Pressure barrel or bottles?

[Zero94]

Well hello people

So the time has come to bottle but am feeling a bit lazy so I was thinking pressure barrel the stuff, quicker and a lot less clean up and no farting around with a capper.
So what am wondering is this, is a pressure barrel a decent enough way to go to get to the drinking stage of this beer?

Now the beer is a Russian Imperial Stout with vanilla and coffee coming out to around the 8.4% mark and I won't be going for a lot of carbonation.

Thoughts?
Cheers

 

[Mavroz]

Bottles all the way for me.

 

[Dutto]

I use bottles for high ABV brews and anything that I intend to keep for more than a few months ...

... the rest I transfer to 10 litre Growlers or 1o/25 litre PB's.

It makes it less of a chore if you bottle a brew use 500ml 0r 650ml bottles.

BTW I have only just finished an Oatmeal Stout at about 6% ABV that was put into a PB back in January; and it was still okay.

 

[Cwrw666]

Pressure barrelling an 8.4% brew sounds possibly dangerous. On the other hand I've just bottled a 4 gallon brew of bragawd (honey ale) at 5.9% in 330ml bottles. 52 flippin bottles!

 

[Pope]

I've only ever bottled my beer. It helps that I only brew 10l batches.

I'm curious to know how people cool beer which is kept in a pressure barrel. I imagine it'd be too large to fit into a fridge and unless you have a cellar with cooling equipment, I imagine that the beer will be coming out warm.

Responses welcome.

 

[Bevvied]

I keep a king keg in the cellar/man cave. No additional cooling with it. That suits me fine as I like my stout/dark ales at a low roomish temperature.
In the shed I keep my basic wilko PB. I use that for IPA/pale ale type stuff. If anything, in the winter it gets too cold.
Its all swings and roundabouts I suppose.
A mate of mine (lager drinker) made his first ever kit, a lager, put it in the wilko PB (which he since gave me) and left it in his kitchen. In June, a couple years ago. Amazingly, he was moaning that it wasn't cold like in the pub.
I like PBs as they are so easy to use.
I prefer easy kegs over anything though, easy to move and put in fridge if need be.

 

[marshbrewer]

Like Dutto, I bottle anything North of 6%, as that tends to be stuff that requires long conditioning times and will be drunk once in a while, and I don't want it monopolising a pressure barrel .Everything else gets barreled, unless I've got none spare then it's bottles. I really hate bottling, to be honest, whereas bunging it in a PB is simplicity itself. I also think it suits the English style ales I brew better than bottles. Keeping them cold in very warm weather can be tricky, but that's once in a blue moon in the UK; this summer being the welcome exception.

 

[GerritT]

Bottling everything: .5 L for normal ales, .33 L for weightier stuff (Barleywine etc). Top volume is 16 liters.
IF I had a keg, I'd also need a fridge etc. Too much hardware. (Or too little space)

Bottles work for me, I only have fliptops and don't mind cleaning them. Pretty Zen thing to do.

 

[Dutto]

.........
I'm curious to know how people cool beer which is kept in a pressure barrel. I imagine it'd be too large to fit into a fridge and unless you have a cellar with cooling equipment, I imagine that the beer will be coming out warm.

Domestic fridges weren't commonplace in the UK until the 1970's, so we brewed palatable beer that tasted fine ...

... without the need to freeze our taste-buds into submission

I remember an America gentleman I worked with at a Refinery in 1969 who was telling me about the grinding poverty in the southern states of the USA. I quote him exactly:

"Some folks is so poor that they have to keep their refrigerators and freezers out on their front porch!"

The reason I remember the conversation so well is that at that time ...

• My wage was almost twice the UK average.
• We didn't own a refrigerator or a freezer.
• Like many Council Houses, mine sure as hell didn't have a porch.

... but I was still making beer!

Made with LME and hops (both bought at Boots the Chemist), boiled in a one-gallon saucepan on the kitchen stove, fermented and carbonated in the airing cupboard (with all the linen and clothes) and stored in the kitchen under the sink.

It tasted just fine!

 

[Zero94]

Some of it will be getting bottled but the majority will be going in a PB it won't be there for that long so spoilage isn't a worry for me, as far as a blowout goes I don't think it will be likely as I hate stouts that are carbed up like IPA's or lagers so I won't be carbing it much just enough for a head. Now my only other worry is to wilko or not to wilko

 

[-Bezza-]

Bottles just work and don't have special needs.

Pressure Barrels can be a bit awkward and sometimes leak air so beer doesn't carb up properly and you end up worring about it. They're then harder to clean out as they typically have a narrow opening (but not always, of course). Long term, I think the plastic flavours can leach into the beer too, so I only use them short-term. On the flip side, they are convenient and there's something nice about just having a keg that you can just draw as much off as you need. No sediment until the very end unlike having sediment in every bottle.

 

[Zero94]

With the barrel I would probabaly end up forking out for a king keg to be honest reading the reviews on the Wilko ones they don't sound to good and with a bit of vaseline the king kegs sound pretty solid. The stuff in the barrel wouldn't be sitting there for more than a few months in all honesty

 

[-Bezza-]

With the barrel I would probabaly end up forking out for a king keg to be honest reading the reviews on the Wilko ones they don't sound to good and with a bit of vaseline the king kegs sound pretty solid. The stuff in the barrel wouldn't be sitting there for more than a few months in all honesty

Yes, worth clarifying that I have no experience with the King Kegs so was basing my comments on the other ones.

 

[Zero94]

Seen em on eBay second hand so grab one of those for half the price of a new one only down side to them j can see is the gas is pricey

 

[peebee]

The good thing about PBs (or bad thing depending on your preference) is they force you to carbonate less or else the PB distorts like crazy. Probably 5-10PSI maximum. Whereas bottles will very likely deliver something much fizzier.

I only use Corny kegs which have the advantage of delivering bottled style "fizziness" or cask style "flatness" as and when desired. As well as being less of a pain-in-the-a*** that bottles are. But they are getting increasingly expensive as the second-hand supply dries up. More compact than PBs but you do still need a dedicated fridge to keep them cool (I devised a cooling scheme using the "python" lines of a shelf cooler - but it was totally ineffective in this years' heat).

I'm waiting for some 2 and 5L stainless steel "mini-kegs" from China (not the big "can" type but the miniature "real" keg type) which have got ludicrously cheap recently - they use the same disconnect posts as Corny kegs so no other new bits of kit required. They might still be a bit big for the kitchen fridge - but I'll wait and see. Still more expensive than plastic PBs, but not by much.

 

[Duxuk]

I bought a King Keg from Leyland homebrew for £48. It's very good and has an excellent tap. My gas costs a few quid but lasts many barrels. I was replacing a Boots keg which I'd had for around 35 years!