Probably like most of you, you started off filling glass bottles with beer, priming sugar, and cap it of then let it rest for a few weeks before your able to try out your brew. From there the sky is the limit, of course to a certain degree, on how you want to package your home brew. Over my few years of brewing I went from bottles to kegs to PET bottles to now cans and out of all these methods of storage there are pros and cons and let me chat a little bit about each one and my experiences with them.
Since I started off bottling it makes more sense to start here. When I first started my home brewing experience I purchased a home brew kit from Northern Brewer. This kit came with everything to make beer with the exception of the storage, but came with a bottle caper. I really didn’t know what I was doing so I purchased a few cases of bottles as well. After being very anal and cleaning the crap, pun intended, out of the bottles and letting them soak in sanitizer I would go through the process of adding the priming sugar to my bottle bucket and then slowly and carefully rack the beer over to the bottle bucket. Filling and capping 5 gallons of beer takes some time and you can’t drink just yet, as you need to have the yeast eat the newly added sugars to produce CO2 and carbonate the beer, usually 7-14 days. I have also used bottle with a counter pressure filler, after the beer has been carbonated in a keg I’m able to fill bottles and cap them and maintain the carbonation This eliminates the need to wait the 7-14 days for the beer to naturally carbonate.
| Pros: | Cons: |
| Bottles are cheap | You need to clean and sanitize, all of them |
| Easy to transport around if you have a case | They can break and make a mess |
| Easy to share with friends and family | Bottle bombs are real |
Shortly after bottling I started to look for a used kegerator which I quickly found on Facebook. Purchased it up and next onto purchasing my first keg, Luckily my kegerator came with a tank and regulator, this was a game changer for me. No more washing all those bottles and right into washing and sanitizing one vessel, the keg. I quickly started to add to my keg collection and now have 10 kegs and probably going to order a few more. What I currently do is after emptying through a few kegs Ill do a group clean, and sanitize of them where they get a good cleaning, fully filled deg of sanitizer and then push it out with CO2 so my kegs are clean, sanitized, and purged ready to be filled.
| Pros: | Cons: |
| Only have to clean and sanitize one vessel | Initial setup is expensive |
| Kegs themselves aren’t too expensive if you purchased used | Cleaning them can be difficult if they have been sitting for a while |
| Can quickly carbonate and server your beer | Having a separate refrigerator to store and serve the kegs |
| Can use the kegs as a pressure fermentor as well |
PET bottles I have played a little bit with. These are your soda bottles as they are rated for pressure. I had purchased some pressure caps that screw onto the top of the bottles. These allows you to say take a 20 oz sample and put it into the PET 20 oz bottle, screw on the special cap and carbonate your beer. I have done this to get a good understanding of the flavor as you all know carbonation will change the flavor.
| Pros: | Cons: |
| Really cheap | Bottles are usually clear and will light strike the beer |
| Quick and easy to carb up | You loose carbonation over time as you open and seal |
| Not as hazardous as glass bottles | Can become infected pretty easy |
| They come in various sizes |
Finally Can’s, This is something I’m just dipping my toes into now and so far liking it. It has completely made me re look at my setup for counter-pressure filling my bottles and using the same rig for my cans. More to come with that in another post. Similar to bottle on the filling and I have a drill powered can seamer from Oktober which right out of the box was setup ready to go, of course still checked. Its been great and can’t wait to use it more.
| Pros: | Cons: |
| Easy to share | Have had a can with a hole in it |
| Durable | Storage of cans |
| No worry of light struck beer | |
| Easy to fill and seal compared to bottles | |
| Ever can I share the end user gets 5 cents 8) |
Overall this is all my option of each item and I will continue to use them all. Each has its pros and cons and you will probably have your own pros and cons for each. Like most new toys I will probably be canning my brews for some time and will maybe re look at this post and see if anything changes.
What is your favorite way to store your brew? Do you agree or disagree? and would love to hear why..
