Bottles v keg?

[david88]

First homebrew batch is due for conditioning next week. In the past ive just used old pop bottles but i want to make it a bit more "professional" than that. Question is king keg or bottles.

Kegs are obviously easier but bottles can fit into the fridge!

 

[brizleciderarmy]

Bottles hands down. You can get more pressure into a bottle than a keg which is ideal for lagers and ciders.

Don't get me wrong i liked using the pressure barrels but i could never get them to keep a high amount of pressure through love nor money. In the end, after keeping the keg indoors for a few days i would put a cable tie around the relief rubber on the valve to keep the gas in( not advisable.)

Best thing i did was acquire a load of glass bottles. OK its more time consuming to clean and sterilize 40 bottles but its well worth it. 3-4 grams or a teaspoon of priming sugar in each bottle, and you got yourself some nice fizzy brew. Sorted!


Now that i moved to bottles i don't have to sneak downstairs several times a night to pour off a pint. Just stash a load in the fridge. Happy days! :drunk:

 

[Moley]

Bottle is best :thumb:

Bottles are free and caps are cheap. A capping tool is around a tenner for a twin lever type or £20-30 for a bench capper.

If you get seriously into your home brewing then the stainless steel Cornelius keg system is excellent.

Personally, I wouldn't bother with plastic kegs.

 

[Nunfa1]

I prefer keg myself. Much easier and quicker to fill and the beer tastes better too, I'm talking ales here, with lower carbonation. I have 3 king keg top taps and they can be a pain to set up initially but once you've cracked it they're very good. My last 5 brews or so have needed no extra gas at all.

 

[Baz Chaz]

Bottle is best :thumb:
Bottles are free and caps are cheap. A capping tool is around a tenner for a twin lever type or £20-30 for a bench capper.

+ 1 for bottles and a bench capper, worth the little bit of extra effort, can take a case of bottles on holiday/friends/BBQ etc doesn't take very long to build up a stock of bottles.

I only label for special occasions, otherwise simply the brew number on the cap with permanent marker :thumb:

 

[graysalchemy]

I prefer bottle conditioned beer :thumb: :thumb:

 

[BrotherMalice]

Only done 1 brew so far and kegged it, I am planning on bottling the next batch though to see the difference :)

 

[david88]

Gone for bottles, already had some from tescos 4 for £5.50 offer and bought some cheap plastic bottles that use crown caps which i thought were worth a gamble.

Now, when priming is it better to bulk prime the beer in a spare FV or is it worth putting sugar individualy into each bottle? Ive heard pro's and cons for each. e.g when doing in bulk not as much yeast is left in the beer so it doesnt condition well but there again you end up with a much clearer beer.

 

[graysalchemy]

Batch prime is best I use 5g per litre, so just work out your volume, multiply that by your dosage rate (in my case 5g). measure out the sugar mix it with a little boiling water and put in the bottom of a clean FV now syphon your beer onto this and give it a gentle stir then bottle straight away. :thumb:

 

[Baz Chaz]

Batch prime is best I use 5g per litre, so just work out your volume, multiply that by your dosage rate (in my case 5g). measure out the sugar mix it with a little boiling water and put in the bottom of a clean FV now syphon your beer onto this and give it a gentle stir then bottle straight away. :thumb:

:thumb: exactly what I do, but I don't like particularly fizzy beer so I'm experimenting with amount of sugar in the 'batch' :idea:

So far have gone as low as 70g per 23 ltr, but this is still conditioning, early tester seem OK usually 90g per 23ltr, all depends on your personal preference.

Lager is higher amount of sugar but I don't brew lager so wouldn't comment how high to go, either way don't go too high or you'll have to open all your bottles outdoors wearing oilskins :lol:

 

[calumscott]

+1 for bottles.

I think the beer is better, they are easy to store, you can get your lagers in the fridge...

...but most of all you can build up a cellar so you don't have to drink 40 pints of the same old stuff in one go! :thumb:

 

[david88]

Yep, ive got an outhouse in this new house which when im properly moved in it will be empty due to the fact that I have a garage and a shed aswell. This out house will eventually be a Brewery/Cellar. I dropped the bairns off at Nursery and School this morning and saw that they had loads of milk bottle crates lying around outside. Perhaps I could borrow some of those :hmm: :hmm: :hmm:

 

[orlando]

I do both and see them as different beers. When I keg I always bottle at least 4 pints so I can track how the beer looks. Obviusly bottles clear quicker but if there is a fault it shows up quickly in bottle too. The fun comes when you compare the two, and they are different. I love cask conditioned beer and think that compared to bottle if it is handled correctly is preferable to me but both have their virtues. Keg beers I prefer to be lighter in carbonation and since I changed my KK taps for Dalex the dispensing of it is superb. Bottles are excellent for ageing beers as they are not as compromised as kegs for retaining CO2.so big beers like IRS and Barley Wines could only be aged for a long time in bottles. The temperature issue is a little more of a compromise with kegs because they need to be kept cool and not everybody can have a dedicated fridge or a constantly cooled cellar. Having said that most domestic fridges are around 5-6c which is way too cold for bitter styles so if you want one of these in perfect condition you have to wait until it warms to more than twice that.

So doing both allows you to experience the differences in taste and get round some of the practicalities. Kegs are improved if you change the taps, fit a pressure gauge, use larger CO2 bottles and keep at the optimum temperature for the beer. Bottles are practical for keeping on a longer term basis and giving you a number of styles to choose from and in a convenient size.

 

[monkeybob]

Kegs for ease of use I love my king keg top taps!
Bottles for quality. Pain in the butt to fill but easier to keep cool.
I tend to use both :drink:

 

[BrotherMalice]

The keg I am using is on loan from a mate so I will be giving it back to him when its empty (maybe tomorrow at the rate it is being drunk...) so definately bottles for my next brew, picking up a load on Sunday with any luck :)

 

[Taf]

I started kegging a while back, but still do some bottles, so I can give them to people. I don't do secondary anymore, so just transfer straight into the keg or bottle. I actually used to rack from primary to secondary and then to a bottling bucket on bottling day, but stopped that was way too much hassle for me. If I am bottling, I just add the sugar through a funnell using a measuring spoon, which I find just as quick as racking to a bottling bucket. For people who batch prime, do you not think it is a bit of a pain to rack off into a seperate container just to dissolve the sugar? I mostly keg now, but did bottle 100 litres of wheatbeer last week, and went pretty smoothly and quick enough considering that was my biggest bottling session ever.

 

[The Goatreich]

give them to people

Sod that!

 

[graysalchemy]

For people who batch prime, do you not think it is a bit of a pain to rack off into a seperate container just to dissolve the sugar?

I don't rack the beer off just so I mix in the sugar. I rack my beer to get it off the trub after fermentation so it doesn't get into the bottles. In fact I rack at least twice, once to get it off the trub and into a clean sterile Fv reducing infection and secondly so that I can batch prime. The advantage of batch priming is that you get a more accurate amount of sugar evenly mixed in each bottle so you end up with a more uniform batch of beer.

So IMHO it is definitely worth it if you want nice clear bright beer with little sediment in the bottles and a nice even carbonation between bottles.

:thumb:

 

[Taf]

give them to people

Sod that!

Maybe I should of said swap/barter so! As I don't give them away Willy nilly.

 

[Taf]

For people who batch prime, do you not think it is a bit of a pain to rack off into a seperate container just to dissolve the sugar?

I don't rack the beer off just so I mix in the sugar. I rack my beer to get it off the trub after fermentation so it doesn't get into the bottles. In fact I rack at least twice, once to get it off the trub and into a clean sterile Fv reducing infection and secondly so that I can batch prime. The advantage of batch priming is that you get a more accurate amount of sugar evenly mixed in each bottle so you end up with a more uniform batch of beer.

So IMHO it is definitely worth it if you want nice clear bright beer with little sediment in the bottles and a nice even carbonation between bottles.

:thumb:

I have a 120 litre conical, so I dump off the yeast, and go straight to keg/bottle, and always have nice clear beer. I've had uneven corbonation with batch priming on occasion, as the sugar solution can sink to the bottom a bit I find. Even when I was doing smaller batches I stopped moving to secondary, as yeast normally packs down, and not worried about a bit of sediment in the bottom of bottles. Different strokes for different folks I guess.