Ag Or Keg?

[chappo1970]

Go AG IMHO. Producing great beer will give you the encouagement to get into kegging. Basically that's what I did.

Minor anecdote....

The absolute 100% worst beer I've ever had (excluding infections) was an AG beer. Poorly concieved, poorly executed. Horrid. Nasty. Ferrel. Uggh. No apparant infection, just....nasty. Badly concieved recipe, totaly unbalanced, very, very poor cold-side control. I can actually taste it as I describe it....ugh.

(not mine, btw h34r: )

Are you sure Butters???? Or was it Muckey's????


Chers
Chappo

 

[BoilerBoy]

for me it is a simple question, wether to drink good beer from bottle, or not so good beer from keg

Cheers :icon_cheers:

Thats it in a nutshell!
Good beer is good beer and average beer is average beer no matter how its dispensed.

Beer first delivery second IMHO

Cheers,
BB

 

[bowie in space]

Yes Butters, temp control is high on the agenda, along with tasting my first AG.

Kegging and other shiny bling can wait B)

Cheers
Bowie

 

[Cocko]

My flow, accidentally.. but in hind sight seems good for many reasons:

Coopers kit - 5 batches>more fermenters - had to up production>Temp control! - was sick of riding the belts !>AG - BIAB now 3V>Kegs...

Again 2c.

Your coin spend it how you see fit!

 

[beersatan]

AG can be pretty cheap to start. I currently brew in a BIAB/partial way and forked out SFA on a 20L pot with the odd piece of material/bag (brewed while drunk and just burnt another - no beer harmed in the process though).

Bottles take weeks and probably months to condition properly and when bottling found myself drinking beer cordial way too much.
I've never kegged a kit beer but in my case kegs enable grain to brain so much quicker and my first preference.
If I brew too much and bottle the leftovers that don't fit in the keg I find the beers lose the shine of the amber nectar that flow from my taps.
You can also measure your doses better with the tap and if you decide to have a dozen jugs or a dozen ponies the choice is yours.

To the tap!

 

[muckey]

Are you sure Butters???? Or was it Muckey's????

actually I'm not so sure it was an AG brew. I thought it might have been the "special" bottle you sent down here for butters h34r:
....runs away to don Chappo resistant flame suit.........


edit: speelingck

 

[raven19]

I would go AG first then Kegs second.
AG setup can be cheap... use the $$$ for the kegs.
2c.

 

[Effect]

I would go AG first then Kegs second.
AG setup can be cheap... use the $$ for the kegs.
2c.

+1

go AG...

then go kegs

then go herms

then go several kegs and taps

it never stops

 

[Cocko]

Run a poll! h34r:

 

[arsenewenger]

I would go AG first , sayng that I dont keg but i do AG , The things that stop me from kegging are the fact that I worry having cold beer on tap all the time ie if its ready i will drink it as appose to thinking I mihgt have a beer tonight and chucking a couple of bottles in the fridge for a couple hours and then stopping. Also I have plenty of mates who like to sample my beers as it is having it on tap would me a party at my house way to often and then having to brew more and more to keep up the supply , dont get me wrong I love it but prefer to bre for me and SWMBO not anyone who knows I have kegs

2c

 

[Bribie G]

Would you believe there have been 50+ posts on this in one afternoon, obviously a passionate subject. On balance I'd go AG and enjoy the great beers however you choose to serve them. :super:

 

[thelastspud]

Thanks for all the different advice.
the message that comes through the strongest from all of your posts is make good beer.
so Ill concentrate on that and go all grain first and make a cheap AG setup. ive already got a good esky
just need to get a big pot and something to boil it with dont think i can boil 15litres+ on the stove.
thanks for all your thoughts.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

think only one person has mentioned it so far - so I will again.

Kegging is easier than bottling - but not all that much once you bugger around with all the bits and bobs. BUT kegging should also improve the quality of your beer. Screwing up the packaging and carbonation of beer is a major way that good HB can be made bad. Infections, over/under carbonation, exposure to light, exposure to oxygen, improper storage of bottles... all less likely to happen if you keg. I think that the improvements you can get from going from bottling to kegging, are on the order of the improvements you can make by going from extract to AG.

I think that kegging is worth doing, because it can and should improve your beer, is easier than bottling and gives you the sheer pleasure of beer on tap at home.

That said - I don't know if you have fermentation temperature control. If you dont, then that is first, first by a long way. Going AG or going keg if you don't have controlled temp for your fermentation, is a waste of time.

Temp control
Kegging
AG

with temp control waaay further up the list than either of the other two

 

[manticle]

A lot of really good commercial beers are bottle conditioned. Undoubtedly they have resource to better equipment (including filtration) than I do but I'm not sure the suggestion that bottled beer is equivalent in scale to extract beer is valid. If you follow good process you can have unskunked, uninfected, unoxidised, clear, bright, properly carbonated, bottled beer.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

A lot of really good commercial beers are bottle conditioned. Undoubtedly they have resource to better equipment (including filtration) than I do but I'm not sure the suggestion that bottled beer is equivalent in scale to extract beer is valid. If you follow good process you can have unskunked, uninfected, unoxidised, clear, bright, properly carbonated, bottled beer.

Of course you can - but I have to say that mentioning the commercial side of it is, in my book, a really good underlining of the potential pitfalls of bottling.

I for one, very often, so often in fact that I almost expect it these days - find that the bottled versions of micro brewed beers are vastly inferior to the kegged versions I try. It has gotten to the point where if I have a less than exciting bottle of micro brewed beer ... I pretty much dont count the experience. When I have the same unexciting experience from the beer out of a tap... then I am willing to say its not so great.

Some of my very favourite brewers, Goat, Holgate, Potters, Bright - all regularly taste average out of the bottle, but fantastic on tap. Hell, I thought that Murrays beers were kind of ordinary... till I had one on tap at the Local. Amazing beer.

Over carbonated, flat, oxidised, yeasty, infected - I've had all of that from bottled micro brews and sadly, not all that infrequently, but faults of that magnitude from kegged beers are pretty rare. And if the pros are a bit so so getting bottling right, why would home brewers be any less susceptible? Its not that you cant get bottled beer right, of course you can and many do - its just that I think you have a hell of a lot better a chance of getting kegged beer consistently right.

For me those quality differences I so often see in bottled vs kegged micro-brew - are well and truly in the realm of "as big as going from extract to AG" So in my opinion, kegging instead of AG nearly holds its own just from a quality of beer produced perspective, maybe not all the way, but close..... when you add in the fact that its easier and you get to have beer on tap as well, then it becomes a winner.

But its an opinion thing for sure - and this babble is just mine.

TB

 

[Maxt]

I have had many many infected, oxidised and skunked commercial beers out of bottles. Even the pros find it difficult.

 

[Wisey]

I keg..... Busted the bank account doing that so now I gotta live with extract beer..... Which isnt that bad.

 

[manticle]

Of course you can - but I have to say that mentioning the commercial side of it is, in my book, a really good underlining of the potential pitfalls of bottling.

I for one, very often, so often in fact that I almost expect it these days - find that the bottled versions of micro brewed beers are vastly inferior to the kegged versions I try. It has gotten to the point where if I have a less than exciting bottle of micro brewed beer ... I pretty much dont count the experience. When I have the same unexciting experience from the beer out of a tap... then I am willing to say its not so great.

Some of my very favourite brewers, Goat, Holgate, Potters, Bright - all regularly taste average out of the bottle, but fantastic on tap. Hell, I thought that Murrays beers were kind of ordinary... till I had one on tap at the Local. Amazing beer.

Over carbonated, flat, oxidised, yeasty, infected - I've had all of that from bottled micro brews and sadly, not all that infrequently, but faults of that magnitude from kegged beers are pretty rare. And if the pros are a bit so so getting bottling right, why would home brewers be any less susceptible? Its not that you cant get bottled beer right, of course you can and many do - its just that I think you have a hell of a lot better a chance of getting kegged beer consistently right.

For me those quality differences I so often see in bottled vs kegged micro-brew - are well and truly in the realm of "as big as going from extract to AG" So in my opinion, kegging instead of AG nearly holds its own just from a quality of beer produced perspective, maybe not all the way, but close..... when you add in the fact that its easier and you get to have beer on tap as well, then it becomes a winner.

But its an opinion thing for sure - and this babble is just mine.

TB

I guess I was thinking more along the lines of European bottle conditioned beers (Chimay, Erdinger, Schofferhoffer etc) as well as Coopers. Maybe Aussie micros just need more practice?

Anyway I see your point.

 

[3G]

If you want to brew to make the best beer you can go AG.
If you drink loads and taste isnt as crucial as easy getting into a few beer go kegs

 

[drtomc]

Would you believe there have been 50+ posts on this in one afternoon, obviously a passionate subject. On balance I'd go AG and enjoy the great beers however you choose to serve them. :super:

Yes, but what has struck me so far about the whole discussion is the lack of flamage.

I've switched to AG, and still use bottles. If you start with BIAB - as I am - then the incremental gear cost is small, which is great for the domestic budget.

T.