Newbie with a BevAir BM23

Greetings all - from the reading I have been doing on here this seems like a great resource!

A few question for the Kegerator gurus.

I have a Beverage Air BM23 on order with dual taps - supposed to ship 7/30. I understand it ships still needing a few items to make it 'pour ready'.

I am looking for the groups input on the best direction/products to buy.

From the reading I have done, it looks like the Perlick 525 faucets are the way to go. I do plan on pouring Guinness so I will also plan on getting one of the stout style faucets as well. I understand Perlick makes a regulator style faucet, but I prefer to pour an 'original' style pint of Guinness - its my session beer. Is the 525 the way to go or is there something better? Who makes the best stout style faucet?

For regulators, I will have the need to pour two 'normal' beers (non-nitrogen), as well as have the ability to pour a 'normal' beer and the Guinness. It looks like the best/easiest setup would be to buy a dual product regulator and get a separate regulator for the nitrogen blend setup. Which brand of regulators should I pick up? It looks like Taprite is a popular brand? Anything better?

Couplers - it looks like I should pick up the U-style for the Guinness and perhaps 2 D-couplers for the 'normal' brew. Any particular brands or thoughts on couplers?

Last, but not least, with this type of setup, what kind of hose and other fittings should I be picking up to complete the setup?

Thanks again guys & gals - looking forward to becoming a part of the community.

Hi

The Perlick 525's either in stainless steel or chrome (cheaper) work just fine for normal beers.

You probably will want two pressures of CO2 for the normal stuff. That gets you to two CO2 regulators and one nitrogen (blend) regulator.

A proper stout faucet is a must for a nitro setup, so you will need at least one of those. The one I have seems to work fine, but it's the only one I've tried, so no comparisons there.

Couplers are pretty generic. The differences are mainly visible (fat handles / low profile / pretty colors). I have a variety of them, they all seem to work fine.

Hose is pretty easy. You likely will run 3/16" ID for beer line and 5/16" ID for CO2. The why on the CO2 is "that's the way we always do it". On the beer line it's the size that will give you the proper drop with a rational length of line. If you are running beer more than 20 feet (or > 8 feet up) you may need a larger line.

Don't forget things like shutoff's and check valves for the CO2 lines. Things can get a bit crazy without them.

There are a lot of subtle tweaks depending on your exact setup. I'm assuming that you have a pretty standard 3 or 4 tap setup. Since a 1/2 bbl takes up a lot more room that a 1/6 bbl it could be a 1 to 3 tap setup ...

Bob