The reasons to take up kegging are many:
- You need to sanitize and fill only one vessel.
- You can precisely dial in your desired carbonation level.
- You suddenly acquire scores of new “friends.”
One of the most attractive aspects to kegging, however, is the convenience of having beer ready to drink on your terms. Bottle conditioning is subject to the whims and proclivities of yeast cells, but kegging lets one reliably introduce carbon dioxide according to a predictable schedule.
Every brewer develops his or her own process for getting CO2 into the keg, but most of us fall into one of four basic camps.