Picnic Tap Keezer

Today I took one step forward in my quest for great beers when I finally decided to take the dive into kegging.  My new setup is very simple with just a 7.0 cu. ft. chest freezer from Home Depot with a Ranco temperature controller and a 5 gallon ball lock keg and 5 pound CO2 tank and regulator inside.

While I've been relatively happy with bottling for nearly 4 years now, there's a number of reasons that made me finally decide to purchase a chest freezer and kegs for a keezer build:

1. Carbonation Consistency - I've often been disappointed by overcarbonated beers, with a few being very undercarbonated as well.  Overcarbonating a beer can detract from the flavor (carbonic acid gives a bite and heavy carbonation makes it harder to taste subtle flavors), from the body (beers feel more "seltzery" and less full bodied) and detract from the overall drinking experience (difficult to pour, have to wait for heads to fall, can cause dregs to mix in).  Undercarbonated beers are generally not as big of an issue but sometimes leave beers feeling flat and watery, not how beers should float around in the mouth.
2. Bottle bombs - This is sort of a 1.a since this is just an extreme case of carbonation issues.  I've had a few batches of bottles that have been overcarbonated to the point of exploding over the years which have scared the crap out of me.  The issues with using too much priming sugar or having an infection cause increased carbonation isn't much of a concern due to kegs generally not being naturally carbonated, the cold crashing process reducing yeast and bacteria viability, and the significantly higher levels of pressure that kegs can handle compared to bottles.
3. Oxidation - This is also a two part issue.  One issue is with general oxidation of beers, with several of my batches that were aged for a long time or moved to secondary experiencing oxidation effects that greatly detracted from their flavors.  The second issue is with hoppy beers, where flavors fade quickly and fade even quicker when naturally carbonated in bottles.  The move to kegging (at least the having access to carbon dioxide part of it) allows me to purge secondaries and kegs with CO2 and package hoppy beers (in keg or potentially bottling from keg) with less oxidation.  A few of these topics were discussed in Mike Tonsmeire's recent post about IPA tips.
4. Cold Storage - the purchase of a chest freezer for kegging provides a large space for kegs (and potentially bottles) to be stored cold. Previously I had to find space in my fridge, not always an easy task, and there was certainly never room for the 20+ gallons of beer that I have now. In the past my beers were often stored at room temperature which helps to deteriorate their quality.
5. Secondary Fermentation Temperature Control - While I plan on using the chest freezer for kegs (~40°F) and not as a primary fermentation fridge (55-65°F) this very cold temperature could still occasionally be used for extended secondaries or lagering, a capacity I didn't previously have.
6. Light - The 3 factors which degrade beer: oxygen, heat, and light.  While brown bottles do a decent job keeping out light and I haven't noticed any light-struck skunkiness in my beers, kegs are even better, making sure that even pale, light beers (where these skunked qualities often show up) would be protected.
7. Versatility - As mentioned earlier, I can still bottle beers, now I just have the option not to, and that's a beautiful thing.

It's interesting to note that ease of use or time saved aren't being mentioned here.  While hopefully these are positive aspects there is a bit of a learning curve with kegging and, even though I've spent a long time researching how it is done and how I'd like to build my setup, there are still going to be mistakes and issues.  Additionally, while I hope the cleaning and sanitizing process isn't quite as tedious as it is for bottling, there are still multiple parts to clean and sanitize on a regular basis from the keg and its parts, to the tap lines, to the keezer itself.

It is worth mentioning that the biggest downside to kegging seems to be the sheer amount of equipment required, which both costs money and takes up space.  I currently have just one keg and the cost of my system has already ran over $600 (although I was able to buy the $200 chest freezer  with gift cards so it didn't feel like as big of a hit).  Part of the reason for the cost being so high is that I went with all new equipment, rather than used versions which are usually about half as expensive.  Moving forwards I could easily see spending another $500 to get all of the bells and whistles I'm currently looking at (and that's still with picnic taps).

I put my oatmeal stout on tap today and am trying to quickly pressurize it to have it ready within a few days.  I'm very excited but also a little anxious; I'd hate to only have one beer on tap and it not be very good.

Cleaning Bottles

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again, cleaning bottles is the worst part of my brewing process. As much as people condemn bottling in favor of kegging I've always liked aspects of bottling (it's cheap, they're portable, the bottling itself is fairly straightforward and easy) but hated one aspect: cleaning bottles.

While part of my reason for cleaning bottles is to get the labels off the more important, time consuming and frustrating part is cleaning the interior which can have black mold and beer dregs stuck to the bottom. It usually takes me around 4 hours of letting them soak in a an oxiclean/hot water bath before 1-2 minutes per bottle of scrubbing before they get to my liking. For today's bottle cleaning session of 150+ bottles that means approximately 4 hours of active bottle cleaning time.

I might just buy new bottles from now on whenever I or others don't wash them out after use to avoid the mold.

Bottling

.5 oz of star san in 2.5 gallons of water.

I soak my bottles in sanitizer for a minute or two, drain and bottle.

Been bottling with the bucket on top of the washer recently, cutting down on the mess

I missed a few updates but decided to talk about my bottling process and specifically about my bottling of 7.5 gallons a little over a week ago.  My process is fairly simple and probably not too different from many beginner brewers but I thought it would be nice to at least write it down.

The first step in my bottling day is also my least favorite: cleaning bottles.  While I usually have a case or two of fairly clean bottles that I've previously removed the labels from there's almost always a good amount that I need to clean inside or out.  I do so by placing them in the bathtub for a long soak in hot soapy water before rinsing out and using my bottle brush to remove the gunk that remains. It can be a long boring process and I often do it the day before bottling day just to get it out of the way.

The next stage is to bottle: I first make a sanitizer solution and add this to my bottling bucket.  After a few minutes in the bucket I transfer the solution to a small cooler through both the siphoning tube and bottling tube so get each clean.  I then boil a cup of water with the amount of sugar I need to prime the batch and add this to the bottling bucket.  After a rinse of the tubes I lift the carboy of beer I plan to bottle above the bottling bucket (often onto a washing machine with a small table below) and, using the siphoning cane, move the beer into the bucket in a swirling motion to mix it with the sugar water.

Once the beer is moved to the bucket I then move the bucket up higher and begin to sanitize bottles by soaking them in the cooler then lifting and draining each.  Once a decent amount are lifted and drained I  use the bottling tube with bottling wand end and slowly fill the bottles.  I usually fill about 8 or so which I loosely place caps on as I go (I give them a quick run of the sanitizer).  I then cap each bottle and return them to a case before filling more bottles.

After filling and capping all the beer (75 in this sessions case) I mark the caps with a sharpie and put them away (I keep them in the basement covered with a blanket keep out light and minimize any severe temperatures).  I then boil 2 cups of water, cool, and add to the remains of the carboy, stir then pour into a jar to save yeast for reuse.

Lastly the unfun of cleanup begins. I typically take everything used in the bottling day (bucket, carboys, cooler, tubing, etc) and dump as much water/trub/etc. as I can outside before returning to the bathtub to soak with soapy water.

The process certainly isn't the most efficient but I don't mind the time it takes. As for the duration I've had it take me as little as an hour with friends helping and pre-rinsed bottles. I've also had it take me a total of 8 hours over two days between cleaning a hundred bottles by myself and bottling close to that many.

Some day I may move to kegs but for now I'm happy with the simplistic, economical and environmentally friendly reuse of empty bottles.

About a case of my Irish Red post-capping.

Cleanup

Bottle Bomb

I thought it only happened to people who didn't carbonate correctly and use WAY too much priming sugar. Well today I went and checked on the closet full of homebrews and noticed something: the smell of beer.  Uh-oh.  Looked under the towel covering the cases of bottles and sure enough one bottle was shattered. 

Now the good news about this bottle bomb:

1. This means that the bottles are carbonating, thats a plus
2. Only one bottle broke so it doesn't seem that they're all overcarbed
3. The one that broke was a clear bottle, likely to skunk and
4. It was a Strongbow Cider bottle, hence: I now know only to use beer bottles

Due to #4 I grabbed the other Strongbow bottle which hadn't broken and decided to crack it open before it cracked itself.  Didn't pour into the best glass for the style but here is how it looks and lets just say, I'm happy with it.  Has the correct color and a BIG head.  Smell is strongly of cloves as is the taste.  Might still be a little green still but tasted more like beer than when straight from the fermenter.

Bottling Beer #1 Pics

My last post was an over encompassing, strangely technical and frankly boring little journal entry of my first brewing experience.  I thought I'd add some pics of myself and friends (girlfriend and her roommate Addison) figuring things out on bottling day.

 Me and Addison trying to figure out how to attach the bottle filler...trick was we were using the wrong hose.

 First time using the bottle capper, we were all a little afraid the bottles would break.












I'm very happy with the color of this one in a clear bottle.  I think thats one of the Strongbow bottles I kept, biggest pain in the ass to clean the label off of any bottle I tried.

 All that bottling sure made me thirsty...













As my girlfriend put it before we even started bottling "why would anyone want to do this much work for something that you can just buy?" well I had a good time with it and hopefully they enjoyed it enough to give me the help again on the next batch. Speaking of which I should really figure out what thats going to be...