Breaker, breaker good buddy

Tonight I poured my last bottle of homebrew. Nothing but kegs from here on out! Hopefully I'll find someone that would like to take the majority of my bottles. I can't imagine bottling a whole batch, but I'll probably keep enough bottles to do two batches. You never know.
 
Doesn't take long to embrace the ease and simplicity of kegging does it? Don't give up on the bottles totally though. A counter pressure filler is simple to use and will give you beer on the go again. Bottles with little or no sediment are easy to travel with to share.
 
agreed, I have one permanently attached to my beer system, great to have on the fly
 
I was looking at a counter pressure filler online a while back, out of curiosity more than anything. Don't know if I'd ever use one.
 
I rarely use mine but when family comes over and says, this is great beer can I have some to go it comes in handy
 
Do you ever get your bottles back? That was always my rule!!
 
I used to say don't throw them away religiously but now I have to many and wish they would lol
 
I bought 99% of my bottles empty. 20 years of brewing, and the price never changed. Buck a bottle. I would always see that greenback whenever I watched my bottle go out the front door. I'd tell people if they ever wanted to take home a second bottle, they need to give back the first bottle! Most people complied. The rest were cut off, limited to drinking at my house. Now I have people asking to fill up their own growlers. Let's see, that'd be about a tenth of my 5 gallon batch. It cost me how much to make? Okay, let's crunch some numbers!

I can't see ever giving lager away. Takes way too long to make!
 
I went through a period where I was saving commercial bottles, I have about 20 cases in boxes of boulevard 12 ounce shorties along with about 20 of various others but I like the shorties in those new style boxes, easy to stack and the best part I didn't pay for them
 
Wow nice i keep hearing that you never go back after kegeing. Do you have to wire in a different thermostat? I get bottles for 10 bucks a case and i thought that was to expensive i guess thats cheap.
 
I use an STC-1000 temperature controller set at 2°C for my keezer. And at a dollar a bottle (the price I've always spent for bottles), I could've bought 100 cases of 12 bottles each for what I spent on everything for the keezer to be functional. But that expense is one time, and will soon be forgotten.
 
jeffpn said:
And at a dollar a bottle (the price I've always spent for bottles), I could've bought 100 cases of 12 bottles each for what I spent on everything for the keezer to be functional.
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I am definitely not against the idea of kegging, but at 0.08€/bottle deposit, I am getting away really cheap with bottles here. ;)
 
Earlier in this thread I mentioned that I'm hitting my new untapped filled kegs with 30# of CO2. I'm doing this 2-4 times a day. Gas always goes in. (Height or lack thereof prevents me from leaving the line connected.) Tonight, I hooked up the 30# line, and nothing went in! I unhooked a working keg, and hooked its line up to the new keg to sample it. I was afraid it'd be overcarbed since it wouldn't take the 30# line. It seems about right. Maybe that'll be my procedure on a new keg. Hit it at least daily with the 30# line until it can't take any more. Then it'll be all carbed up when I blow a keg.
 
if for any reason something becomes over carbed just let it get warm "room temp" for a couple of days then vent the C02 every day, it will bring it back to normal or even under carbed if left too long
 
as far as carbing, I started out force carbing and even rolling the keg on the floor back and fourth but found the carbonation was spotty and not fully fused in the beer very well and also mixed up the solids too much so as time went on and I was far enough ahead on brews I started slow carbing at 12psi for a week while chilling very cold at 34f and using gelatin to clear the beer. this process has been the most satisfying way to condition my beer to date. the only time I will force carb now is if I need a beer for an event fast
 
The beer I "spot-carbed" (I made that up!) seems to be at a good CO2 level now. It might not be totally infused as you say. I have a couple days to go before I blow my Scottish Ale. Hopefully by then the new one will be near perfect. At any rate, I'd happily drink it now.
 
For the first time, my keezer has all 8 kegs in it. :)
 

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Yeah, I'm TRYING not to drink more than the two bottles' worth that I've always drank in a night. Those taps pull too darn easy!!
 
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