Cornelius kegs are where it’s at! So much easier than messing with bottles. Plus, there is nothing like drinking fresh beer a couple days after kegging. I know, the rule of thumb is one week in the primary, two weeks in the secondary, and three weeks in the keg but mine come out GREAT after one week primary, one week secondary, two days in keg with 30 psig CO2. After two days I just turn down the pressure and drink away!

You will really enjoy kegging.

One thing, I live in Southern Maryland and my water tastes fine so I figured I would try making two batches with tap water instead of bottled water. Well they came out pretty bad. They were a bronze color instead of a nice gold, plus I could absolutely taste an off-flavor, almost yeast like. I made those two batches twice before and once after, all with bottled water and they came out a lot better.

For the extra $5, for me it is definitely worth it.

The sugars and enzymes in the extract aid in extracting alpha acids (bitterness) from the hops. Boiling hops with a small amount of extract will result in smoother hop flavors and appropriate bitterness that you can’t achieve with plain water alone.

So that’s why I was going to do it that way.