BeerBorg

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do since my PETs are starting to die.

If I continue to bottle, 12oz bottles, not gonna happen. 740ml is minimum I will use. Half the time spent fussing with the bottles. Caps by the thousand would last 2x as long too.

Kegging, I would rather use 2.5 gallon kegs, but they cost only like $10-$20 less then 5 gallon ones, which really sucks.

Also for *me* dealing with CO2 tanks would be a drag. Also fiddling with little keg parts to get them clean or replace them if they start to leak would be a drag with my messed up hands. I know you all think it's easy. You don't have my messed up hands.

Mini-kegs would be an option with me priming in the keg and just using a 64g CO2 cartridge just to dispense, but those will still add a lot to the cost vs. bottling, and the mini-kegs are also nearly as expensive as the 5 gallon ones, and they still have the little parts to fiddle with once in a while.

The little 5L gravity pour kegs with the little tap would work for me, I would just prime in them, except I can't seem to find any that are not garbage, IE they all seem to be not stainless steel with a liner that goes bad after a few batches and/or after you use a brush on them to clean them, and then start to rust or corrode from the inside, which doesn't sound like good beer to me.

But that's what I'd really like, some kind of small gravity pour keg that I can just prime. Or a small hand pumped beer engine, but I can't find any of those that aren't stupidly expensive and/or from sketchy places.

If anyone has any other ideas, I'm all ears. But right now, I'm still looking at just getting new PETs, because I can't find an alternative that somehow doesn't suck for me in some other way.

Buy 22 oz glass bottles. $13.99 per dozen.

As I lurk on the Borg - this is a really cool thread that reminded me of Labor Day weekend.

I'm still waiting on my kickstarter BEERMKR system that is targeted for an Oct shipping date so I have ZERO brews in 2019.

I was in our local beer dist over Labor Day that also has a homebrew section. I "almost" bought a 5 gal kit to brew. I still have the basics to brew but no longer have any kegs or bottles. Straub is once again selling beer in 16oz returnable bottles in a 24 pack sturdy hard case.

The case was around 25 bucks plus a $5 deposit on the bottles and case. That is what I used to bottle my very first Mr Beer kit so it's still dear to my heart.

Ultimately, I passed as I was not sure I wanted to start bottling all over again.

Keep brewing guys. I enjoy reading the threads. I'll never get as technical or skilled as many of you but I hope to one day make a batch with that fancy shmancy BEERMKR contraption and start a thread on it.

Do keep us posted BrewNewB.
Mashani, what about flip top pints, Grolsch style?

mashani wrote: Also for *me* dealing with CO2 tanks would be a drag. Also fiddling with little keg parts to get them clean or replace them if they start to leak would be a drag with my messed up hands. I know you all think it's easy. You don't have my messed up hands.

Dave at one time and I said it on here, I would probably never keg, but I changed my ways and should have done it a long time ago. C02 last me a long time as I don't force carb, the only small parts to deal with can be the poppets and most of them are self contained and is simple as un-screwing and screwing back in after santitzed. Yes I have bottled a lot of beer and getting a good deal on cap is good but kegging is way easier and I really think I like my beer better on tap.

John Sand wrote:Do keep us posted BrewNewB.
Mashani, what about flip top pints, Grolsch style?

This was my first thought as well. Sure, the bales can go bad and that would be a PITA for you with your hand issues but issues were few and far between for me with them

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How hard is it to attach the bales? I think most of the ones you can buy you have to attach them the first time.

These look tempting:

https://www.morebeer.com/products/ez-ca ... se-12.html

One set of those would hold a whole 3 gallon batch. I use about 14 PETs for one of those right now. So it would be similar to what I'm used to.

Or these if I wanted smaller ones, but I am more of a "go big" kind of person lol. If I got some of these, it would be for big beers because 2x as much work isn't what I'm looking for.

https://www.homebrewing.org/16-oz-Amber ... _9733.html

Im not sure how to answer that. I don't think they are hard at all, but I don't have any issues with my hands like you've said you do, you know? It's been 10 years since I bought my swing tops so I also can't recall if they came 'assemnled' or not but I believe they did. I think I've only had to do a couple of replacements.

I'd also think a quick ping to MoreBeer would get you the answer. They are pretty good about replying in my experience.

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Re-upped twist-top PET caps on eBay several years ago.
$10 got me 1,000.

These caps and the original MrB caps last almost forever.
You can tell when they need to be retired by how far they travel when capping the bottle.

HerbMeowing wrote:Re-upped twist-top PET caps on eBay several years ago.
$10 got me 1,000.

These caps and the original MrB caps last almost forever.
You can tell when they need to be retired by how far they travel when capping the bottle.

Yeah, it's not my caps going bad, it's actually my bottles. I use the O2 barrier Coopers bottles, but the inner O2 barrier is starting to separate in many of the bottles, and they have developed weakness in those areas and/or the base, and are blowing up under low pressures.

All of my swing tops are old Grolsch or similar, picked up on craigslist or at the local beer distributor from returns.
You might buy some Grolsch to test how well you can cap the bottles considering your hand issues.

John Sand wrote:All of my swing tops are old Grolsch or similar, picked up on craigslist or at the local beer distributor from returns.
You might buy some Grolsch to test how well you can cap the bottles considering your hand issues.

But then you have to drink the Grolsch...