Brewing beer at home

Taking The Next Step In Home Brewing: Kegging   by Jeff

One of the steps in the home brewing process is the transferring of your beer. You first transfer the wort into the fermenter, and then when the fermentation process is complete, you transfer your beer into bottles so you can enjoy and share your brew. Bottling can be messy, but it is just another important step to learn as you master the process of beer brewing.

There will probably come a time that you will consider taking the next step in beer brewing, and that is kegging your beer as opposed to bottling it. If you are looking into taking this next step, you will want to know what additional costs and what additional steps are involved before taking the plunge.

Kegging will cost you some money, and can be expensive to start. Kegging requires more beer brewing equipment, starting with CO2 tanks, kegs themselves, and a kegerator of some sort to store the kegs and keep them at a constant temperature. However, these costs are upfront, and prove to be good investments over time. Once you have some home brewing experience under your belt, you will be able to determine if this is the right move for you.

However, this can improve your home brewing experience, so for many home brewers, this is simply a step in the progress of their passion and enjoyment. It is probably a good idea to make sure everyone in the household is on board, especially a significant other or spouse.

Chances are, they have already been through this before, when you first started home brewing. Kegging can actually be a natural part of the progression of home brewing. As this hobby becomes an obsession, your quality of home brew will improve, and you may find that your home brewing demands this next step.

As well as cost consideration, it is important to assess how much space you will need for kegging. Along with the additional equipment, you will need either refrigerator space or a kegerator. A kegerator is smaller than a fridge and designed specifically to store one or more kegs. A cheaper option is to take and old fridge and buy a conversion kit so that the fridge essentially becomes a kegerator–this is a great option if you have an old fridge out in the garage. If you like to entertain and host many gatherings and parties (or would like to), then this option is a no brainer.

Kegging gets rid of the fuss and hassle associated with bottling. Rather than have to deal with cleaning and sanitizing cases of bottles and finding a place to store them, and then keeping up with the empties after use, you can have all your beer in one spot ready to be dispensed whenever you want. Kegging also gives you better control over the levels of carbonation in your beer. This gives you more options in the variety of styles and flavors of beers you can produce.

Even if you decide to keg your beer, you can still bottle if you wish. For one, you will still have the bottles around. You can still bottle beer for gifts, or to be able to take with you to parties and other social gatherings. Of course, you can always take a long a keg, but that isn’t always convenient.

Bottles still give you another way to take along your favorite beer when you can’t take along a keg. Kegging is something to seriously consider if you really enjoy home brewing. The expense will soon prove to be a worthwhile investment to your home brewing experience.

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