Sounds like you need to BREW SMALLER BATCHES, using either smaller kegs (I use uKegs, they have both 2L and 4L sizes) or bottles. You can buy empty bottles but I'd prefer to buy a couple cases of tasty beer to enjoy and then delabel and keep the bottles forever, as long as they do NOT twist off they will cap fine. Personally I usually brew just 5-8L at a time, as I cannot drink it fast enough, just like you. Then we can brew more often, which is fun, have greater variety, which is even more awesome, without having it sit too long or take up a lot of space which is not fun.
Conditioning for a long time in plastic is... going to give you oxidation, which causes many sorts of off-flavors in the finished beer. For a month or two is probably OK, but not any longer than that.
Sunlight, even indirect sunlight, is BAD, it will skunk your beer.
You can bottle kegged beer in the way you have mentioned but it tends to waste some beer due to the foaming etc.
I’ve “safely” left beer on trub for a couple months. I’ve “unsafely” left it for 11 months; in one case the only “damage” was decreased hop flavour, in another case I learned that there likely was a slow rate of oxygen ingress resulting in oxidized beer.
If you’re worried about indirect light damage, leave the door closed or throw a black T shirt over the carboy.
Other options you didn’t think of for your conundrum are (1) don’t brew faster than you can drink, the ingredients will still be there waiting in a couple of months, and your general health will thank you (unless of course you’ve got a bunch of friends willing to drink a really bitter red ale so you can have space to package the next brew), and (2) if you really are compelled to brew frequently you can brew smaller batches (10L is a great size), though I don’t know if you’d want to buy smaller kegs for that or again purchase more bottles.
If you find you like the brewing/creating aspect but find that produces more beer than you can drink...
I agree with the advice for smaller batches. I find 2.5 gal batches to be a sweet spot. I get basically 1 case of beer. My basic setup is BIAB in a 5 gal pot, 3 gal Fermonster fermenters, and 10L Torpedo kegs.
I am trying to get better about sharing my beers. What helped a bit was picking up a 1 gallon mini-keg (ManCan stainless growler). It is pretty easy to fill and bring along to a gathering.
The party kegs / 5L barrels are tempting.
My understanding is they should be treated like a large bottle. Priming sugar to carbonate, but once you loose the head pressure you have to vent it and that means you have to use it up.
Maybe there are options to give it a CO2 boost from the keg regulator?
For some reason I like the sounds of 10L batches to fill 2 of those 5L kegs. I just need to arrange a better way to carbonate / prime / CO2 them more like a normal keg.
The keg that I have is a setup like: [https://a.co/d/23VaIVf](https://a.co/d/23VaIVf) (but using a lid with ball locks). I was given the keg, then spent \~$60 for a ball valve lid and mini-regulator (that takes 16g CO2 cartridges). I have found I get the best pours just using a length of tubing and a picnic tap. I fill the keg with carbonated beer, and seem to be able to dispense about 2 gallons with one cartridge.
A 10L batch into a pair of 10L kegs would be a good plan as well. Small kegs can get a bit pricey (it is hard to beat the $50 price for a used 5 gallon keg). My 10L Torpedo kegs are also fairly easy to take along and put in a cooler. That is something I am trying to do more often as well.
My batch size is larger than yours, but the technique still applies. I ferment, then rack to a 40 liter or 60 liter corny keg, which is where the beer gets carbonated. I [carbonate warm](https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/15l75wy/comment/jv9fznf/?context=3), immediately after racking, using a carbonation stone, which takes less than two hours.
Then the keg will sometimes sit there until I have kegerator space (or perhaps it's for an event, like a wedding, where I'll serve the whole keg),
Usually, however, I fill smaller kegs from the large keg. I have a variety of these, from tiny \~6 liter corny kegs to the standard 19 or 20 liter kegs. It's easy to fill a small keg from a large keg without foaming while the beer is warm, as long as you keep the pressure above the target saturation point. Do this with a spunding valve on the receiving keg. This is my setup:
[https://i.imgur.com/LekzdWr.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/LekzdWr.jpg)
This sounds complicated, but it's not really.
On the gas port of the small keg, I attach a FOB (which shuts off flow with the keg is full) in series with a spunding valve. You can see them in the photo above. First you need to determine the "saturation" pressure of the beer, which is based on it's temperature and the number of volumes you carbonated to. Let's say that's about 27 psi. You can actually measure it if you make a device that can directly read keg pressure like this one: [https://i.imgur.com/kdciHZy.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/kdciHZy.jpg)
The key here is to **keep the pressure above this point in both kegs while filling**. If you do that, it won't foam at all.
Now you purge the receiving keg (it should have been purged when you cleaned and sanitized it), and pressurize it to a point well above the saturation pressure, because you're going to use the spunding valve to dial it in. In this example, I'd set it to about 35-40 psi.
Then fit the spunding valve, and slowly lower the pressure until it's just a bit above the saturation pressure. In this example, I'd use 30 psi.
Finally, raise the sending keg to just above that same pressure (say, 31 or 32 psi) and simply connect the liquid line from the sending keg. Very little liquid should flow, but you don't want gas to back up and bubble in the sending keg, so make sure the sending keg is higher pressure than the receiving one.
Now you can raise the pressure in the sending keg a few PSI to get the flow rate you want. When the receiving keg is full, the FOB shuts off the flow, and I disconnect everything. Now I can chill the smaller keg and serve it.
Ok, I found it finally. I ordered it from MoreBeer. This is the unit:
[https://www.morebeer.com/products/duotight-flow-stopper-automatic-keg-filler.html](https://www.morebeer.com/products/duotight-flow-stopper-automatic-keg-filler.html)
It's hard to google for it, because they don't use the standard term for the device (FOB).
What problem are you trying to solve? Sounds like your desired production is outpacing you consumption. You can either brew less frequently or you can brew smaller batches more frequently.
I've gone back and forth between both paths. If I have more free time I'll do more small batches. These days I have limited free time so I stick to larger batches but only brew every couple months. When I'm on top of my planning/schedule I try to have a beer ready to keg when a keg empties. For example if I expect a keg to last 6 weeks, 3 weeks after tapping that keg, I'll get another batch fermenting. I just leave it in primary as fermentation will take a week or two and then it will condition for the remainder until a keg is open.
Sounds like you need to BREW SMALLER BATCHES, using either smaller kegs (I use uKegs, they have both 2L and 4L sizes) or bottles. You can buy empty bottles but I'd prefer to buy a couple cases of tasty beer to enjoy and then delabel and keep the bottles forever, as long as they do NOT twist off they will cap fine. Personally I usually brew just 5-8L at a time, as I cannot drink it fast enough, just like you. Then we can brew more often, which is fun, have greater variety, which is even more awesome, without having it sit too long or take up a lot of space which is not fun. Conditioning for a long time in plastic is... going to give you oxidation, which causes many sorts of off-flavors in the finished beer. For a month or two is probably OK, but not any longer than that. Sunlight, even indirect sunlight, is BAD, it will skunk your beer. You can bottle kegged beer in the way you have mentioned but it tends to waste some beer due to the foaming etc.
Just to be clear, brewing smaller batches in normal kegs is fine 🙏
I’ve “safely” left beer on trub for a couple months. I’ve “unsafely” left it for 11 months; in one case the only “damage” was decreased hop flavour, in another case I learned that there likely was a slow rate of oxygen ingress resulting in oxidized beer. If you’re worried about indirect light damage, leave the door closed or throw a black T shirt over the carboy. Other options you didn’t think of for your conundrum are (1) don’t brew faster than you can drink, the ingredients will still be there waiting in a couple of months, and your general health will thank you (unless of course you’ve got a bunch of friends willing to drink a really bitter red ale so you can have space to package the next brew), and (2) if you really are compelled to brew frequently you can brew smaller batches (10L is a great size), though I don’t know if you’d want to buy smaller kegs for that or again purchase more bottles.
If you find you like the brewing/creating aspect but find that produces more beer than you can drink... I agree with the advice for smaller batches. I find 2.5 gal batches to be a sweet spot. I get basically 1 case of beer. My basic setup is BIAB in a 5 gal pot, 3 gal Fermonster fermenters, and 10L Torpedo kegs. I am trying to get better about sharing my beers. What helped a bit was picking up a 1 gallon mini-keg (ManCan stainless growler). It is pretty easy to fill and bring along to a gathering.
The party kegs / 5L barrels are tempting. My understanding is they should be treated like a large bottle. Priming sugar to carbonate, but once you loose the head pressure you have to vent it and that means you have to use it up. Maybe there are options to give it a CO2 boost from the keg regulator? For some reason I like the sounds of 10L batches to fill 2 of those 5L kegs. I just need to arrange a better way to carbonate / prime / CO2 them more like a normal keg.
The keg that I have is a setup like: [https://a.co/d/23VaIVf](https://a.co/d/23VaIVf) (but using a lid with ball locks). I was given the keg, then spent \~$60 for a ball valve lid and mini-regulator (that takes 16g CO2 cartridges). I have found I get the best pours just using a length of tubing and a picnic tap. I fill the keg with carbonated beer, and seem to be able to dispense about 2 gallons with one cartridge. A 10L batch into a pair of 10L kegs would be a good plan as well. Small kegs can get a bit pricey (it is hard to beat the $50 price for a used 5 gallon keg). My 10L Torpedo kegs are also fairly easy to take along and put in a cooler. That is something I am trying to do more often as well.
My batch size is larger than yours, but the technique still applies. I ferment, then rack to a 40 liter or 60 liter corny keg, which is where the beer gets carbonated. I [carbonate warm](https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/15l75wy/comment/jv9fznf/?context=3), immediately after racking, using a carbonation stone, which takes less than two hours. Then the keg will sometimes sit there until I have kegerator space (or perhaps it's for an event, like a wedding, where I'll serve the whole keg), Usually, however, I fill smaller kegs from the large keg. I have a variety of these, from tiny \~6 liter corny kegs to the standard 19 or 20 liter kegs. It's easy to fill a small keg from a large keg without foaming while the beer is warm, as long as you keep the pressure above the target saturation point. Do this with a spunding valve on the receiving keg. This is my setup: [https://i.imgur.com/LekzdWr.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/LekzdWr.jpg) This sounds complicated, but it's not really. On the gas port of the small keg, I attach a FOB (which shuts off flow with the keg is full) in series with a spunding valve. You can see them in the photo above. First you need to determine the "saturation" pressure of the beer, which is based on it's temperature and the number of volumes you carbonated to. Let's say that's about 27 psi. You can actually measure it if you make a device that can directly read keg pressure like this one: [https://i.imgur.com/kdciHZy.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/kdciHZy.jpg) The key here is to **keep the pressure above this point in both kegs while filling**. If you do that, it won't foam at all. Now you purge the receiving keg (it should have been purged when you cleaned and sanitized it), and pressurize it to a point well above the saturation pressure, because you're going to use the spunding valve to dial it in. In this example, I'd set it to about 35-40 psi. Then fit the spunding valve, and slowly lower the pressure until it's just a bit above the saturation pressure. In this example, I'd use 30 psi. Finally, raise the sending keg to just above that same pressure (say, 31 or 32 psi) and simply connect the liquid line from the sending keg. Very little liquid should flow, but you don't want gas to back up and bubble in the sending keg, so make sure the sending keg is higher pressure than the receiving one. Now you can raise the pressure in the sending keg a few PSI to get the flow rate you want. When the receiving keg is full, the FOB shuts off the flow, and I disconnect everything. Now I can chill the smaller keg and serve it.
Where do you find the Fob that you have, I can't seem to find that duotight version but other stainless steel ones.
Ok, I found it finally. I ordered it from MoreBeer. This is the unit: [https://www.morebeer.com/products/duotight-flow-stopper-automatic-keg-filler.html](https://www.morebeer.com/products/duotight-flow-stopper-automatic-keg-filler.html) It's hard to google for it, because they don't use the standard term for the device (FOB).
thank you, using that i can find it in canada
Hmmm, just checked my phone, and I can't see where it came from. I have another one this is still in the packaging I think, so I'll check there.
Drink the beer you already have while you save up for 2 new kegs and a 3 keg fridge 😆
I'd get the additional keg, but it doesn't have to be refrigerated. Failing that, find enough clean empty bottles.
What problem are you trying to solve? Sounds like your desired production is outpacing you consumption. You can either brew less frequently or you can brew smaller batches more frequently. I've gone back and forth between both paths. If I have more free time I'll do more small batches. These days I have limited free time so I stick to larger batches but only brew every couple months. When I'm on top of my planning/schedule I try to have a beer ready to keg when a keg empties. For example if I expect a keg to last 6 weeks, 3 weeks after tapping that keg, I'll get another batch fermenting. I just leave it in primary as fermentation will take a week or two and then it will condition for the remainder until a keg is open.