Forced to use 1/4" (not 3/16") for 15' beer line?

Hi everyone,

In the process of putting together a kegging system with the following parameters:

Distance from kegs to taps: 15'
Height differential: + 3' (taps are 3' higher than kegs)
Beer Temp: around 36-40 F

Using these balancing instructions I get the following:

With 1/4" ID hose (0.7 resistance):

Regulature Pressure = (15 * 0.7) + (3 * 0.5) = 12 psi

Sounds about right where I want to have the beer carbonated from what I've read (10-15 psi seems 'normal' for most styles), but with 1/4" hose I'm losing about 5 oz of beer in the line as it'll likely be warm (not good). So how about 3/16" hose?

With 3/16" ID hose (2.7 resistance):

Regulature Pressure = (15 * 2.7) + (3 * 0.5) = 42 psi !!

42 psi from what I've read sounds WAAY too high!
But I'd only use about 2.5 oz of beer this way...

I can't:

- move the taps any closer to the keg freezer
- raise the freezer significantly
- chill the lines

Am I missing something here? Am I basically forced to use 1/4" hose?

Here's my layout:



The freezer goes in the back room behind the in-wall fridge and the tap tower is going on the left side of the bar (near the beer mug wall). The lines will run inside the curved bar.

Thanks!

Kal

I personally can't help you, sorry!

I just wanted to say that is one nice bar.

I don't think it's unreasable to ditch the first 4-5 oz per tap on the first pour of the night. You'll wrap pipe insulation around all the lines so they'll only heat up after hours. You could run a copper loop along with the beer lines and pump glycol or water from a container in your freezer if you really want to go all out. I bet a pond pump in a corny would be fine for this purpose.

Yes, you're stuck with 1/4" line and ditching more beer on the first pull.
Or 3/16 and a really slow pour at a normal pressure.
Or go to nitro for everything. That would give you the push without the foam.

DeadYetiBrew said:

I personally can't help you, sorry! I just wanted to say that is one nice bar.

Click to expand...

Thanks! All it's missing is a few taps and I finally got the wife to agree after months of nagging. (She won't let be drill into the granite countertop though... so it's going to be a clamp-on tower for now). Though all credits for the bar go to the previous house owner (who was a tile/stone worker). When I first saw it when we were house hunting a few years ago, I knew that this was the one we wanted. Didn't care what the upstairs looked like at all.

Bobby_M said:

I don't think it's unreasable to ditch the first 4-5 oz per tap on the first pour of the night. You'll wrap pipe insulation around all the lines so they'll only heat up after hours. You could run a copper loop along with the beer lines and pump glycol or water from a container in your freezer if you really want to go all out. I bet a pond pump in a corny would be fine for this purpose.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input Bobby. My concern is really with our drinking habits... usually I just have one pint/night so most of the time I'm *always* going to be ditching 4-5 oz which over time ends up actually costing me almost 30% of a keg which just seems a bit wasteful. Been doing bottles for years for this reason but I'm so SICK of bottling and sediment.

So the insulation wouldn't help me out as the mean time between pours (MTBP? ) is too high. The cooper loop idea actually sounds easier than I imagined. I'll do so research on this. Any pictures/links how-to's that anyone would have upfront would be appreciated.

All that being said, do my calculations for 1/4" lines seem sound?

Kal

kal said:

Thanks! All it's missing is a few taps and I finally got the wife to agree after months of nagging. (She won't let be drill into the granite countertop though... so it's going to be a clamp-on tower for now).

Click to expand...

I don't blame her that's some nice stone. There are other ways to have the taps without the damaged counter... What's behind the counter down below, if you cut down on the length of the hose some of your problem would be solved, would it not?

david_42 said:

Yes, you're stuck with 1/4" line and ditching more beer on the first pull.
Or 3/16 and a really slow pour at a normal pressure.
Or go to nitro for everything. That would give you the push without the foam.

Click to expand...

Interesting. Is there any way to calculate just how slow the pour will be with 3/16? If I can try and keep the lines as short as possible (maybe 12') it may be possible then.

I suppose I could always buy a 12' piece of 3/16" and just try it out myself.

Regarding Nitro: This is news to me. I didn't know this was even a possibility. (I thought nitro was only used when you wanted a Guiness or Cream ale style head).

Kal

kal said:

Interesting. Is there any way to calculate just how slow the pour will be with 3/16? If I can try and keep the lines as short as possible (maybe 12') it may be possible then.

I suppose I could always buy a 12' piece of 3/16" and just try it out myself.

Regarding Nitro: This is news to me. I didn't know this was even a possibility. (I thought nitro was only used when you wanted a Guiness or Cream ale style head).

Kal

Click to expand...

That's actually a misnomer... I had my LHBS guy tell me that the Flying Saucer here in town serves all their beers on tap with Beer Gas because it's cleaner so there's less waste. He said he has a plain Co2 tap at home with flow controls and gets the same Guiness style head and body with it.

DeadYetiBrew said:

I don't blame her that's some nice stone. There are other ways to have the taps without the damaged counter... What's behind the counter down below, if you cut down on the length of the hose some of your problem would be solved, would it not?

Click to expand...

I think we had the same idea - I thought about putting a freezer/fridge underneath the bar as well but the problem is that the space is not deep or high enough for any sort of small freezer or fridge to store 5 gal corny kegs. If I *really* worked at it I may be able to fit in a tiny bar-type fridge and put in one or two 2.5-3 gal kegs but that's just too small... I know I'd be wanting to upgrade within months. My freezer in the back room holds 8 so that I can have 2 on tap and a bunch of others lagering or queued up.

What other ways are there to get taps without damaging the counter?

I'm considering this one from kegconnection.com:



(I'm hoping that the drip tray can be completely removed as I'd like to put it on the lower bar area that about 12" lower - I think it would look really odd to have the drip tray floating in space like that).

Kal

Wait a minute. If you have room for 8 cornies, there's no way in hell you'll be happy with 2 faucets. I'm thinking 4 minimum. If you watch craigslist or ebay, you can find a 4 faucet tower with an integrated glycol loop.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Brass-Beer-Tap-...ryZ67135QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

They'll clean up nice I'm sure with a little polish.

My idea for a cooling loop goes like this: You put a damaged unusable corny in the fridge with a pond pump down in the bottom. The output of the pump goes through some hose outside the fridge and attaches to some 3/8" copper. This copper goes down the insulated bundle of beer lines to your tower. If the tower has a glycol loop, it attaches there to cool the tower too. The return loop can be copper also assuming it still has some cooling capacity left. This goes back to the fridge and dumps back into the top of the corny for cooling again. At the very least it will keep your beerlines somewhere between ambient and fridge temps.

It's odd to me that you can't drill into the countertop for the tower. When would it not be appropriate to have a beer tower on a bar? It's like peanut butter and jelly.

For cooling the lines running that far you could run an insulated PVC pipe from the cooler to the tower and run your lines inside of it and then run a fan to blow cold air up the lines. this is what the local micro did when setting up thier catering hall.

Cheers

Bobby_M said:

Wait a minute. If you have room for 8 cornies, there's no way in hell you'll be happy with 2 faucets. I'm thinking 4 minimum. If you watch craigslist or ebay, you can find a 4 faucet tower with an integrated glycol loop.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Brass-Beer-Tap-...ryZ67135QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

They'll clean up nice I'm sure with a little polish.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I know - I've been thinking that a 4-way may be the way to go. But really the only reason I have room for 8 kegs is the size of the next-to-free freezer that I picked up. 8 fit in perfectly with almost zero room left over except for a little shelf.

The day before I came across it, 2 kegs on tap with a 3rd lagering was enough for me so I was looking for a smaller freezer, but then I came across one that I couldn't resist...

My idea for a cooling loop goes like this: You put a damaged unusable corny in the fridge with a pond pump down in the bottom. The output of the pump goes through some hose outside the fridge and attaches to some 3/8" copper. This copper goes down the insulated bundle of beer lines to your tower. If the tower has a glycol loop, it attaches there to cool the tower too. The return loop can be copper also assuming it still has some cooling capacity left. This goes back to the fridge and dumps back into the top of the corny for cooling again. At the very least it will keep your beerlines somewhere between ambient and fridge temps.

Click to expand...

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I may just consider this. A 3/8" semi-flexible copper line, surrounded by the 1/4" beer lines, all wrapped in pipe insulation or something similar.

It's odd to me that you can't drill into the countertop for the tower. When would it not be appropriate to have a beer tower on a bar? It's like peanut butter and jelly.

Click to expand...

Yup. Good point. I guess the problem is that we've never had a tower yet, and that the bar was in the house before we got here, and putting the tower in really means you can never take it out again as it'll leave it hole. If ever we were to sell the place you can bet whoever moves in will not have the knowledge or want to have a tower in the bar so they'd be left with a nice hole.

I'm still pondering this one... my wife's dead set against it. Maybe I'll just get the 2-way clamp on tower and get her used to the idea that the tower's a permanent fixture now and then switch out.... In meantime I'll research better coolling solutions and 4-way taps and then sell the 2-way clamp on tower and get a 4-way permanent. I don't mind paying for a new 4-way as long as we'll keep it and use it. That hole in the bar's going to be permanent!

Thanks again for the advice.

Kal

My logic would be, anyone who is psyched to buy a house with a big bar in it would be additionally thrilled that it's setup for draft beer. I'd leave the tower and freezer in place as a sales perk.

I like it. Let me try that one on the wife. The more I think about it, the more I want to get something permanent. (We're definitely not interested in moving however... but if I do put a hole in the bar, I want to at least make sure to put it in the right spot and not want to move it later).

Releated/unrelated question:

If I go with 4 taps, I'm assuming that this is one way that would work (as long as I want all 4 to have the same CO2 levels).

This regulator:



Feeding the following 4-way manifold with check-valves through a short length of 1/4" tubing:



Most tubing is 1/4" while the barb's on both the manifold and regulator are 5/16". I'm assuming I can force the 1/4" tubing onto 5/16" if I stick it in boiling water first for a few seconds?

Now which style of 4-way tower to go with that would look best on my bar...

Stainless Steel Four Faucet T-Style Draft Tower - 4 Inch Column ($525)


Polished Stainless Steel 4 Faucet Draft Beer Tower - 4 Inch Column ($390)


Both are more than I want to spend, but the last one I almost like better and the price is less. No cooling however, but I think I can manage just fine without cooling the last 12 inches or so.

Kal

kal said:

Releated/unrelated question:

Most tubing is 1/4" while the barb's on both the manifold and regulator are 5/16". I'm assuming I can force the 1/4" tubing onto 5/16" if I stick it in boiling water first for a few seconds?

Now which style of 4-way tower to go with that would look best on my bar...


Kal

Click to expand...

You have the gas side all figured out. On the tower, I think the 4 tap one in your pic is setup in case you want two more faucets. it's a little bulky. How about:

http://www.wholesaledraft.com/imageviewer.php?imageName=2097.jpg
$319.

Check these sexy deals out: http://www.cdnbev.com/downloads/CBSCatalog_Links.pdf

In any case, you really really want forward sealing faucets like Perlicks or Shirron/Ventimatic. If you can find a bare tower, all the better because you won't have to swap faucets out.

By the way, I got similar resistence from my wife in my last house when I wanted to install in-wall surround sound and a through-wall reef tank. 80% of the potential buyers said they'd leave it as is and the guy who bought it told me these features were one of the things that set the house off from the other places he had seen. Don't be scared to be extreme.

Finding a 1 tap tower to replace your "real" tower before resale is an easy thing to do.

Most people would see a one tapper as a huge selling point where 4 might turn them off, so it's win-win.

In othe words SWMBOs of non-brewers may tolerate 1 but may object to more than one beer faucet.

Bobby_M said:

You have the gas side all figured out. On the tower, I think the 4 tap one in your pic is setup in case you want two more faucets. it's a little bulky. How about:

http://www.wholesaledraft.com/imageviewer.php?imageName=2097.jpg
$319.

Click to expand...

That one's very nice. They don't tell you much about them however. Annoying.

Check these sexy deals out: http://www.cdnbev.com/downloads/CBSCatalog_Links.pdf

Click to expand...

Yes! I looked through their catalog a few days ago and they're Canadian as well which is a bonus (I'm in Canada), but there's zero pricing information which always scares me. I could be convinced to spend $300-400 but not $600-900. They don't list distributors either on their website.

In any case, you really really want forward sealing faucets like Perlicks or Shirron/Ventimatic. If you can find a bare tower, all the better because you won't have to swap faucets out.

Click to expand...

Part of the difficulty is that most places don't tell you what they've got in their towers so you're left guessing. Though I suppose if they don't say, it's probably safe to assume that they're not forward sealing. I have some more reading to do. I understand the principles behind fwd sealing taps but don't how how much of a problem it would be for me over time to not have them (buildup/clogs/fruit flies/etc).

By the way, I got similar resistence from my wife in my last house when I wanted to install in-wall surround sound and a through-wall reef tank. 80% of the potential buyers said they'd leave it as is and the guy who bought it told me these features were one of the things that set the house off from the other places he had seen. Don't be scared to be extreme.

Click to expand...

Good to know. I already sold her years ago about the surround sound... that was a much larger battle. Right beside my bar is:

olllllo said:

Finding a 1 tap tower to replace your "real" tower before resale is an easy thing to do.

Most people would see a one tapper as a huge selling point where 4 might turn them off, so it's win-win.

Click to expand...

That's an interesting point. Throw in a $60 one tapper before you put the house up for sale and nobody's the wiser.

kal said:

That's an interesting point. Throw in a $60 one tapper before you put the house up for sale and nobody's the wiser.

Click to expand...

Anyone who upgrades thier Danby or other full size kegerator has one waiting for a home. I bet if you asked around the board, you could drum one up for the cost of shipping and a few brews.

If there's anything that I know for a fact it's that you won't be happy with any cheap rear sealing faucet. You already mentioned that you'd be pouring sporadically. That requires a forward sealing faucet unless you're prepared to squirt a bunch of warm water up into the faucet before and after every pour. Rear sealing allows a small amount of beer to pool forward of the seal. It dries, gets sticky, and keeps you from opening the faucet in two days.

Bobby_M said:

Wait a minute. If you have room for 8 cornies, there's no way in hell you'll be happy with 2 faucets. I'm thinking 4 minimum. If you watch craigslist or ebay, you can find a 4 faucet tower with an integrated glycol loop.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Brass-Beer-Tap-...ryZ67135QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

They'll clean up nice I'm sure with a little polish.

My idea for a cooling loop goes like this: You put a damaged unusable corny in the fridge with a pond pump down in the bottom. The output of the pump goes through some hose outside the fridge and attaches to some 3/8" copper. This copper goes down the insulated bundle of beer lines to your tower. If the tower has a glycol loop, it attaches there to cool the tower too. The return loop can be copper also assuming it still has some cooling capacity left. This goes back to the fridge and dumps back into the top of the corny for cooling again. At the very least it will keep your beerlines somewhere between ambient and fridge temps.

It's odd to me that you can't drill into the countertop for the tower. When would it not be appropriate to have a beer tower on a bar? It's like peanut butter and jelly.

Click to expand...

here is one:

http://hartford.craigslist.org/bfs/374589399.html

and another pic:

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but one option for getting your beer lines run that far without warm beer is 'trunk line' which I came across at micromatic a while back:
http://www.micromatic.com/part-pid-CDI232.html

Essentially a fancier version of more DIY-oriented suggestions made previously - several beer lines inside an insulated jacket, and also some additional lines for you to pump glycol through to keep the beer cold in the lines. Pretty expensive at around $10-20 a foot, but you can serve as few as 2 or as many as 14 beers with one line.

Bobby_M said:

If there's anything that I know for a fact it's that you won't be happy with any cheap rear sealing faucet. You already mentioned that you'd be pouring sporadically. That requires a forward sealing faucet unless you're prepared to squirt a bunch of warm water up into the faucet before and after every pour. Rear sealing allows a small amount of beer to pool forward of the seal. It dries, gets sticky, and keeps you from opening the faucet in two days.

Click to expand...

This is so true.

If you're not doing this, you might as well set fire to a few $20 bills.

I replaced all of mine with forward seals. I won't even give my old ones away unless I know that they will be used for a jockey box - by definition, a onetime use that requires cleaning each time it is used. It's just not worth it.

Perlick, Shirron or die.

Bobby_M said:

If there's anything that I know for a fact it's that you won't be happy with any cheap rear sealing faucet...It dries, gets sticky, and keeps you from opening the faucet in two days.

Click to expand...

I'll attest to that.

I have rear sealing and they work fine for me only because I'm pulling on them constantly from about 5:30 to 11:30PM....day after day...month after month...:cross:

It's a commitment I'm willing to make to prevent my faucets from sticking.

Are you ready to make that kind of committment?

If not...forward sealing taps will save you some frustration.

Ok. Thanks for the input guys.

Buying a tower and then replacing all the taps seems silly, and oddly enough, nobody seems to sell bare towers (?)!

A couple of days ago I drilling some exploratory holes under the sink (seen the picture in my first post) to see if I could run the lines from the back room through the curved bar and behind the mirror to the front bar with the seats where the tower would be. This could keep the lines completely hidden.

Unfortunately that didn't look possible as the curved bar area around the sink is fairly SOLID inside (tons of bracing).

So I thought a couple of lines flush with the black wall up high and somehow covered up would work (using some sort of black conduit) but that might not look great, especially now if I need to run at least 4 lines (2 beer, 2 cooling) and then wrap it all in insulation. If I want 4 lines for beer (which I think I do now) it just gets worse.

So all this to say that I'm going to rethink this a bit. I'll start with getting the kegs, regular, manifold for 4 lines, etc. But then will figure out exactly how I'm going to arrange the taps later.

For now, what I may do is: There's room for 4-5 taps coming out of the side of the wall to the right of the sink and to the left of the black fridge (you can't see that wall in the first picture above). Arranged right the sink would actually serve as a drip tray! I may just do that for now using good forward sealing taps coming out of the wall through a nicely cut/stained block of wood. The best part is that the distance from the freezer would be very small: Only 5 feet or so so I could run 3/16" line and not even bother cooling it (or just wrap it in pipe insulation as it'll all in the back room).

This would give me the 4-5 taps I really want, allow me to not lose more than an oz or so in the lines (since they're so short), and would give me GOOD taps.

Then I could spend some time figuring out how (if ever) I could actually put a 4-5 way tower in the front bar drilled right in and how I'd ever be able pull and cool the 1/4" lines through there. I'd love to eventually have that. I think a nice tower right on the front bar would look so nice, but I'd want to do it right (cooled/lines hidden/etc).

Thanks guys!

Kal

Hi guys! It's been a busy month of buying stuff online and working to install it....

So I ended up doing what I proposed above: 4 forward sealing (Ventmatic) taps coming out of a wall with a drip tray with runoff with some wood trim built by me and a nice bar sign up above. There's only 3-4' of exposed 3/16" hose in the back room so the amount of beer warming up between pours is minimal.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions. Here are some pictures:

More pictures:





(Note: This beer lines have been completely redone - they now come out the side of the freezer and not the lid, and are cooled with copper line running in parallel pumping fluid from the adjacent fridge freezer. A small pond pump is used).


Room for 7 corny kegs:



10lb tank with a two head regulator so that I can have beer at two different carbination levels. #1 and #2 will usually be Hefeweizen and lager (ie: wife beer) at higher carb level, and #3 and #4 will usually be British ales (ie: my beer) at lower carb level.



Kal

Man That Is Sweet!

Yeah, I'm jealous as hell. That is beautiful, so beautiful.......

Thanks guys! I'm only 2 days into the beer chilling/carbonating so I'm anxious myself to have a nice pour....

Kal

Very Sweet! Love the chalkboard!




It looks very familiar!

Damn that is one sweet setup you have there.:rockin:

EdWort said:

Very Sweet! Love the chalkboard!

It looks very familiar!

Click to expand...

Hi Ed! Yes! I actually got the idea from you so thanks for that! I remember seeing it browsing the gallery here so I spent some time on Ebay findind one myself!

Kal

Man oh man - beautiful bar!

Thanks! I have the previous house owners (pre-2000) to thank for it... he was a tile worker and obviously enjoyed drinking as much as me!

When I first saw it I ran upstairs and told my wife (who was checking out the bedrooms/bathrooms) that we *HAD* to buy this house!

Kal

Wow, great setup.

I think I hate you! (of course I mean that in the nicest way possible)

I think I hate you.

Can I come live with you?

orfy said:

I think I hate you.

Can I come live with you?

Click to expand...

No thinking. I know I hate you.

Now I'll go home and throw rocks at this:

Hey Muncher, they both dispense beer, and yours will look better after the 6th beer.

Actually yours will not have the problem I'm having now!

That is: The first 1-2 oz tastes a bit 'off' or skunky after sitting in the lines for a few hours. I had someone else tell me that it was his new Shirron forward sealing taps (I have forward sealing ventmatics). This guy said the problem didn't happen when he had the cheaper 'regular' taps.

Very strange.

Somewhat helped by by chilling the lines so I'm doing that now: I've wrapped 1/4" copper line around each of the shanks 3-4 times and will run it close with the 4' of line between the taps and freezer, with a small aquarium pump moving cold water from an unused corny in the freezer.

I also get a bunch of foam in the first 2 oz because of the warm beer.

Moral of the story: Put the taps right on the freezer/fridge/kegorator if you want to keep things simple. As soon as you try and get complicated that 80/20 rule comes into effect: You spend 80% of your time doing the last 20% of the work.



Kal