Eventually most homebrewers begin to think about
kegging their homebrew rather than dealing with the tedious
process of storing, cleaning, sanitizing, rinsing, drying,
filling and capping at least two cases worth of bottles every
single time they brew. Kegging beer is faster than bottling beer
and force-carbonated beer is ready to drink faster than
bottle-conditioned beer. However, there are also drawbacks to
kegging beer. In addition to all of the kegging equipment, you
also need someplace to keep the keg cool (which means a
refrigerator) and a way to dispense the beer (which means a tap
system). Furthermore, kegs and kegged beer do not travel well.
Therefore, having homebrew on tap is potentially expensive and
not always convenient if you need homebrew on the go.
The most popular method of kegging homebrew is
to use a Cornelius keg. In fact, the term "Cornelius keg" is
applied generally to any stainless steel soda keg that may or
may not have been manufactured by the IMI Cornelius Company.
Firestone is another common manufacturer. The Cornelius keg is
simply a cylindrical stainless steel vessel that holds
approximately 5 gallons of beer - perfect for a regular batch of
beer.
