Storing your beer

stuart_A · Apr 28, 2016

What would you say is the quickest, most cost effective and convenient way to store your final product.

Bottling seems like quite a faff and also relatively expensive if Im using glass bottles. Mini kegging is also looking like a big outlay.

Any other more convent and cheaper options that won't spoil my homebrew?

MyQul · Apr 28, 2016

If you balancing speed of packaging up with the cost of packaging material, I'd say mini kegs. You can get glass bottles for free but it's easier and faster to fill 4 mini kegs than 40 x500ml bottles

MickDundee · Apr 28, 2016

At the moment I use glass bottles. I have a Minikeg to try out and SWMBO is wary of me using glass bottles after my bottle bomb ( although she's relaxed since I discovered it was mainly due to over carbing), so if my MK is a success I think I'll do 2 MKs, 10 glass and 10 PET bottles per brew.

stuart_A · Apr 28, 2016

I like the idea of the mini kegs. What are the king kegs like? Is it like a big mini keg or does the beer not keep as well?

stuart_A · Apr 28, 2016

..also what are the built in taps on the mini kegs like. Do I need a party star tap?

How long does a tapped keg last?

MyQul · Apr 28, 2016

stuart_A said:
..also what are the built in taps on the mini kegs like. Do I need a party star tap?

How long does a tapped keg last?

Whenever anyone asks this I advise to people to get a party star tap, unless your like me and your quite happy to drink virtually flat beer. The built in taps are fine and work well but after about 3 days the beer will get very flat. I often take about 5 days to drink a MK (unless I have some help drinking the MK) and it's more or less flat by then

Notlaw · Apr 28, 2016

PET / plastic bottles are cheaper, you get 24 bottles for about a tenner I think. Mini kegs aren't that expensive, they're about 6 quid for one and they hold 10 pints each plus they're reusable.

nigelnorris · Apr 28, 2016

Notlaw said:
PET / plastic bottles are cheaper, you get 24 bottles for about a tenner I think. Mini kegs aren't that expensive, they're about 6 quid for one and they hold 10 pints each plus they're reusable.

Recently 7 quid for 24 Coopers PET bottles from Tesco. Plus I think PET wins the convenience race against glass. When I pour out a beer from a PET bottle I just walk over to the kitchen tap, rinse the bottle out, put half an inch of warm water in and an eighth teaspoon of no-rinse powder, put the cap on, give it a shake and chuck it into a box in the corner. Then on bottling day I just take off the cap, empty the half inch out then bottle straight into that. No cleaning or rinsing on bottling day saves a fair bit of faff.

Hops_and_Dreams · Apr 28, 2016

MyQul said:
Whenever anyone asks this I advise to people to get a party star tap, unless your like me and your quite happy to drink virtually flat beer. The built in taps are fine and work well but after about 3 days the beer will get very flat. I often take about 5 days to drink a MK (unless I have some help drinking the MK) and it's more or less flat by then

This.

I think without the party star tap, 5 days is about the limit before the beer really starts to deteriorate and taste off. I've only left the keg with the party star tap for 10 days or so, but still tasted fresh.

The beer from a mini keg tastes more like a proper pint than it does from bottles too.

GHW · Apr 28, 2016

I also think you need to consider beer style in your choice of packaging. I go on about this a lot but I like English bitters from a pressure barrel (cornies probably offering a similar ' hand drawn' style, but I don't know as I don't have any), whereas lagers and fizzier styles work well in bottles.

nigelnorris · Apr 28, 2016

Hops_and_Dreams said:
This.

I think without the party star tap, 5 days is about the limit before the beer really starts to deteriorate and taste off. I've only left the keg with the party star tap for 10 days or so, but still tasted fresh.

The beer from a mini keg tastes more like a proper pint than it does from bottles too.

I'm going to have to give this a go. Are they OK for long term storage unopened?

Leon103 · Apr 28, 2016

Bottling is the cheapest. Bottles are free and caps are pence. Mini kegs are barrel is the easiest to do though.

MyQul · Apr 28, 2016

nigelnorris said:
I'm going to have to give this a go. Are they OK for long term storage unopened?

Yup. They're basically like a 5L bottle

chub1 · Apr 28, 2016

Not tried any form of kegging etc only bottling which is a bit of a cuss when doing say a 30/40 pint kit brew, one reason i have tried a few small extract brews.
Use a mix of glass and pet's and must say the pet's are favorite, easy to clean and obviously easy to tell when carbed and as previously stated can be got really cheap.Glass looks nicer though along with a label.
Perhaps when i get further into this brewing lark i may well try out a keg.

Robin54 · Apr 28, 2016

Reading all the above comments I think they all have merits. Certain styles of beer are better in bottles and some not. Bottles may be good if you want to put a few away and forget about. I use swing toppers but thats where Ive invested my money, so Im not going to change that. However, Ive made a Belgium beer which is in Mini Kegs, only cos I want to store it for a year, so that has a convenience factor. When I started brewing I used cider bottles where the cap screwed into the neck of the bottle - haven't seen one of those for years...but again for me at the time highly effective. Horses for courses as they say.

Hops_and_Dreams · Apr 28, 2016

nigelnorris said:
I'm going to have to give this a go. Are they OK for long term storage unopened?

I don't see why not, can't see any difference to bottling in that respect. I've only been using them a few months though, so too early to tell for me.

MickDundee · Apr 28, 2016

Hops_and_Dreams said:
This.

I think without the party star tap, 5 days is about the limit before the beer really starts to deteriorate and taste off. I've only left the keg with the party star tap for 10 days or so, but still tasted fresh.

The beer from a mini keg tastes more like a proper pint than it does from bottles too.

I think the Party Star claims to keep beer fresh for 90 days, I might be wrong.

Hops_and_Dreams · Apr 28, 2016

MickDundee said:
I think the Party Star claims to keep beer fresh for 90 days, I might be wrong.

I find it very unlikely an open keg would last for 90 days in my house.

MyQul · Apr 28, 2016

Hops_and_Dreams said:
I find it very unlikely an open keg would last for 90 days in my house.

my current keg of pseudo lager wont see 90 hours let alone days the way me and MrsMQ are get through it

Robin54 · Apr 28, 2016

Hops_and_Dreams said:
I find it very unlikely an open keg would last for 90 days in my house.

Thats 3 months..madness

Storing your beer

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