To keg or not to keg??

[Ariza-Poet]

reading some posts and doing some research it appears kegging is superior to bottling.
However, as a first time brewer is it a safer bet to just bottle?

Or does the convenience of a keg justify the cost despite being a first timer?

*Disclaimer*
I have no equipment yet. A friend and I will probably be buying a few extract kits in the next couple weeks and whatever equipment needed for some basic 5gallon batches.

but we do have a full size fridge that we'll get a temp control for for fermentation.

 

[Brian77095]

I think you should just bottle. It is good to know and to me it is not that big of a deal. Also it is an easy process.

You can certainly keg but there is a lot of things to set up and learn. I am doing it right now.

Either way you will be good to go.

 

[thekraken]

It's quite an investment. I say get a few brews under your belt and if you feel you still enjoy the hobby and want to continue *then* it's definitely worth it.

 

[Brewer_Ben]

Bottle. Then keg, make sure you love this before spending more and more.

 

[blizz81]

How much / often do you think you will be brewing? Are you the type of (potential) brewer(s) that would get a pipeline going and down kegs in matters of weeks?


That question may be somewhat unknown depending on how much you get into the hobby, but you probably know your drinking habits and can estimate how they might pan out if you always had homebrew on hand. One of the main reasons I haven't moved to kegging yet after 8 years or so is that I still don't drink a ton anyways and I still like to drink commercial beer.


If you envision brewing fairly frequently and / or drinking your stock fairly rapidly, you'll move to kegging sooner than later by necessity.

 

[MrFancyPlants]

I started with swing-tops and I still utilize the swing tops now that I am kegging. Just yesterday I milked the last gallon or so out of a keg and put into the bottles.
I agree wait until you know you are in it for the long haul before investing in the kegging stuff.

 

[Shooter]

If you are just starting, bottle. It will be less of an investment. The fact that you are going to be able to control fermentation right of the bat puts you way ahead of where a lot of people start out.

 

[Ariza-Poet]

Sounds like good advice to hold off to see how much I enjoy this.

I know I love beer and have been an avid beer geek for quite a few years and finally getting into brewing
But not sure how much I'll be into the brewing aspect of it

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

KED KEG KEG....So much easier..and cooler:rockin: .If you give up on homebrew use the keg for storebought and save a ton of dough on beer...no brainer

 

[ol-hazza]

i wish i had started kegging immediately, however at the time i couldnt afford it so wasnt an option.

In saying that bottling builds character and you arent a real homebrewer unless you have been through the pain of constantly washing bottles and having swmbo unhappy about never having space on the bench because of all those damn bottles.

 

[pshankstar]

I would agree with getting a few brews under your belt with bottling first. If you're still into it then make it your next investment to kegging.

Unless your like me and you can source two corny kegs, 5LB CO2 tank, regulator, lines and a sanky tap & faucet for free. Then all I had to do was swap out the sanky tap for ball lock connectors and buy a fridge. So my investment was very little but that's not the norm. My father in-law has made the investment to kegging and it's not cheap!! So make sure you really enjoy it.

Oh and it's always good to have the bottles and bottling equipment in case you decide to bottle a batch here an there. My next brew will be for my wife, so I'll bottle it for here since I don't want a keg tied up for months... ;-)

Welcome and good luck with your decision!! [emoji106][emoji482]

 

[55x11]

reading some posts and doing some research it appears kegging is superior to bottling.
However, as a first time brewer is it a safer bet to just bottle?

Or does the convenience of a keg justify the cost despite being a first timer?

*Disclaimer*
I have no equipment yet. A friend and I will probably be buying a few extract kits in the next couple weeks and whatever equipment needed for some basic 5gallon batches.

but we do have a full size fridge that we'll get a temp control for for fermentation.

I think you should bottle at least 10 5-Gallon batches before you even consider kegging.

Bottling just takes a little time (small fraction of time invested on brew day really). Plus some minimal costs in starsan, bottles that you probably have anyways, and some bottle caps.

Having set that aside, I think it is actually better than kegging - much more practical and ultimately better for beer. For the following top-10 reasons:

#1. You can bring your homebrew with you anywhere, and give away bottles to your friends and family.

#2. Cost: bottling is much, much less expensive. Unless you value your time very highly. In which case you should buy commercial brews, as brewing takes a lot more of your time and it's not cost-productive to waste your time making your own beer when you can just buy it at the store.

#3. Less hassle - no worrying about exchanging tanks, worrying about pressure, storing those compressed gas cylinders, flushing and cleaning the lines, etc. Just clean/sanitize bottles, that's it.

#4. More "retro"/"old school". This is how beer was stored and conditioned for centuries.

#5. More "natural" and "crafty". The yeast creates its own CO2, not forced-carbonated via a tank of CO2 you bought in the store. If you think using extract is a shortcut from all-grain process, so is using forced carbonation.

#6. Space: Don't need extra space in the fridge/kegerator - just put a few bottles at a time, according to your consumption needs. I can fit dozens (hundreds if you count my cellaring chest-freezer) of different home-brews in my fridge, but I can't fit dozens of kegs.

#7. Conditioning - beer gets better over time with yeast in the bottle. People get excited about conditioning inside cask ales (CAMRA) but bottles do pretty much the same thing and provide more unique tasting experience to kegging.

#8. Aging - can age some strong beers for many months and years.

#9. Bottling/priming process teaches you "zen" and patience.

#10. Kegging gets auto-corrected to "begging" in my browser. Nobody asks if they should start "begging".

Of course if you do go keg path, you could still bottle from the keg. Yes, in theory you could also "age" beer in kegs. You could even still serve beer from 12-keg or 50-keg kegerator if you were clever enough to build one. But very few people do that. If you have weekly parties when lots of friends routinely come to your house and will drink 10-15 Gallons of 2-3 batches at a time (and they won't care about lack of variety), perhaps kegging makes sense. If you want to stretch your brews over months, age them and compare them, then I would say bottling is a better strategy.

 

[Transamguy77]

I would keg, at first I was thinking "they need to bottle, it's a right of passage" but then I thought about it and I have been kegging now for over 2 years and I won't go back to bottling. I say I'll "bottle the next batch" but in reality I won't, kegging is so much easier and faster. And no bottles laying all over the kitchen to clean up, just 1 glass.

 

[beergolf]

Just starting out, bottle.

It is no where near as difficult as some make it sound. At first it will take some time to clean and delabel all the bottles you need. Once you have them it is easy if you clean them as you go. Develop a good system and it is easy. I bottle when I brew and I can bottle a batch before the mash is done.

Here is a good thread to read. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=94812


Do I keg? Yes. I have two taps. nitro tap and a regular one. But I love variety and always have as many as 10 different brews in my beer fridge. Could I do that kegging? No way. So I bottle most of my brews.

Both have their good points and bad points. You decide what works best for you.

 

[how1]

I started out bottling. I keg now. Less work and my wife can't count the empty beer bottles in the morning. Bear Down!!!

 

[jekeane]

Bottle first to make sure you enjoy the hobby. I started kegging after about six months of brewing and will never go back to bottling as it was by far the worst part of homebrewing to me. I bottle from the keg when I am entering competitions or sharing with friends.

 

[MattyIce]

You have enough to learn in the brewing process. Keg later. It is another learning curve.

After you get some experience, I prefer kegging to bottling by far. I can always bottle if I like (a keg actually makes an excellent bottling bucket), but kegging is where I tend to stay these days.

 

[kh54s10]

reading some posts and doing some research it appears kegging is superior to bottling.
However, as a first time brewer is it a safer bet to just bottle?

Or does the convenience of a keg justify the cost despite being a first timer?

*Disclaimer*
I have no equipment yet. A friend and I will probably be buying a few extract kits in the next couple weeks and whatever equipment needed for some basic 5gallon batches.

but we do have a full size fridge that we'll get a temp control for for fermentation.

Kegging superior to bottling? No, it is just less time consuming and you don't have to mess with all the bottles.

Safer than kegging? Not really. Just different.

If you are using the fridge for fermentation, you really need another fridge or freezer for the kegs.

If cost is no object it is up to you to decide if you want to spend the money. You are looking at several hundred to set up kegging.

It would be safer, cost wise, to start with bottling to make sure you will stick with the hobby before investing in kegging.

 

[bondra76]

kegging is significantly better but costs significantly more

Thats really all it boils down to. Bottling is by no means a "horrible" option but it just requires more work.

 

[Natdavis777]

I started kegging off the bat because my brother already had a tank, corney, etc. So it was easier than buying bottling equipment. Since then, Ive stocked up on kegs/tanks to keep a solid supply.

If you dont want to make the investment in kegging yet (keg, tank, regulator, fridge/kegerator, etc) and want to spend your money elsewhere, I say stick to bottling until you are content with brewing equipment and want to jump to kegging.

 

[Ariza-Poet]

I think you should bottle at least 10 5-Gallon batches before you even consider kegging.

Bottling just takes a little time (small fraction of time invested on brew day really). Plus some minimal costs in starsan, bottles that you probably have anyways, and some bottle caps.

Having set that aside, I think it is actually better than kegging - much more practical and ultimately better for beer. For the following top-10 reasons:

#1. You can bring your homebrew with you anywhere, and give away bottles to your friends and family.

#2. Cost: bottling is much, much less expensive. Unless you value your time very highly. In which case you should buy commercial brews, as brewing takes a lot more of your time and it's not cost-productive to waste your time making your own beer when you can just buy it at the store.

#3. Less hassle - no worrying about exchanging tanks, worrying about pressure, storing those compressed gas cylinders, flushing and cleaning the lines, etc. Just clean/sanitize bottles, that's it.

#4. More "retro"/"old school". This is how beer was stored and conditioned for centuries.

#5. More "natural" and "crafty". The yeast creates its own CO2, not forced-carbonated via a tank of CO2 you bought in the store. If you think using extract is a shortcut from all-grain process, so is using forced carbonation.

#6. Space: Don't need extra space in the fridge/kegerator - just put a few bottles at a time, according to your consumption needs. I can fit dozens (hundreds if you count my cellaring chest-freezer) of different home-brews in my fridge, but I can't fit dozens of kegs.

#7. Conditioning - beer gets better over time with yeast in the bottle. People get excited about conditioning inside cask ales (CAMRA) but bottles do pretty much the same thing and provide more unique tasting experience to kegging.

#8. Aging - can age some strong beers for many months and years.

#9. Bottling/priming process teaches you "zen" and patience.

#10. Kegging gets auto-corrected to "begging" in my browser. Nobody asks if they should start "begging".

Of course if you do go keg path, you could still bottle from the keg. Yes, in theory you could also "age" beer in kegs. You could even still serve beer from 12-keg or 50-keg kegerator if you were clever enough to build one. But very few people do that. If you have weekly parties when lots of friends routinely come to your house and will drink 10-15 Gallons of 2-3 batches at a time (and they won't care about lack of variety), perhaps kegging makes sense. If you want to stretch your brews over months, age them and compare them, then I would say bottling is a better strategy.

I was officially just taken to school
I like #4 haha

but yeah definitely looks like I should get some bottling under my belt.
My objective in brewing is definitely not to save money, in fact $ is whats kept me away from brewing for so long.

I want to be able to understand beer more and appreciate the process and craft that I've greatly appreciated the result of for a few years.

thank you for all the help and advice in here.

I'm getting more and more excited to get this going.

 

[Ariza-Poet]

Kegging superior to bottling? No, it is just less time consuming and you don't have to mess with all the bottles.

Safer than kegging? Not really. Just different.

If you are using the fridge for fermentation, you really need another fridge or freezer for the kegs.

If cost is no object it is up to you to decide if you want to spend the money. You are looking at several hundred to set up kegging.

It would be safer, cost wise, to start with bottling to make sure you will stick with the hobby before investing in kegging.

good points.

keep in mind i'm extremely ignorant to home brewing simply due to lack of experience and exposure to brewing.
Aside from some brewery tours the majority of my knowledge comes from this site and the sister site
beerforum.com

I guess its superior as far as convenience, however, reading these responses i'm not even sure thats true when starting out.

I'm learning a lot here and will obviously learn more once i actually start.

 

[Homercidal]

My bad. I saw the poll title and I immediately clicked on the KEG option.

But if you are just starting, forget that. Work on a proper process with temperature control. Once you feel comfortable you are making pretty good beer, then go for the keg setup.

 

[Ariza-Poet]

My bad. I saw the poll title and I immediately clicked on the KEG option.

But if you are just starting, forget that. Work on a proper process with temperature control. Once you feel comfortable you are making pretty good beer, then go for the keg setup.

I wonder if thats what happened with a lot of people. The votes don't necessarily reflect the comments.

But thank you for your comment.

 

[fuzzy2133]

Nice thing with bottles is the visual of how much beer is left! Just had a keg kick last night that I thought had enough beer to reach Friday.

Edit: I voted but never commented.

 

[douglasbarbin]

good points.

keep in mind i'm extremely ignorant to home brewing simply due to lack of experience and exposure to brewing.
Aside from some brewery tours the majority of my knowledge comes from this site and the sister site
beerforum.com

I guess its superior as far as convenience, however, reading these responses i'm not even sure thats true when starting out.

I'm learning a lot here and will obviously learn more once i actually start.

There is really no comparison when it comes to convenience. On one hand, you can clean, sanitize, and fill one keg. On the other hand, you can clean (possibly including peeling/scrubbing labels), sanitize, fill, and cap 50-something bottles (after you've mixed sanitizing solution or added carb drops to each bottle). It's really a no-brainer as far as convenience is concerned. I hate to bottle, even from the keg (which is still much easier than bottling and bottle priming).

Kegging also gives you the option of force-carbing, which means you can set the carbonation level (and change it to some degree if you don't like how you have it set). Force-carbing is also faster. I have kegs with carbonation stones, and I kegged 2 beers on Friday, "set it and forget it" on my regulator, and the beer is fully carbed as of Sunday night. If I really want to press the issue, I can crank the PSI up to about 30, drop it to serving pressure the next day, and the beer carbonates in about 24 hours. With bottle-priming, you are at the mercy of the yeast. I have had high-gravity batches take as long as 3 months to fully carbonate. If they
decide to drop out early or your measurements/calculations aren't accurate, your beer isn't going to be carbonated like you want it to be.

If you look and ask around, you will notice that many people have started bottling and changed to kegging, but nobody does the reverse (unless maybe if they are hard-up for money and have to sell their equipment). A lot of this is due to the fact that bottling is much cheaper than kegging, but if bottling was superior in any way, wouldn't more people switch back to it?

All of that being said, kegging is MUCH more expensive than bottling. You can probably figure a rough average cost of $100 per keg/faucet, plus the cost of your refrigerator/keezer, plus CO2 tank and regulator. I currently have a 6-tap keezer with 11 ball lock kegs, and I am going to guess that the total cost for all of this was roughly $1,000.

So really, it all comes down to 2 questions: how much are you willing to spend, and do you plan on sticking with this hobby for a while? If you can afford it and don't plan to stop brewing any time soon, then I think kegging is a viable option. Of course, maybe you should bottle for a while; then you will REALLY appreciate kegging when you start!

 

[douglasbarbin]

Nice thing with bottles is the visual of how much beer is left! Just had a keg kick last night that I thought had enough beer to reach Friday.

Edit: I voted but never commented.

You just haven't spent enough money yet :cross: There are things like flow meters and RaspberryPints that will give you a much nicer visual than a bunch of bottles.

 

[NickTheGreat]

I would recommend to keg generally, but for this poll vote "Bottle."

If you drink beer, you can save your bottles. A capper and new caps don't cost much money at all. So your initial investment is nil.

Plus . . . everyone should bottle a few times to fully appreciate kegging beer. Kinda like using a hammer to roof a house before using pneumatics.

 

[Shooter]

My bad. I saw the poll title and I immediately clicked on the KEG option.

But if you are just starting, forget that. Work on a proper process with temperature control. Once you feel comfortable you are making pretty good beer, then go for the keg setup.

I wonder if thats what happened with a lot of people. The votes don't necessarily reflect the comments.

Yeah, I was wondering about that, the majority of people seem to suggest starting with bottling and moving to kegging if you stick with it, but the poll doesn't reflect that at all.

 

[thekraken]

I for one jumped the gun and voted for kegging before I realized the OP hadn't even brewed their first batch yet or purchased any equipment. As far as I could tell I couldn't change my vote...

 

[Ariza-Poet]

I for one jumped the gun and voted for kegging before I realized the OP hadn't even brewed their first batch yet or purchased any equipment. As far as I could tell I couldn't change my vote...

yeah i Should have put that in the title.

All voting aside the comments have helped a lot.

 

[oujens]

Sounds like good advice to hold off to see how much I enjoy this.

I know I love beer and have been an avid beer geek for quite a few years and finally getting into brewing
But not sure how much I'll be into the brewing aspect of it

Good idea. Kegging is definitely a time saver but is a big investment. Once you find you enjoy the beer you are producing, then keg it up!

Edit: Save the money you were going to use on kegs for equipment that might help you on brewday, such as pots, burner, refractometer, etc. I found after two extracts I wanted all-grain equipment. The addiction can happen quickly!

 

[beergolf]

There is really no comparison when it comes to convenience. On one hand, you can clean, sanitize, and fill one keg. On the other hand, you can clean (possibly including peeling/scrubbing labels), sanitize, fill, and cap 50-something bottles

That is only partially true. That makes it sound so much easier,however, there are other things that are not mentioned. If you rinse your bottles as you drink them it is not difficult. Sure you have to just clean a keg, but sometimes that requies taking apart the keg to do a thorough cleaning. That can take as long as cleaning a bunch of bottles. You also have lines and faucets to clean. Which also takes time. If you do not you can have problems. You also have to make sure that you do not run out of CO2. Nothing worse than not realizing that your tank is almost empty and running out of CO2 during the weekend. How about running out of CO2 during a party? What about leaks? You just fill a tank and do not notice a slight leak. A few days later you go to pull a pint and there is no pressure because you just lost a full tank of CO2, and have no beer to drink. Then there are the mishaps. Someone opening up ther keggerator to find 5 gallons of beer in the bottom because of a leak.

Sure kegging can be convenient ( I do keg so I understand all that is involved), but it does have some drawbacks. I equate the people that say that kegging is always the answer and is so much easier, to gamblers that always tell you about the money they won, but of course they never talk about the money they lose. So you never get the full story.

 

[iijakii]

+1. Kegging is great for a multitude of reasons, but I don't see how it's any easier. Cleaning kegs, disassembling posts and poppets, relubing everything, leak tests, cleaning beer line etc is all more time consuming than tossing 50 bottles in the dishwasher on sanitize cycle for me.

 

[j1n]

i started off kegging. bottling looks annoying. i still bottle but its from the keg and with a beer gun. bottle from keg is more home brew friendly, no telling people how to pour a beer cause of the sediment. they can drink straight from bottle like they do with beer they buy.

 

[55x11]

I wonder if thats what happened with a lot of people. The votes don't necessarily reflect the comments.

But thank you for your comment.

kegging is for lazy people (just kidding. Or am I?)
No wonder they would click the vote but never bother to type up a response.



Seriously though, I prefer beers on draft when I go to bars, but mostly because I know they will be fresh.
Setting costs/conditioning aside:
If you go through beer very fast and don't care about storing a pipeline of variety, i.e. you can drink two batches of the same beer in the time it takes you to brew two batches (for me about a month), then kegging may make some sense.

If you like to have variety (I have about ~15 beers I brewed so far this year, all available in bottles - cannot do this with kegs), then bottling is better.

Having said that, I suspect in a year or so I will have two kegs in my freezer. Mostly for convenience and out of boredom, than any real improvement in taste or anything else. But I suspect I will still bottle most of my beer, as it is much more versatile.

 

[J-Drew]

Or does the convenience of a keg justify the cost despite being a first timer?

Does the improvement in the quality of your beer justify the cost of focusing on fermentation temperature control now and worrying about kegging vs. bottling your beer later? Yes.

To more directly answer the OP's question, assuming resources are limited but you have enough to invest in a kegging setup, I would bottle now and make better use (IMHO) of the rest of your money to control fermentation temperature.

 

[ChelisHubby]

My self I am poor boy and I started kegging I loved it, till I got a infection and did not know why, I lost 3 batches then I started bottling. If you have the extra money Kegging is great. I am back l
kegging again. While starting out I would recommend bottling which does come in handy when making some brews for friends. But It is about time and Money.

 

[rekoob]

reading some posts and doing some research it appears kegging is superior to bottling.
However, as a first time brewer is it a safer bet to just bottle?

Or does the convenience of a keg justify the cost despite being a first timer?

*Disclaimer*
I have no equipment yet. A friend and I will probably be buying a few extract kits in the next couple weeks and whatever equipment needed for some basic 5gallon batches.

but we do have a full size fridge that we'll get a temp control for for fermentation.

First time brewer, no equipment... bottle.

You don't even know if this hobby is for you yet. You might do a batch or two and then not do it anymore.

Use what you have, buy minimal equipment that you need and start brewing. Use bottles, they are pretty much free if you have been keeping them and/or ask your family/friends to keep bottles for you.

Na Zdrowie!

 

[ericbw]

Don't know if anyone said it, but if you're going in with a buddy, how will you split batches in a keg?