Filtering inline to faucet

I've seen many of the filtering setups people have created, and it seems like most put the beer in one keg, and push it with CO2 through a filter of some kind to another keg. I don't filter but I understand why you would want to do this (for instance if you were traveling with the keg).

But has anyone placed a filter between the keg and the beer faucet? So whatever beer gets poured it is filtered on the way to the pint glass? This would also have the advantage that you could keep the filter in the keezer, to inhibit bacterial growth. Say every 2 or 6 kegs you could clean the filter housing and replace the element.

Just curious if anyone has tried it?

IIRC, many have problems just getting one keg through the filter before it clogs.

I don't filter my beer, I let it naturally clear in the secondary. You have to be real careful with your filter sizes. What you're getting in clarity, you give up in flavor, because as it's stripping out some of the haze it's also taking flavor with it.

Cheers

~r~

beltbuckle said:

But has anyone placed a filter between the keg and the beer faucet? So whatever beer gets poured it is filtered on the way to the pint glass?

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The obvious problem would be how to balance the CO2 pressure with an inline filter.

I am pretty sure the balancing could be taken care of fairly easily by experimentation. Obviously we would probably need a longer stretch of beer line to offset the increase in pressure to drive beer through the filter at an acceptable rate, but the filter would almost take care of that by itself by creating a pressure drop on the output side.

beltbuckle said:

I am pretty sure the balancing could be taken care of fairly easily by experimentation. Obviously we would probably need a longer stretch of beer line to offset the increase in pressure to drive beer through the filter at an acceptable rate, but the filter would almost take care of that by itself by creating a pressure drop on the output side.

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Actually, the opposite would be true. You would need less tubing. The filter adds resistance. You don't solve that by adding even more. You may find that the length of tubing you need is less than zero. In other words, you may require a higher than desired pressure just to push through the filter. I've never filtered, so I don't really know.

Either way, I don't think it would be a show-stopper. I was hoping to find someone that had tried it, but may have to try it myself for an experiment.

beltbuckle said:

Either way, I don't think it would be a show-stopper. I was hoping to find someone that had tried it, but may have to try it myself for an experiment.

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Yup, we appreciate self-motivation to try new things around here.

I think you are supposed to filter uncarbonated beer. I'm thinking you would have a foamy mess trying to push carbed beer through a filter.

Edcculus said:

I think you are supposed to filter uncarbonated beer. I'm thinking you would have a foamy mess trying to push carbed beer through a filter.

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Hey, he may discover a novel way to serve a stout with a creamy head and filter it at the same time. Inline filter = restrictor plate.

I've never filtered, but I'm pretty sure they aren't meant to hold pressure either. Regular filtering doesn't count as "holding pressure" since you are just pushing the beer with the lowest psi possible.

I'm talking about using something like a 5 micron house filter. Those, of course, are rated for pressures that they would never see in this type of setup.

That might work then. I thought you were talking about one of those disc type filters