Home brewing is a pastime that has been around for centuries, and over the years, technology has made it easier than ever to create delicious craft beer.
One of the latest trends in homebrewing is kegging. Kegs are pressurized vessels used to store and dispense beer.
Keg Your Homebrew: 6 Reasons Why You Should Do It
Brewing your beer is a time-honored tradition that has been around for centuries. However, with the advent of kegging systems, homebrewers now have even more control over their craft.
Homebrew kegging is becoming increasingly popular for homebrewers because they offer a variety of benefits that can make it easier to brew great beer and store it for extended periods.
1. Kegs Are Easier To Store Than Bottles
When brewing beer in bottles, you need to devote plenty of space in your home to store them, not to mention all the time you spend labeling and capping each bottle.
With kegs, all you need is one or two vessels, depending on how much beer you produce. This makes it easier for anyone with limited storage space to brew beer at home.
2. Cost Effective
Finally, kegging is often more cost-effective than other methods due to its ability to store more significant amounts of homebrew at once without negatively impacting quality or taste.
Homebrew kits usually contain everything you need to make a batch, including bottles. You may spend more on additional bottles if you use this method instead of a keg system, which requires only one large container for storage.
Additionally, being able to store more beer at once means fewer trips to purchase ingredients when brewing multiple batches at once, which also helps reduce costs overall in the long run.
Kegs are one-time purchases, meaning you don’t have to continually buy new bottles or cans for every batch of beer you make. This saves both time and money in the long run. Additionally, since most kegs come with lids that seal tightly, you don’t have to worry about spilled beer!
With a keg system setup at home, all these costs are eliminated; plus, refilling Carbon dioxide tanks for your kegging system is much more cost-effective than purchasing new cans of pressurized air every time.
All these factors combine to make kegging your homebrew much more cost-efficient than bottling it yourself!
3. Portability
Kegs are also much more portable than other forms of packaging because they can be easily transported from place to place without fear of spilling or breaking open.
This makes them perfect for parties, tailgates, camping trips, and other outdoor activities where glass might need to be more appropriate and practical to bring along.
Additionally, bringing your kegged beer with you on an outing will stay cold longer due to its insulated design!
4. Time Savings
Homebrew kegs are an efficient way of storing and serving your beer. With a keg, you don’t have to worry about bottling each batch of beer or cleaning up after you’ve finished drinking it. Instead, you have to hook up the tap and enjoy – no mess, no fuss!
You can also save time in homebrew kegging by using a “keggle” (a large metal bucket) instead of a traditional carboy for fermentation. This eliminates the need for siphoning or transferring your beer from one container to another, saving you significant amounts of time.
5. Quality Control
When bottling, it can be challenging to ensure that every bottle contains the same amount of carbonation and flavor as the others; this is especially true if you’re bottling by hand. However, with a keg, all the bottles will have similar carbonation levels and taste since they all come from the same source.
Plus, because there’s less oxygen in a keg than in a bottle, your beer will stay fresher for longer, giving you better-tasting brews with each batch!
And finally, if something goes wrong with one bottle (whether over-carbonated or skunked), you don’t have to worry about throwing away an entire case – dump out that one bottle and start again!
Related: How To Carbonate In Mini Kegs
Types Of Kegging
You can choose one of three types of kegs. Sankey, Ball Lock, and Pin Lock kegs are. Although ball and pin locks are relatively similar, their minor variances help distinguish them.
Although commercial breweries typically use Sankey kegs, homebrewers can also use them. “Cornelius kegs” ( (also known as Corny kegs or soda kegs) style kegs come in both Ball Lock and Pin Lock varieties.
- Ball Lock Kegs: These are the kegs that homebrewers use the most frequently. The liquid and gas line are joined together using “ball lock connectors,” hence the name. Ensure that the disconnects you purchase for these kegs are the appropriate disconnects. Pin lock kegs were shorter and broader; ball lock kegs were both.
- Pin Lock Kegs: These are similar to ball lock kegs in many ways. Occasionally, the keg lid of pin lock kegs lacks a manual pressure relief valve (PRV), although replacement lids for homebrewers typically do. Pin locks use a distinct design to secure gas and liquid disconnects. This feature makes it impossible to confuse which end was for liquid and which was for gas.
- Sankey Kegs: Sankeys are the outlier among the group. They only have one port in the middle of the keg: a gas inlet and a liquid outlet. Although they require more work to disassemble, because there are fewer potential sites for gas to escape, they are less likely to experience gas leaks. Additionally, larger sizes like half barrels are available. Let’s go over everything you need for each sort of kegging setup. Commercial breweries generally utilize Sankey Kegs, but their popularity is growing among homebrewers. There will be two sections to this. The Cornelius kegs (pin and ball lock) should come first, then the Sankey kegs.
Conclusion
Home-brewing beer kegs offer many advantages over traditional bottling methods.
It’s cost-effective as it eliminates the need for purchasing extra supplies like bottle caps every time you brew a new batch; plus, it’s straightforward to use and highly portable too!
So if you’re looking for a way to save time and money while still enjoying great-tasting craft beer—kegging could be just what you need!