Keg or bottles

[Orval62]

Having just started up again, can anyone advise keg or bottles to put beer in? Does it affect the taste of condition of the beer? Or is it just down to preference, ease of use, or type of kit?

Cheers :

Tony

 

[matth]

I can't comment on kegs really, but I only bottle my beers. The main reason being shelf life and portability, I can keep beers for years if need be and do not have to rush through them and take a few round to mates houses. I quite like keeping a few bottles of each batch to see how they age too. I would assume once you have cracked open a keg you only have around a week to get through it. I know a lot on here use smaller corny kegs, which gives you more of a pub feel I suppose, but it all depends on how much you think you are going to get through, and how quick.

 

[NickW]

You can keep beer in a keg for at least 6 months,.assuming you're talking about a pressure barrel.

I use a corny keg but Only for school night beers and parties :thumb:

 

[bobsbeer]

I'm not sure about plastic kegs, but I have had beer in cornies and now sankey stainless steel kegs for at least 6 months. It depends to some extent on the particular beer you are brewing. I find some taste better in bottles and others kegs. I find the higher carbonation beers such as IPA are better in bottles, and lower carbonation ales in kegs. Perhaps others could give a more technical explanation as to what is going on here, but I suspect it is the mouthfeel of the CO2 and how it interacts with the base ingredients in the beer.

 

[Maysie]

When I started I bought the Youngs/Wherry brewing kit that came with a pressure barrel, but before my first brew was even finished in the FV I had decided bottling was going to work better for me. Principal reasons are the longer shelf life, I can give a few beers away when I want to, I can have more (different) brews bottled without the need to store LOADS of barrels but the primary reason is that I drink less when it is bottled. If my beer was in a barrel I would feel the pressure to get it supped quicker and that is something I don't need any encouragement to do!!

I also really enjoy the bottling process and they look great when all of the bottles are sitting there ready to go. The downsides to bottling are that it takes a bit longer than kegging and the initial cost of getting started with bottling is a bit more for a capper, bottles, wand/little bottler, bottling bucket, but it really isn't that bad if you plan to do a few brews and you can always scrounge the bottles.

I would now only keg for a party or similar event.

 

[winelight]

the initial cost of getting started with bottling is a bit more for a capper, bottles, wand/little bottler, bottling bucket, but it really isn't that bad if you plan to do a few brews and you can always scrounge the bottles.

Yes, you can always get bottles free - and you don't need a wand or bottling bucket. These are a modern fad, everyone used to prime bottles individually and use a normal siphon tube, and I still do. Very quick and easy when you get into the swing of it, especially if you have someone to help!

But, to return to the original question, I agree with all the advantages of bottles specified above, especially being able to have a wide range to choose from, but to me the main advantage of bottles is condition. Each bottle is (pretty much) the same whereas your first few pints from the barrel are mostly froth if you're not careful, and then flatter and flatter until you run out of CO2 and inject another bulb (if you use little bulbs, that is). But there's also temperature - a lot easier to put a bottle in the fridge - kegged beer last summer would have been at 37C unless you had a fridge big enough for the whole pressure barrel.

That said, I am just about to barrel a mild so that I don't keep drinking my stocks of bottled beers but let them condition properly.

 

[Orval62]

Thanks for all the advice and views.
I am trying to plan ahead, and you have answered a lot of my queries such as length of time beer can be kept in a plastic keg, and the fact that bottles are more flexible, you can store beer longer and if a more conditioned beer is wanted then bottles are the way.

I have just started collecting Grolsch beer bottles, 3 down 17 to go, pity I am not a lager fan, but as they say no pain no gain. I am looking at getting another plastic keg from Wilkos to give me 2 x kegs and 20 bottles, hopefully this provide me with enough space to keep a brew on the go most of the time, and to help me stop drinking the beer too early.
If I can brew beer nearly as good as the stuff the pubs sell I will be more than happy, or is this a pipe dream? My tipple is mainly bitter and Belgium beers, so any kit recomendations will be gratefully received.

:

Tony

 

[matth]

Good luck, I have only ever done 1 kit - and it wasn't a very good one - I went straight on to extract brewing using dried extract (dme). For standard lower hopped and lower strength bitters then there are probably some good kits out there - I have had a decent golden ale brewed from a St. Peter's kit. I think the general consensus for kits is get a 2 can kit as they are the premium ones.

The one main argument I forgot to mention about bottling is I don't particularly enjoy drinking the same beer all night! So I like to have a range of brews on hand.

 

[Rivvo]

Orval, it may be worth trying your local pubs, mine are more than happy to offload the used bottles to me for free. You will be lucky to find grolsch bottles but you never know!

 

[ian808]

I have some mini kegs which hold 5 litres and I usually fill one of these and then bottle the rest using some glass beer bottles and a couple of 2 litre coke bottles (PEP) the PEP are handy as they cut bottling time (cleaning as well) but need to be stored in the dark and also need a 2 litre jug to tip beer into before drinking. I start off drinking some glass to check taste and then drink the PEP and use mini keg if someone is round or expecting to drink a lot over the couple of days.