Bottle's VS Keg

[Dr. Dextrin]

I'm sure the level of carbonation plays a part. However, I've also noticed the same thing when making wine (the matured flavour depends on the size of the storage vessel) so I don't think it's the whole story.

I have several theories. One is that the liquid convects more easily in a large vessel due to small temperature changes. So it's as if it's being slowly stirred all the time. That would fit with my other observation that some wines never clear if left in large vessels. I've no idea how that comes to affect the flavour of a maturing drink, though. A related effect might be that smaller vessels fluctuate in temperature more than larger ones.

With plastic kegs, I think oxidation due to air passing in through the plastic is another big factor. My beer goes off to the point of being undrinkable in a plastic keg in about 5 weeks or so. However, I can taste the beginnings of oxidation after only about a week. I think slight oxidation is a characteristic of cask ales (indeed, I believe some sparklers are designed to mix air into the beer) so up to a point it enhances the cask ale flavour. After that, it's downhill. That doesn't explain the effect in different sized bottles, however.

My final (truly half-baked) theory is that some of the chemical reactions that take place during maturation take place on the surface of the container. In that case, you would end up with a different flavour depending on how much surface there was compared to the liquid volume. Possibly it might also depend on the nature of the surface.

[Northern Brewer]

My final (truly half-baked) theory is that some of the chemical reactions that take place during maturation take place on the surface of the container.

Which could explain why many members report that it's the last pint from a cornie keg that tastes the best (the dip tube draws from the bottom of the beer). I have previously attributed this phenomena to the possibility that they have been supping their efforts too soon.

[WishboneBrewery]

Corny kegs - a practical solution, but I am yet to be convinced by this system. I've ran mine since early this year and I still find the beer shifts character quite a lot when stored in this way. I don't particularly like "fizzy" beer, so that particular ability of this system is of no use to me (except when doing wheat beers). The stainless steel construction *should* lend itself well to long term storage and maturing of beers, plus the CO2 top pressure *should* mean that beers can be dispensed over a long time period. I've found that beers still seem to degrade though, albeit at a much slower rate.

I notice there is a paragraph in the centre pages of the Durden park book that says the Cornie kegs are good for 5 years of maturation with no evidence of deterioration of contents. (Says you Must flush the keg with co2 before racking).

I recently read a bit from a brewery's website:

Beer is best drunk fresh and Saltaire Brewery aim that their brews should be available for drinking within two weeks of the grain being mashed! We do not leave the beer lying around in tanks any longer than it needs to.

- http://www.saltairebrewery.co.uk/html/conditioning.html
I was surprised you could make such a quick turn-around, the beer is obviously very fresh...
Is this what Fining does, brings the beer into condition/ maturation quicker???

[Scooby]

When comparing commercial beer I always 100% prefer the taste of cask over bottle. I don't bottle much as yet but it seems from this thread the opposite is true of home brewed beer.

[Chunk1234]

Quite shocked about the times people are claiming beer can be left in a king keg. Undrinkable in 5 weeks? I've just kegged a stout for Christmas ... if that number is correct, it will be well and truely wrecked by then. Surely if your keg is air tight and no oxygen gets in, the beer should be staying good for a lot longer than 5 weeks.

[Horden Hillbilly]

Quite shocked about the times people are claiming beer can be left in a king keg. Undrinkable in 5 weeks? I've just kegged a stout for Christmas ... if that number is correct, it will be well and truely wrecked by then. Surely if your keg is air tight and no oxygen gets in, the beer should be staying good for a lot longer than 5 weeks.

It will keep much longer than that. You can expell the air in the top of a kk by "purging" the air out 24-36 hours after kegging the brew as seen here, bottom pic. Also, make sure that you store your kk's in a cool, dark place. If you can't store them in the dark, slip a black bin liner over it, this will prevent the brew from becoming "light struck", which can also cause off flavours.

[Dr. Dextrin]

Just to clarify a little. If I haven't finished a keg in 5 weeks, I generally have to chuck the remainder out. Of course, by that time the keg is far from full, so there's a lot of keg surface in relation to the volume of beer remaining.

I wouldn't be surprised if others can keep their beer for longer than this in a keg. I expect it depends on the type and strength of beer (I tend to brew bitters around the 1046 mark) and also on the temperature (I always struggle to keep mine cool enough). Quite possibly the plastic that kegs are made of these days is better as well, as mine are quite old now.

However, even if you purge all the air out with CO2, oxygen definitely does pass through polythene quite easily and will affect the flavour of the beer sooner or later.

[a-slayer]

Looks like us bottlers have a beer that will keep far longer than any keg, and the extra effort bottling is more than made up by there being less wastage.
I always noticed the beer going off when using plastic kegs and thats why they have all been given away.

[crookedeyeboy]

Hmmm I was thinking along those lines...not had much success with the plastic kegs. Had 100% success (so far..... ) with bottles....

Yes theres extra effort but its well worth it for the conditioning and shelf life. Not only that you can share them out if your not stingy like me!!

Ironically enough I very much agree with most people on here, cask everytime if I am out drinking. Commercial bottled beers suck the fat one, however at home the only fat one Im sucking is my own bottles!

My mate brought round a bottle of St Peters gold whatever...and it was bloody awful in the bottle, it was supposed to be 'organic' as well...Bo**ocks. I dont buy organic, its another way of saying 'how food/drink should be' and then being charged a handsome figure for it...grow/brew your own

End of rant.

[dave-o]

For me, it's kegs for convenience, and bottles for quality.

The carbonation from a bottle matured beer seems to be much more pleasant - a kind of tongue-tingling effervescence as oppose to the keg's carbonation, which seems to be either slightly artificial or semi-flat.

If i'm making a beer for myself to drink lots of quickly, i'll go with the keg, and if i'm making a "special" beer i'll bottle it and leave it a couple of months.

[yashicamat]

When comparing commercial beer I always 100% prefer the taste of cask over bottle. I don't bottle much as yet but it seems from this thread the opposite is true of home brewed beer.

Yes but people are talking about homebrew pressure barrels here, not proper casks . . . I hope to give some evidence on this with my new cask setup.

[Scooby]

Yes but people are talking about homebrew pressure barrels here, not proper casks...

I'm not sure I know what you mean by a 'proper cask,' mostly the beer I drink at pubs is in stainless casks, the beer at a festival this weekend was served from stainless casks. Cornies are stainless so are you talking about the taste being effected by plastic casks?

[Capped]

Ironically enough I very much agree with most people on here, cask everytime if I am out drinking. Commercial bottled beers suck the fat one, however at home the only fat one Im sucking is my own bottles!

I agree with that! Pub cask ales are far superior generally speaking,than bottled stuff IMHO. Maybe it's cos they're hammered with finings and drank very young? Casked homebrew *tends* to hang around for ages and suffers accordingly? Don't know how they so effortlessly manage to ruin bottled stuff tho' - mine's far superior!

[yashicamat]

I'm not sure I know what you mean by a 'proper cask,' mostly the beer I drink at pubs is in stainless casks, the beer at a festival this weekend was served from stainless casks. Cornies are stainless so are you talking about the taste being effected by plastic casks?

No I was referring more to the way the beer is conditioned really and not served using a top pressure CO2 setup (which I am sure imparts an unwanted flavour to the beer). I have conditioned beer in both pressure barrels and cornies to date and the pressure barrels are better in my experience for beer quality initially, although the cornies offer better longevity. My new casks are plastic casks but I don't see any reason why that should make any difference; I know several excellent breweries which use plastic casks and their beers are fantastic.

I agree with that! Pub cask ales are far superior generally speaking,than bottled stuff IMHO. Maybe it's cos they're hammered with finings and drank very young? Casked homebrew *tends* to hang around for ages and suffers accordingly? Don't know how they so effortlessly manage to ruin bottled stuff tho' - mine's far superior!

I think the time over which the beer is drunk is a factor for the latter half of the barrel for instance, but it shouldn't affect the initial flavour of the beer *assuming all other things are equal* . . . which I am suspecting they aren't, hence my cask experiment.

[Dr. Dextrin]

I've been musing on this problem for a while. I'm very happy with the initial taste in a plastic keg and if it's done right I reckon it can give any pub-served cask beer a run for its money. But the beer only tastes at its best for a short time. I'd like to keep several kegs on the go to have some variety, but I don't drink enough to get through it all if I do.

I've looked at Cornies, but they seem to have drawbacks too, and bottles are a pain and don't seem to give the same taste as a keg.

In the past, I've used polythene cubes (polypins?) with some success but the shelf life is even shorter than with a plastic keg.

The one place my beer seems to mature quite happily and never go off is in the Better Bottles I use these days as secondaries. Once I've fitted an air-lock, I can leave it there indefinitely and it still tastes great once primed and put in a plastic keg many months later. I gather Better Bottles are made from a special PET plastic that lets very little oxygen pass through, so it should be rather like storing the beer in a huge (5 gall) glass bottle.

So my thoughts have wandered on to how I might dispense the beer from a Better Bottle and cut out the keg entirely. Although Better Bottles aren't designed as pressure vessels, they should withstand the 2 or 3 psi you need to dispense "real ale" quite easily. To put that in perspective, you can blow that sort of pressure by mouth and I rather doubt anyone could burst a Better Bottle by blowing into it. I've pressurised one of mine to 5 psi without mishap, but I'm reluctant to commit a beer to it until I can find a reliable and cheap pressure relief value that will open at that sort of pressure (still looking).

Of course there are also a host of other minor problems to solve, like how to get gas in and beer out, but I'm sure they are soluble with a few plumbing bits and bobs. It seems to me to be no harder than building other bits of brewing kit.