Bottling five gallons of beer can take an hour or more, but kegging the same batch requires only 10–15 minutes. Sanitizing one keg is much easier than sanitizing 50+ bottles. And there’s something very satisfying about coming home from work and pouring a pint or two of beer you made yourself.
Getting into kegging requires some upfront cost, but it needn’t be prohibitive. In fact, if you have a spare refrigerator lying around, you just need a few things to get started.
Kegs
In theory, you could get started with just one keg, but having two or more is preferable because after you polish off that first keg of homebrew, you’re going to want a second one waiting in the wings. It’s most convenient to choose either ball lock or pin lock kegs and stick with them, but adapters are available in case you change your mind later on.