OK convince me, bottles or kegs?

[Chris The Fish]

im planning on going a half and half, with a pressure barrel and some bottles.

If i ferment in a 5 gal bucket, and then transfer the ale to the two different types, when is the best time to bottle?

would it be best to transfer the whole lot into the barrel for a week or so before i bottle it, or do the bottling straight from the fermenting bucket when it has stopped?

[Chris The Fish]

cheers Daab,

do you use a specialist priming sugar when transfering from the fermenter?

is this when you'd normally use a substitue such as dme?

[Chris The Fish]

the other option though is to add the priming sugars to a bottling bucket, rack the beer to it, then rack off what you want to a keg then bottle the rest.

whats the benefit of this?

wont this just add another layer of possible infection/oxidisation to the fermented wort?

[Calum]

whats the benefit of this?

wont this just add another layer of possible infection/oxidisation to the fermented wort?

I agree with Daab. I prefer to use a bottling bucket as it gets the beer off the yeast layer and also allows some of the other debris to settle out before I start to bottle. I also boil the sugar up before adding to the bucket (put the sugar solution in first and then the beer to allow the transferring do your mixing - this saves having to sterlise a mixing paddle) .

To remove the worries of introducing any problems I use the bottling bucket as my bottle steriliser. This way I know that my bucket is also completely sterlised. As for oxidation problem, just make sure your tubing is always submerged when transferring to the bottling bucket.

If you don't already have one I would recommend the "Little Bottler" as it fills the bottles up from the bottom and reduces the amount of oxygen than can get into the beer (it also speeds up the process). Hop and Grape sell them for about a fiver (the actual bottling bit would cost a quid but it comes with a tap).

[Chris The Fish]

you've got me sold on a bottle bucket, using it sterilise the bottles before hand is a great idea.

cheers

Chris