tap 15' from keg? can it be done?

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Zeppman

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Hey everyone,

I have a friend who asked me about this... I wasn't quite sure how to answer him. He is currently building a house, and wants to see if there is a way where he can store a keg in his basement, and run a line approximately 5 feet horizontally and 10 feet vertically to a tap on the 1st floor of the house. Obviously this presents all sorts of problems with carbonation, beer temp, and leaving approx. 3 beers in the line at a time. Is there a way for this to work for him? I was trying to think how some bars do it... because when I've seen kegs blow, some bars go to the back room to change them out, come back and start pouring again...

Thanks!
 
Long runs like this are how bars do it. They usually use glycol chillers to cool the lines. Heavy insulation as well.

The glycol chiller and lines are spendy.
 
I would think that you would be pouring warm beer unless you find a way to cool it down.

I know some restaurants would have their pop kegs located pretty far from the fountain. Did they cool the line or insulate it?
 
Let me guess , your "friend" wants to mount a tap handle on the arm of "his" lazyboy,so "he" doesn't have to go anywhere to fill up.Imagine watchin golf this summer without missing any of the action.Now comes the problem with urinating, posting to a truckers forum might get you some answers. And remember, your among friends here at HBT, let your "friend" know that. We don't judge people,we judge beer.
 
rwanger: thank you... that may be the route he'll go.

and seriously... this is my friend. If I had $300k to spend... I'd build a nano/micro brewery... not a house :)
 
Check micromatic.com. They sell trunk lines that are insulated and contain beer lines and glycol lines already bundled. Also, going 10 feet vertical is a long ways. At this point, you probably can't push it with co2 as it would overcarbonate. They make blenders so you can use some co2 and some nitrogen (which comes out of solution) to push it harder without overcarbonating. They also make beer pumps (probably the cheaper route) that use air or co2 pressure to operate and give the beer a boost. Micromatic sells all this stuff and are very helpful. They deal with both the smallest home scale to very large commercial stuff. They'll have what is needed.

EDIT: I would recommend this. He'll need an air compressor to drive it.
http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/keg-pumps-pid-MP-090.html
 
Fifteen feet is not considered a long draw, you should be fine with straight co2. The lines need to be balanced with the right restriction, so vinyl tubing is out,unless it's very large in diameter, which won't work. You need to use poly-barrier tubing with less resistance than vinyl, than choke it with 3/16th vinyl at tower to fine tune resistance to the proper balance. This is providing that the beer is kept at serving temp. thru-out the entire length of run. You might be able to get away with an air-cooled shaft instead of a costly glycol power-pak set-up. Hope this helps!!! Cheers!!! http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer-edu/beer-questions/remote-dispensing-cid-2462.html
 
I wouldn't bet money that air circulation will suffice for a 15 foot run. That's a lot of beer to cool.


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That PVC/computer fan air circulatory idea is friggen awesome. I only have like a 5' run, but I think I'll still go this route to make sure it keeps the lines as cold as possible.

Only thing I'd modify is to use a 110v fan instead of a 12v one (radio shack has them, i add them to stereo equipment for extra cooling), so you could just run it off the main wiring of the fridge.
 
A hand pump like you would see in a London pub for cask conditioned ales would be a sweet setup.I remember seeing an article in Zymurgy years back where they used a marine style sink pump.But I do believe co2 would push the beer up 10 feet without a problem.
 
I wouldn't bet money that air circulation will suffice for a 15 foot run. That's a lot of beer to cool.


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I have a 18-20FT run at our brewpub, and are cooling 10 lines with a 270cfm air-duct blower that is blowing up 3" flex pipe with lines that is inside of 4" insulated flex. The cold air should recriculate from 3" back to cooler via 4" tube, making a continuous circulation of cold air.This works well for me, except in really hot summers without the A/C cranked in the tap-room, I get a little foaming if theres a long time between pours. I do agree forced-air is not as good as glycol, but the cost of even a small chiller brand-new is gonna run $600-700+. This doesn't even include the python trunk-line that runs about $7-8 a foot for a 4-product line. I think the difference comes down to cost, $1000+ for glycol vs. $300-400 for air-shaft. Don't get me wrong, the glycol is far superior, just more $$$. Anything under 25FT run is generally considered a short draw, as long as there isn't alot of 90* bends in the run. Anything 25FT up to 1000FT must use glycol and poly-barrier line that has low resistance.I will admit that setting up the glycol way is so much easier and less work. I think you could get away with a 131CFM blower with 1/4 or 5/16 vinyl, with 2" inside 3" flex-tube. Just my $.02. Cheers!!!
 
I run my lines about five feet away with an air cooled system as described. I'd be cautious though about the size of the fan. You'll need some pretty decent cfm rating. 270cfm is a fair amount, so i don't think we're talking about a computer fan here.

Here's mine. Still need to do finishing touches, but the beer part works.

8217daf1.jpg
 
A computer fan will not suffice, as mentioned above. Micro-matic rates a 51cfm up to 15ft max. The 131cfm at 20ft max, and the 273cfm at 25ft max. the more flow is always better, but 273cfm is fairly large. Heres a link below. Micro-matic is expensive, there are cheaper sources for the same blowers out there!!! Foxx/Banner/Rapids, etc. Cheers!!

http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-beer/air-cooled-cid-151.html
 
10ft of vertical rise will provide only 5psi of static resistance, we still need to provide about another 10psi of resistance thru the 5ft of trunk-line. which can easily be done with vinyl. The only time you must use blended gas to push, is when we start needing over 15psi to get to taps with proper pour rate. This happens with long-draw systems with 25FT & up runs, where we can't build it with a low resistance of 10-15psi, like the short-draw. Cheers!!
 
Sorry!! I meant 15ft of trunk-line. So 1/4 vinyl will give about, 15ftx.65= 9.75psi of resistance. 5/16 vinyl would be 15ftx.40=6psi of resistance. So 1/4 inch will have a total resistance of 14.75psi and 5/16 would be 11psi.
 
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