I thought this was a good read. What do you think? Anything you’d add/change/delete?
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2013/02/caramunich-isnt-caramelize-munich-and-9.html
Great article Jimmy. I use the same hop back method (Blichmann Hop Rocket) to finish hop my IPA’s and have to say that it produces awesome hop flavor/aroma.
Thanks for posting.
Good stuff. I think it is always important to challenge the “accepted truths” of homebrewing.
Look at all those no chill freaks down south 
I guess for me, kegging really is a time saver over bottling. I understand his point however.
Cheers.
I did find myself wondering about that last time I took apart a keg to clean it. Secondary fermentation would have to be on my top 10.
Also
Say whaaat?
Haven’t read the post yet but if anyone thinks you don’t save time kegging over bottling they’re definitely “mad”. Takes 10-15 minutes to strip apart a corny and another 10-15 minutes to rack. And I would argue it isn’t necessary to strip apart a corny every time. I also think homebrewed draft beer often tastes better than homebrew bottled beer due to oxidation in bottled beer.
Another great article from Mike. This guy has been a huge inspiration and technical reference for me. Can’t wait for his book!
Also don’t agree with the kegging vs. bottling thing. I think kegs are pretty crucial to professional-tasting homebrew.
I must confess that I had been duped about the CaraMunich and CaraVienna. Seems like it’s time for an experiment to taste the difference between CaraMunich and Caramalt.
J
FWIW - there is also filling CO2 tanks, cleaning draft lines, maybe carbonating if you do a shake method … But for me the biggest time-suck of bottling is delabelling bottles. If I were buying nice new bottles it would be faster, but more expensive. Then again, my kegs/kegorator cost as much as dozens of cases of bottles.
These are 2 that I always bring up…
“Craft brewers do (insert technique) or use (insert equipment) so homebrewers should aspire to as well”
“Boiling wort for a long time caramelizes it”
But, OTOH, all probrewers should have a 600+ gallon blue cooler and batch sparge. 
Well, that goes without saying…
Still, bottling 5 gallons is a 1+ hour job just to put the beer in the bottles. I think it is longer than that even. And it is harder work than kegging, regardless of the time saving.
Imagine the size of that braid! :o
Hits some good points, some contradictions and some nonsense.
I’m just curious what you thought was nonsense.
Well, kegging is much faster than bottling. Especially as the amount of beer increases.
For me, kegging takes the tedious end of brewing (label peeling,bottle sanitation,etc) out of the equation, arguments aside.
I think his point is that if you take into account ALL the tasks involved with kegging, not just the wracking part, it’s comparable.
I don’t know if that’s true for everyone though. for instance, I don’t have tap lines to take a apart and clean all the time. Mostly I put some hot PBW in the empty rinsed keg and run it off through my cobra taps, follow with hot water rinse and sanitizer. but I bet each time a keg kicks I spend ~.5 hours dealing with it, another .25-.5 actually wracking beer to the keg. Then once in a while I have to take the keg and taps apart to clean deeply. every once in a while I have to drive ~1 hour round trip to get co2, etc.
bottling takes ~1 hours on the day but I have to spend maybe another hour delabeling and rinsing bottles. so I bet it’s pretty close.
But he clearly disregards all the tasks that go into bottling. Getting bottles, cleaning them constantly, snaitizing them, caps etc.
I guess I don’t spend nearly as much time cleaning kegs and keg hardware as you, even with free leaf hops in them.
Getting 10 gallons into kegs vs bottles saves me at least half the time- all things considered.
Rinse bottles after use, cover in tin foil and bake. I realize the baking takes an hour, but I don’t actually have to do anything during that time so I don’t count it. I do both and I think the time savings of kegging is often overstated.