Kegging "special beers"

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I've had varied (mostly bad) experiences with bottle conditioning, so everything gets carbed in the keg and I decide what to do with it from there.

 

The only caveat that I have with this is for Brett or Sour beers. I dont want Brett or bacteria getting into the tubing of my bottling gun (which I use for bottling beers for competition). I keg my Brett beers but they are for draft only. Sours take more time for me to consume so bottling them is not an issue for me.

 

I have separate tubing for bottling wild beers.

 

I had the blind foresight to stock up on kegs when they were routinely selling for under $20 each, including shipping.

 

I've never regretted kegging a beer.

I have regretted bottling one or two.

 

I have been buying kegs for a long time, but with lagers I always need more. 30*5 and 2*3 gallon right now, might get a few more.

 

First, you are right, stainless kegs ought to be easy enough to clean. But not every piece of a kegging operation is stainless. If you are concerned about contamination, you would want separate hoses and taps, for example. Also, my gas-in lines have connections have a little plastic fitting. And gaskets are not stainless. At the very least, you would want to keep bacterial contaminated soft pieces separate.

Second, there is another issue which I did not express above because I had a brain fart. I know I said above that I was concerned about keeping kegs bug free, but I forgot the main reason why I decided I want to start kegging sours. I want to age my sours in a keg to help reduce oxidation. I just tossed 5 gallons of a sour brown ale down the drain because I had an accident with the rubber stopper on my better bottle. If I get a get for my sours, I am hopeful that I can age things long term in the keg without oxygen issues. I could say contamination issues be damned and use one of the kegs I have now, but (1) I only have three kegs and if I devote one to long-term aging, I can only serve from 2 kegs during that time and (2) bugs be damned is an unnecessarily reckless approach.

 

You have rubber O-rings to consider and the poppets have rubber seals to the posts. You need to take it apart and clean and sanitize, well sometimes.

 

Back in my early brewing days had a pale ale I couldn't force myself to drink so I opened the keg and let the bugs in. After 6 or 7 months I had an excellent batch of malt vinegar that I botttled directly from the keg. I then cleaned and sanitized the keg as I normally do, put it back in rotation with the other kegs and have been using it ever since(probably 15 years ago at least). I've never had an infected batch of beer, even in that keg. I keg all my beers, sours, big stouts it doesn't matter. I do have one tap dedicated to sours, but I often also have a brett beer on tap at the same time.

 

Large concern? Probably not. The temps will be cold enough to slow bacterial activity. Contamination might matter the most if you had a big beer like a barleywine that sat around for a while, where the bugs might have time to get a foothold in the lines. Of course, since you are going to clean and sanitize your kegs and beerlines after serving up sours and switching to that barleywine (you are planning on that level of caution, I presume) you'll probably be fine.

Perhaps do as rocdoc says above: plan on having a separate sour line and tap, but otherwise don't worry. If it proves to be a problem, you end up with a dedicated keg for sours and need to spend 50 or so bucks on a replacement keg. It wouldn't be the end of the world. When I'm ready to make my next sour, I'll probably pick up a keg and dedicate it to the process, for the other reason I mentioned above.

 

I keg everything and bottle out of the keg with picinic tap after its properly condiitioned.

On Christmas eve I did a 5 year veritcal of the barleywines I have bottled up. Each one held up really well and are aging gracefully.

 

This to me is the beauty of using kegs. Besides dispensing, IMHO they are perfect for conditioning. They dont take up much space, it is easy to flush with C02, and they dont let light in. All my kegs double as secondaries, and lagering vessels.

 

If I put beer in a keg, I tend to drink it fairly quickly . Beers that age well (high gravity and sours, mainly) I will bottle at least 2/3 of the batch so it has a chance to achieve it's full potential.

 

I bottle anything I want to bottle condition. Usually bigger belgians, but sometimes milk stouts and "creamy" porters too. I keg everything else for the most part. For competitions, I use my beer gun to fill bottles off of the keg.