How much line do I need to get a good flow from the keg?

Carbonating around 15 psi in the fridge...(2-2.5 volumes)...how much line do I need to get a good flow to the faucet/tap?

Right now I use between 3 and 5 feet and it's blowing out like crazy out of my black handheld tap.

After it is carbed drop the pressure down to 10psi. At 15psi you'd need a lot of tubing. I think I have about 3 or 4 feet and I usually serve at about 8 or 9psi.

I'd like to respectfully disagree with weizenheimer. Whatever your equilibrium carb pressure is (the number you got off the carb chart) should ideally be your serving pressure. If it's 8, it's 8. If it's 15, then 15. Make your serving line capable of your maximum used pressure. For me, it's 10 feet of 3/16" line per faucet and I don't ever have to worry about it again.

Here ya go

Balance keg calculator

I finally broke down and went with the same method that Bobby M uses. 10' is simple and since the beverage tubing I have comes in 20' lenghts I don't have to worry about having a couple feet of useless tubing lying around.

McKBrew said:

I finally broke down and went with the same method that Bobby M uses. 10' is simple and since the beverage tubing I have comes in 20' lenghts I don't have to worry about having a couple feet of useless tubing lying around.

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With that long of a serving line, doesn't it come out slowly and with no head? The slowly part doesn't bother me, but just like when pouring a beer from a bottle, I like some head with my beer (no wise-cracks :cross.

I have no problems with getting head, at least from my beer.

Sometimes pouring from my taps with a lower carbed beer I'll have not much head, but I solve that at the end of the pour by pouring into the middle of the glass or partially closing the tap to cause it to foam and end up getting really good head

I started with 6 feet of line, but had too much foaming at 12 psi. Lowering it to 9 psi didn't keep my beer carbonated enough. I now use 8 feet of line (at 12 psi), and it's perfect!

Freezer is at 39-40F, regulator set to 10psi, 5ft liquid line.

Belgian style pale ale (1.014) pours with nice head, stout (1.020) no head. I reduce the liquid line to 4ft (for both), same thing. Bump up pressure to 12psi, stout now has minimal head.
I don't want to increase pressure any more because I'm pushing the upper limit of CO2 volumes I want for the stout as it is, so I guess I need to shorten the stout liquid line some more? 4ft is an awful big difference from 10ft, but I'll try dropping to 3ft and see how it goes. It'll have to be the closest keg to the taps though as much shorter and it won't reach at all.

Awesome, I'll get 10 ft per tap and cut it down until I'm happy-- Thanks guys

I have found that my stouts don't develop as nice a head during the pour as my pale ales do, but I just do as mentioned before and get a little rough with them, seems like stouts get off on that for some reason.

Head is created by knocking CO2 out of solution during the pour. If you want less, cascade down the side of the glass. If you want more, drop the glass down at the last 1/4 of the pour so the beer is splashing into the center. When you play with your line length to dial in how much head you get, you're screwed when you want a beer with slightly higher carbonation.