg.
That's it. I tear down the disconnects and do a good cleaning about once a year.
I like this method, but I almost always sanitize as well because my pipeline allows for the kegs to just sit for a couple of weeks before they ever get into a fridge. So I take that extra step to sanitized them, just to be safe. If I had a spot in my fridge available for the keg to go right away, I doubt I would sanitize that often. I just feel a little safer having them sit at room temp having gone through a sanitizing step.
Diaperload
Well-Known Member
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.
tre9er
Well-Known Member
2 minutes to boil? Induction or super huge LP/NG burner?
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
tre9er
Well-Known Member
2 mins for me too.......
Microwave technology!
OK, that makes a bit more sense. Pyrex cup in the micro would be done quick.
Stauffbier
Well-Known Member
I actually use a mason jar, so I can put a lid on it. But, yeah....
The bottles are cleaned when used, yes, but you do not sanitize them before filling them?
rico567
Well-Known Member
I regard kegging and bottling as akin to mutually irreconcilable religions. More specifically, one or the other is likely to fit a person's life and their drinking habits, and that process is what that person will do. And no matter how repugnant the process at times, a way will be found to rationalize it.
Bottling, all the way.......
Bottling, all the way.......
Yes, it saves time
And it's awesome!
And it's awesome!
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I clean 10 kegs in about an hour. I don't disassemble unless the keg had some funk or it was a sour, etc.
Never had an infection.
MC
- Open, rinse with water, dump.
- Put 1 gallon of hot water, a half-measure of oxy-clean, close, attach CO2, pressurize, shake 15 seconnds, flush out using a party tap, Dump.
- Add 1 gallon of sanitizing solution, close, attach CO2, pressurize, shake 15 seconds, flush out using party tap, dump.
- Add 1 gallon of water, close, attach CO2, pressurize, shake 15 seconds, flush out using party tap.
- Dump when ready to fill.
Never had an infection.
MC
Well said
I keg, exclusively. I racked a beer into a keg last night and the process probably took a total of 15 minutes. I will force carb over a 32 hr period and bam, good to go. If I desire bottles, I will bottle off the keg. The time savings to me justifies the higher cost of doing business.
Keg for life!
Keg for life!
I like this method. I think I will adopt it. Thanks for sharing.
I will do both. If I am brewing with someone I will fill bottles, if its for me, and one is free, I will keg. I guess now I will just do 10 gal batches when teaching and do both on packaging day.
I need more kegs.
I actually thoroughly enjoy both methods.
I need more kegs.
I actually thoroughly enjoy both methods.
PistolsAtDawn
Well-Known Member
Lot of overkill on the OP's keg cleaning.
I rinse the keg, add a big scoop of oxy, fill with water, let it sit overnight.
Next day, I force water through both disconnects, then drain and rinse keg.
I clean the lid with soap and water, then rinse and place back on keg.
That's it. I tear down the disconnects and do a good cleaning about once a year.
Man, I'm glad to see I'm not alone. Some of you people were making me paranoid about my seemingly-lax cleaning procedures.
Open, rinse with hot water, add a half scoop of oxyclean, let sit for a minute, flip upside down and sit for another minute, push through dip tube and taps with CO2, follow up with push of clean water, seal up and done.
Doesn't take that long, and I am not going to completely disassemble my kegs after every batch. A decent rinse with clean water and sanitizer would likely be enough for most of my batches, assuming I'm going to use the keg in the near future.
See, I actually like to bottle. It feels old-world to me for some reason. It's nice to have bottle-conditioned beers sometimes too.
But I also like to keg for the savings in time, space and the ability to bottle a few if I so desire.
That said, I'm sure I'm an exception to the normal rule and that you are correct.
I take the keg apart every time. I just fill it with PBW solution and take all the parts and throw them in the keg. When it's done soaking, I'll rinse everything three times then reassemble. A little bit of starsan goes in before I use it.
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Just keep an eye for any accumulated crud at the bottom. Sometimes I need a second go around with the water/oxyclean, but really not often.
MC
I clean my kegs in 10 minutes or less. I put a little hot water in it and shake it around to get the heavy stuff out, then I remove the liquid post and take the dip tube out and put it inside the keg followed by filling it with hot water and a half scoop of oxy clean. I let it sit for a day mostly because I a lazy in the next day or 2 or week I quickly run a dip tube brush through the dip tube, dump out the oxy clean and fill it about 1/4 full with water to shake around and rinse it. So maybe 5 minutes on the first day and 5 minutes on the second day.
Diaperload
Well-Known Member
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
Well-Known Member
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
Well-Known Member
A $1 spray bottle for StarSan works well too.
ICWiener
Well-Known Member
In a pinch, absolutely.
1MadScientist
Well-Known Member
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.
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
Well-Known Member
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,
Pretty easy. You don't need to disassemble the kegs very often.
Best,
Kegging is awesome. I don't feel like listing all the reasons, but time is only one of them.
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
Well-Known Member
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
Active Member
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.
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.
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
Well-Known Member
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:
Once I had done this for all the kegs, which took approximately 5 minutes / keg, I did the following:
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.
- 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.
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.
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