Balanced beer lines

[Leann ull]

Whoa thats mental I've never seen so much beer line, please double check temperature in your keezer and beer poured.
What taps have you, have they flow control?
I'll post my own tomorrow

[molc]

I run the same line setup for my perlick which is at room temperature since I have no keezer, using an inline chiller so I have cool beer. Thing is like a fire hose if I don't vent the keg before serving and always pretty foamy.

I punched the numbers into online calculators and it shouldn't need to be so long so I am quite confused as well.

Would love to get a keezer or kegerator but that might be a step too far for the significant other. It seems I have "too much beer shit"

[Beermonger]

Thanks, Ciderhead, good to hear that response. I'd hate if you said it's normal!

I'm not sure at all what's going on. I recalibrated all my STCs and thermometers about two weeks ago in ice water and since then I've had the STC probe immersed in a 1.5 litre bottle of water in the keezer.

I'll check all the temps I can tonight. I already have one of those 1-foot long boil thermometers hanging from the wire shelf already. It trust its opinion since the Great Calibration and it's reading 3* right now (it's measuring the air in the upper part of the freezer, which is set to 2.7).

Taps are picnic for the mo. I did try a flow control one, but it didn't help too much. What kind of psi can the flow control drop, do you know?

I don't really trust the 3/8" line. It's got a measured ID of about 1/4" - that's 6.25 mm. I can't see that providing much resistance. This seems to be backed up by the typical psi dropped per foot rating you can find online, like on your BeerSmith link. The resistance only really starts going up below 1/4" ID: shaving 1/16" off the ID gives you about a fourfold jump in resistance. Pubs use 3/8", but they have longer pulls and more resistive elements in the line (valves, coolers).

I was wondering how homebrewers manage that. I guess the "two pressure" approach is OK for some. It doesn't seem right to me, though .

[Leann ull]

Taps are picnic for the mo.

Unless you set serving to 2-3 psi you have no chance, I have 2 of these for parties, spend 2 mins watching him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3SgNUQ3eks

[SkiBeagle]

Nice one, CH. I always wondered how the tap-on-keg behaved. Looks pretty good.

I get a nice pour from a party tap only if I drop the pressure to about 0.1-0.2 bar, but that has the big pvc firehose on it.

Beermonger, I just got a couple of metres of HBCs 5/16" OD hard beer line last week. It is proper beer line, Valpar Gen-X 5/16" OD x 0.21" ID, if I recall correctly. So it's a little bigger than 3/16" (0.1875") ID. Don't know what the resistance/foot is, Valpar don't seem to quote it. They do mention that it's Oxygen permeation is way lower than their previous version. They also say it's ultra smooth inner so probably SFA resistance, and it is a bit stiff. I'm waiting on some JG fittings to wire it up to me new Tof tap, so I'll let you know how it goes.

http://www.andale.com.au/media/pdfs/news/d67d8ab4f4c10bf22aa353e27879133c_1.pdf

[craiclad]

craiclad, sorry to hijack the thread. It seems like we're dealing with the exact same problem—and we're not the only ones—so I thought it might be worth sharing what I've tried.

Seems like it's impossible to find 3/16" ID tubing over here

This should be it: https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/beergas-line-516-od-per-metre-hard-p-72.html

I have some on order, so I'll let you know if it's what I expect in a day or two.

Beermonger, don't worry at all more discussion means more answers! I'm afraid that the 5/16" line is NOT in fact 3/16" ID, but actually quite a few mm larger. That is the size tubing I currently have on my keg, and according to the calculators this length (11') would serve perfectly at 14 PSI, but I'm having a tough time serving at 5! By my calculations we would need around 40' to have a line balanced to serve at the correct pressure needed to maintain carbonation with this size of tubing. I also ordered some 3/16" OD tubing from the UK a few weeks ago and it is entirely too small to use for our purposes. It slides freely through the 5/16" tubing too, so I know for a fact that 5/16" tubing has an ID larger than 3/16". I think it's quite unfortunate that we can't get the correct size line over here as dropping the pressure in the keg every time you want a pint is quite a pain and causes some foaming in its own way (gas coming out of suspension in the beer lines - note that these air pockets supposedly do not occur in a properly balanced system).

[krockett]

My 5/16 OD line (actually 8 mm) has an ID of 5.4 mm.

According to this - http://www.mikesoltys.com/2012/09/17/determining-proper-hose-length-for-your-kegerator/ - which is the only calculator I can find to work out resistance for line diameters that arent exactly 3/16 or  1/4 - is supposed to be fairly accurate. For 3/16 I would need 11 foot (seems to be the recommended level of most forums) but the extra .7 mm means I apparently need 17 foot of this line at 12 psi and 40 fahrenheit. I've just rigged it up at 17 foot per tap but its too early to say how effective it is. As far as I can gather shouldnt be foamy - might just be too slow.

Will update.

[craiclad]

My 5/16 OD line (actually 8 mm) has an ID of 5.4 mm.

According to this - http://www.mikesoltys.com/2012/09/17/determining-proper-hose-length-for-your-kegerator/ - which is the only calculator I can find to work out resistance for line diameters that arent exactly 3/16 or  1/4 - is supposed to be fairly accurate. For 3/16 I would need 11 foot (seems to be the recommended level of most forums) but the extra .7 mm means I apparently need 17 foot of this line at 12 psi and 40 fahrenheit. I've just rigged it up at 17 foot per tap but its too early to say how effective it is. As far as I can gather shouldnt be foamy - might just be too slow.

Will update.

Would love to hear your findings Molc, I have a bunch of 5/16" tubing and it would be pretty convenient not to have to adjust pressure every time I serve a beer!

[Qs]

Taps are picnic for the mo.

Unless you set serving to 2-3 psi you have no chance

I've got my picnic taps pouring nicely at around 12 PSI. Beer is carbed to the same. Took my ages to settle on that and TBH sometimes I'd like a little more carbonation but its as good as I've managed on the picnic tap. Really need to sort out my fake chinese perlicks soon.

[craiclad]

Taps are picnic for the mo.

Unless you set serving to 2-3 psi you have no chance

I've got my picnic taps pouring nicely at around 12 PSI. Beer is carbed to the same. Took my ages to settle on that and TBH sometimes I'd like a little more carbonation but its as good as I've managed on the picnic tap. Really need to sort out my fake chinese perlicks soon.

What size/length lines do you use?

[Tom]

Wading in here, sorry.

If there is any positive temperature change, or negative pressure change in the line at all, you'll create froth, which will foam out no matter what the serving pressure is. Double check that the line doesn't increase in diameter through the run (3/8 to 5/16 ok, but an increase of 5/16 to 3/8, for example, is not), or that any part gets warm, and finally that the JGs are connected properly. If a little bit of air can get in it'll create froth problems.

Not saying that any of that is causing your problem, but I recently had a bad foaming keg in spite of EVERYTHING running according to the rules... except that one JG fitting wasn't tight! Took me an embarassingly long time to figure out.

[Will_D]

This subject is yet another black art!

Yes, there are some online calculators that will give you a keg pressure (say 30 psi), to push beer through 40 foot of 3/8"*   (*:  JG and all push fit fittings are numbered by OD) so at the tap there is a dispense pressure of say 5 psi.

This is how the big boys do it - but guess what?  they cheat by having the beer at a constant temperature by using a "Python" (Insulated beer lines with glycol cooling).

So really for us its a question of fine tunning our systems!

[Qs]

Taps are picnic for the mo.

Unless you set serving to 2-3 psi you have no chance

I've got my picnic taps pouring nicely at around 12 PSI. Beer is carbed to the same. Took my ages to settle on that and TBH sometimes I'd like a little more carbonation but its as good as I've managed on the picnic tap. Really need to sort out my fake chinese perlicks soon.

What size/length lines do you use?

3m of 3/8 OD. I'd say buy a good length and keep trimming it back until you hit the sweet spot. I tried 4m and 3m at the same time on different kegs and the 3m was way better.

[krockett]

17 foot works with the 8mm * 5.4 mm line. job done.

[krockett]

I can confirm that my beer is no longer flat 

And for the first time I can use the valves on the side of the taps to control the flow, which I never could at 5 psi. Didnt know what they were for tbh until now..