Bottle or barrel?

[TheGuzzler]

Hi Everyone!
I am The Guzzler and would like to introduce myself. As a novice to the art I have a thousand questions to ask but will start with two. I have been using good quality kits so far, using good brewing sugar and yeast and following Jims good advice. However, I find bottling forty pints a very time-consuming business and have decided that using a two-gallon pressure barrel and twenty bottles instead might be a good way forward. If I use a two-gallon barrel, will I need to use co2? And do you keep 'topping up' the co2 to keep the beer longer?
Yours beerfully, The Guzzler...

[MightyMouth]

It depends on how quickly you drink whether you will need CO2 or not. If the beer is going to sit there half full for any length of time then you will want to top it up with co2 to protect it from oxidation. If you don't like bottling why don't you keg it all?

[pokerswazi]

I too hated bottling at first. the hassle of steralizing all the bottles, rinsing them and then filling them. A few things changed that. I started using a bottling stick, made filling much easier. I got a bottle tree with a rinser, made rinsing super easy. Finally I started using iodophor to steralize, the contact time and just a single rinse made the whole process quicker and easier. I do love my keg though and it is far easier than bottles. I use both but only have one keg and brew beer faster than i can empty the keg so end up bottling most beers. My only problem with bottles now is that i give away a lot more beer.

[escapizm]

I too hated bottling at first. the hassle of steralizing all the bottles, rinsing them and then filling them. A few things changed that. I started using a bottling stick, made filling much easier. I got a bottle tree with a rinser, made rinsing super easy. Finally I started using iodophor to steralize, the contact time and just a single rinse made the whole process quicker and easier. I do love my keg though and it is far easier than bottles. I use both but only have one keg and brew beer faster than i can empty the keg so end up bottling most beers. My only problem with bottles now is that i give away a lot more beer.

I concur, i use a bottle stick, idophor, bottle tree, bench capper... Its not that painfull at all you soon get into the groove

[MightyMouth]

Up until now I have been bottling from spring to autumn and kegging from autumn to spring but I am in the process of building a kegerator so will probably stop bottling altogether once I can cool the kegs in the summer but I agree that bottling is not that bad once you get a bottling stick and a bottle tree, I use starsan rather than Iodophor but the principle it the same. I am not sure how others use their bottling stick but I attach some tubing to my FV then put the bottling stick at the end of the tubing and place all my bottles on the floor within reach of the stick and just move the stick from bottle to bottle. Takes no time at all really.

[TheGuzzler]

Thanks guys,
As I'm new to this I want you to know that what you've told me is obvious, however as a newbie I've also just learnt something obvious so I'm now kicking myself in shame!!! It never occurred to me that a bottling-tree even existed, even though beerboons must live in them...
The Guzzler

[a-slayer]

I have bottled my brews for a long time now, I use the old quart cider bottles with the internal threaded stopper
and find that 10 gallons only takes about forty minutes to bottle.
After the best bit (drinking the contents) I rinse the bottle out
and drop in a campden tablet so it is all clean ready for the next brew, never had a bottle go off yet.
I find the quality of the beer is far better than when I used to keg it, also easy to put some of the stronger brews
in the cellar for six months to really mature. I for one shall stick with bottles and am always on the lookout for more.

[thedeckking]

As a mainly lager drinker I have to agree that bottles are the way to go and the more you do it the quicker and easier it gets.
I rinse my bottles after drinking and then the day before I bottle, I make up a batch of sterilising fluid in my spare fermenting bucket and fill all the bottles using the tap and bottling stick. This also means I have a FV sterilised to rack off into for priming (2 birds with 1 stone ). I usually have a couple of brews (I do wine too) to bottle so empty the fluid into the next batch of bottles to save making more up.
To rinse the bottles I have one of these:
http://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/catalog/de ... BOT2156057
attached to my garden tap which makes it a really quick job.