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LittleRiver said:
How is it unbalanced if they're getting a good pour? ;)

They've just used something other than line length to achieve the right resistance. Nothing wrong with that.
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Just to clarify were debating the same thing here. My opinion is its best to use the correct length lines to balance your system properly and then additionally you can add flow control faucets to " pour difficult kegs or fill growlers" as per the flow control manufacturers description of the purpose of said faucets. You opinion is your better to **purposely** choose shorter lines then required and then add flow control faucets and crank them down therefore losing the ability to use flow control when it's actually required just cause? I get that some brewers prefer to do as little as possible but not sure what the debate is. It's a few dollars worth of line. What am I missing here? Cheers
 
sibelman said:
Dang, LR, that's incredibly tidy and organized....
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Thank you! I was originally shopping for a larger freezer, but I found that one for $90 brand new. I could not turn that down. I knew it would be a pain to use if I didn't come up with a way to manage the lines to keep them out of the way when loading kegs.
 
Blazinlow86 said:
Just to clarify were debating the same thing here...
Click to expand...

My point was that the calculators and conventional wisdom point toward balancing a system based on line length alone. Some of that wisdom can and should be thrown out the window when you have other things in the system that introduce flow resistance, like 90deg shank adapters and flow control faucets.

...You opinion is your better to **purposely** choose shorter lines then required and then add flow control faucets and crank them down therefore losing the ability to use flow control when it's actually required just cause?...
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Wrong. It's a false statement to say that if you use some of your flow control range to balance your system that you lose further flow control.

You can use some of the range for balancing, and still have plenty of range left over for adjustments when filling bottles & growlers. It's not a problem.

In my case I can pour with the flow controls wide open, and get great pours. But if I wanted to cut my lines even shorter I could do that and not have any problems balancing my lines or filling bottles/growlers.

...I get that some brewers prefer to do as little as possible but not sure what the debate is. It's a few dollars worth of line. What am I missing here?
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You're missing comprehension of what's already been written.

Shorter lines have some distinct benefits, especially in small keezers/kegerators, as I described and illustrated above. Conventional wisdom would have my line lengths almost twice what they are. That would only result in hassles managing the lines.

I'm quite happy to have shorter lines that never get in my way.
 
LittleRiver said:
My point was that the calculators and conventional wisdom point toward balancing a system based on line length alone. Some of that wisdom can and should be thrown out the window when you have other things in the system that introduce flow resistance, like 90deg shank adapters and flow control faucets.



Wrong. It's a false statement to say that if you use some of your flow control range to balance your system that you lose further flow control.

You can use some of the range for balancing, and still have plenty of range left over for adjustments when filling bottles & growlers. It's not a problem.

In my case I can pour with the flow controls wide open, and get great pours. But if I wanted to cut my lines even shorter I could do that and not have any problems balancing my lines or filling bottles/growlers.



You're missing comprehension of what's already been written.

Shorter lines have some distinct benefits, especially in small keezers/kegerators, as I described and illustrated above. Conventional wisdom would have my line lengths almost twice what they are. That would only result in hassles managing the lines.

I'm quite happy to have shorter lines that never get in my way.
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sounds like it was a good choice for your set of compromises. for everyone else i recommend spending a few more minutes/dollars and getting the correct length lines regardless of the faucets you choose. the end. cheers
 
Blazinlow86 said:
sounds like it was a good choice for your set of compromises...
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What compromises?

I made very conscious decisions to use a small freezer, and to design the plumbing so it doesn't get in the way. Having shorter lines makes it possible to mount them spaced apart so that every inch of line gets great airflow for cooling. The results are a keezer that has a small footprint, gives great pours, and is hassle free when loading kegs.

There's nothing compromised about that.

...for everyone else i recommend spending a few more minutes/dollars and getting the correct length lines regardless of the faucets you choose...
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Accepting your definition of "correct" would mean accepting the unnecessary hassle of dealing with long stiff coils of beer line every time a keg is loaded, and having compromised cooling of those lines. No thank you. There's a better way.
 
LittleRiver said:
What compromises?

I made very conscious decisions to use a small freezer, and to design the plumbing so it doesn't get in the way. Having shorter lines makes it possible to mount them spaced apart so that every inch of line gets great airflow for cooling. The results are a keezer that has a small footprint, gives great pours, and is hassle free when loading kegs.

There's nothing compromised about that.



Accepting your definition of "correct" would mean accepting the unnecessary hassle of dealing with long stiff coils of beer line every time a keg is loaded, and having compromised cooling of those lines. No thank you. There's a better way.
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Last time I'll respond to this as it's getting abit silly now. I recommend using the correct length lines regardless of your faucet choice when possible. If you can't for whatever reason you can compensate and use flow control faucets and shorter line's. Pretty simple. Cheers
 
LittleRiver said:
How is it unbalanced if they're getting a good pour? ;)

They've just used something other than line length to achieve the right resistance. Nothing wrong with that.
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Yes. Probably, every system needs to be somewhat "balanced," as Blazinlow86 says. I'm new to kegging after many years of bottling. Some beers want more carbonation, others less. I adjust (ineptly) by setting CO2 pressure. I can fine-tune with flow control faucets. This also helps cope with the differences between a normal beer glass, a growler, and a sample glass. It adds capability and reduces (eliminates?) concern about balancing with line length.

Flow control at the tap may be a new-fangled way to compensate for non-ideal beer line length, but it yields good pours. It also allows me to get away with shorter lines where space is tight. Maybe flow control doesn't compensate for wildly "wrong" line lengths, but it seems to work very well with approximately correct lengths. I plan to try a super-short beer line to see if flow control can still give me good pours in a radically "unbalanced" setup. Cheers!
 
sibelman said:
Yes. Probably, every system needs to be somewhat "balanced," as Blazinlow86 says. I'm new to kegging after many years of bottling. Some beers want more carbonation, others less. I adjust (ineptly) by setting CO2 pressure. I can fine-tune with flow control faucets. This also helps cope with the differences between a normal beer glass, a growler, and a sample glass. It adds capability and reduces (eliminates?) concern about balancing with line length.

Flow control at the tap may be a new-fangled way to compensate for non-ideal beer line length, but it yields good pours. It also allows me to get away with shorter lines where space is tight. Maybe flow control doesn't compensate for wildly "wrong" line lengths, but it seems to work very well with approximately correct lengths. I plan to try a super-short beer line to see if flow control can still give me good pours in a radically "unbalanced" setup. Cheers!
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If space wasn't a concern at all and you were given the lines for free would you still choose to make the lines shorter and compensate using the flow control? Or would you use the correct length lines and only use the flow control for those overcarbed beers, growlers,and samples? Cheers
 
Blazinlow86 said:
If space wasn't a concern at all and you were given the lines for free would you still choose to make the lines shorter and compensate using the flow control? Or would you use the correct length lines and only use the flow control for those overcarbed beers, growlers,and samples? Cheers
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I don't keg, and I'm full of prescription pain meds for the moment, so feel free to ignore me.

When I visit my daughter in Oklahoma City, I drive the old highways and back roads. When she visits me in Arkansas, she drives the Interstate. We both get where we are going and are happy with the result. Which one is right, which one is wrong?

Edit: Coming off the meds now, and I see what I did wrong. I omitted to mention that my daughter and I are both stubborn as Missouri mules, and unlikely to change our minds. So not like homebrewers at all, I guess.
 
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ancientmariner52 said:
I don't keg, and I'm full of prescription pain meds for the moment, so feel free to ignore me.

When I visit my daughter in Oklahoma City, I drive the old highways and back roads. When she visits me in Arkansas, she drives the Interstate. We both get where we are going and are happy with the result. Which one is right, which one is wrong?
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Sorry I have no idea how that's relevant to my specific question. Cheers
 
ba-brewer said:
no meds in me so I may have misinterpreted @ancientmariner52 post but pretty sure he was saying there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Anyone thinking about starting a skin cat business should listen to this song
https://genius.com/Husker-du-how-to-skin-a-cat-lyrics

pretty sure meds where involved in the writing of that song.
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Yep, that's pretty much it. If you're getting satisactory results, even using less than optimal methods, how can it be wrong? Sorry for the confusion, someone should have taken my phone away from me.
 
ancientmariner52 said:
Yep, that's pretty much it. If you're getting satisactory results, even using less than optimal methods, how can it be wrong? Sorry for the confusion, someone should have taken my phone away from me.
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Somehow my original posts are being misunderstood so I'll retype it for clarification once again. Here it goes. Get ready it's clearly very hard for 3-4 people to understand.

**I recommend using the optimal methods when possible**

The end
 
Blazinlow86 said:
Somehow my original posts are being misunderstood so I'll retype it for clarification once again. Here it goes. Get ready it's clearly very hard for 3-4 people to understand. **I recommend using the optimal methods when possible** The end
Click to expand...

I recommend ditching the "optimal" conventional wisdom of long beer lines when possible.

Great pours with short lines that don't get in the way when changing kegs is a beautiful thing.
 
AncientMariner, I hope your need for pain control abates. All who keg want foam control.

I'm all for reconsidering conventional wisdom, but I'm not ready to throw beer line length optimization over the rail. Beer line resistance is probably not completely functionally equivalent to faucet flow control. LittleRiver, your experience shows that flow control greatly widens the range of OK line lengths.

One of my lines is shorter than the others. Blazinlow, if this makes it hard to get great pours even with flow control -- and it may -- then you're right about making sure beer lines are at least approximately long enough. Before cutting even shorter to test, I'll need to buy more beer line just in case :)

The thing I find most interesting (and not at all silly) in all this is finding the right amount of carbonation for each beer. Two equal and optimal/correct beer lines could produce great results for one correctly less carbed beer, and foaming troubles for the other correctly more carbed beer. Or so my very limited experience suggests.

The second most interesting thing is our diverse responses to optimizing and making compromises. I'm drawn to both the value of great experience AND the virtue of new ideas and capabilities. And to having a good time, good beer, and not worrying too much. So I'm really digging faucet flow control, which I hope will help me to reduce the awkwardness of all that beer line in my crowded kegerator.
 
sibelman said:
AncientMariner, I hope your need for pain control abates. All who keg want foam control.

I'm all for reconsidering conventional wisdom, but I'm not ready to throw beer line length optimization over the rail. Beer line resistance is probably not completely functionally equivalent to faucet flow control. LittleRiver, your experience shows that flow control greatly widens the range of OK line lengths.

One of my lines is shorter than the others. Blazinlow, if this makes it hard to get great pours even with flow control -- and it may -- then you're right about making sure beer lines are at least approximately long enough. Before cutting even shorter to test, I'll need to buy more beer line just in case :)

The thing I find most interesting (and not at all silly) in all this is finding the right amount of carbonation for each beer. Two equal and optimal/correct beer lines could produce great results for one correctly less carbed beer, and foaming troubles for the other correctly more carbed beer. Or so my very limited experience suggests.

The second most interesting thing is our diverse responses to optimizing and making compromises. I'm drawn to both the value of great experience AND the virtue of new ideas and capabilities. And to having a good time, good beer, and not worrying too much. So I'm really digging faucet flow control, which I hope will help me to reduce the awkwardness of all that beer line in my crowded kegerator.
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I don't keg, so I ain't got a dog in this hunt. If I ever get around to kegging, I will certainly try to follow established, accepted, best practices. I'm just saying if someone has a different way that works for them, why change? In my experience, it's the result that matters more than the process. No disrespect to anyone else intended.

I never would have stuck my oar in except for the pills, but I'm much better now.
 
ancientmariner52 said:
I don't keg, so I ain't got a dog in this hunt. If I ever get around to kegging, I will certainly try to follow established, accepted, best practices. I'm just saying if someone has a different way that works for them, why change? In my experience, it's the result that matters more than the process. No disrespect to anyone else intended.

I never would have stuck my oar in except for the pills, but I'm much better now.
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Did somebody say at some point that if someone has a different way that works for them they shouldn't do it ?
 
Blazinlow86 said:
Did somebody say at some point that if someone has a different way that works for them they shouldn't do it ?
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We may all sometimes be a bit too quick to take offense. I didn't see any disrespectful language in this interchange, but some of the back-and-forth could easily look like "I'm right, you're wrong" kind of talk. Lively exploration of differing ideas is like mother's milk to me. But it can easily verge into a flame war, which thankfully did not happen here. I'm grateful for the civility that characterizes HomeBrewTalk.
 
sibelman said:
We may all sometimes be a bit too quick to take offense. I didn't see any disrespectful language in this interchange, but some of the back-and-forth could easily look like "I'm right, you're wrong" kind of talk. Lively exploration of differing ideas is like mother's milk to me. But it can easily verge into a flame war, which thankfully did not happen here. I'm grateful for the civility that characterizes HomeBrewTalk.
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Thank you for easing my mind a bit. My intent was to make peace, not to annoy. Sometimes I'm a little clumsy at it.
 
ancientmariner52 said:
Thank you for easing my mind a bit. My intent was to make peace, not to annoy. Sometimes I'm a little clumsy at it.
Click to expand...


Your not coming off as annoying however its possible because your not familar with draft setups you may be missing my point and therefore i keep replying back. My comments are not aimed at changing little rivers mind or setup. hes happy and its working with his constraints and therefore he made the correct choice. Its for new people as yourself to understand that its not the ideal/recommended method ( again not in little rivers specific situation/opinion but mine,the draft beer industry and the faucet manufactures opinions)

To summarize for new people looking at building a draft system the takeaway from this discussion/debate is there are 2 methods being discussed/debated

method 1 (longer lines + any faucets including flow control) works with no special faucets or adjustments, is very consistency because there is no adjustment required and for those reasons is the industry standard across the globe and is used 99.9% of the time. coincidentally its also the recommended method by the makers of flow control faucets when using flow control faucets to be able to get full adjustment as designed when required (reminder these were designed to be used for "hard to pour kegs/ growlers" and not to compensate for unbalanced systems).

method 2 (shorter lines + flow control faucets only) requires specific faucets and adjustments, is not as consistent, is not the industry standard and is not the recommended method by the makers of flow control faucets when using flow control faucets. in certain situations were longer lines are not a option this method can be used as workaround but depending on how short the lines are you will loose some/alot of the flow control feature (again not in little rivers specific case as he pointed out he has some non typical plumbing connections on his system that act like longer lines).

if your building a new draft system and its possible myself,the draft beer industry and the makers of flow control taps recommend method 1. If for **ANY** reason method 1 does not work for you and method 2 does then i recommend method 2.


its really just that simple and hopefully clears up what i was trying to say and at this point anything more is beating a dead horse so im out of this discussion. cheers
 
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I'm generally a bit of an outlier.

I also believe the term compromise is being used in a negative connotation here, where I don't think it necessarily needs to. I actually think that just about everything we do is a balancing act given our personal priorities, budget, and what is practical for us as individuals, and that can be different from one to another.

I also think it is great to see what others are doing, as it provides for greater information for the community as a whole. For example, I like what brulosophy has been doing to challenge the assumptions and common wisdom that brewing has had for so long. I think it is great to be critical about the things that we thought were hard and fast rules, and experiment to see what can work for us as individuals, as well as increase our understanding as a community. Their work has helped me challenge my own assumptions and try things I never had before considered doing due to the conventional wisdom.

Now, back to me being an outlier. I started converting to John guest fittings years and years ago, before bev seal ultra was for sale. I settled on 3/8" tubing for my john guest fitttings. I went to these fittings that long ago to make it easier to swap kegs and lines, as I have 14 taps, and right around 90 kegs (used to be just over 100 though when I started the conversion to John Guest), along with a handful of regulators and secondary regulators and multiple manifolds. I went to the push to connect fittings, as well as standardized my tubing to 3/16" ID x 3/8" OD, and I did have 'properly' balanced lines with my taps. I also had plastic taint that I could taste, and threw away the first couple ounces from each faucet before pouring my beer.

When bev seal ultra came out, the 3/16" ID tubing was 5/16" OD, which would not fit the dozens of 3/8" John Guest fittings I already invested in, plus it would need nearly twice the footage of tubing anyway. What I opted to do was get the 1/4" ID x 3/8" OD bev seal ultra 235 tubing, and only use 8 ft of tubing inside the walk-in cooler, and change out all my faucets for Perlick 650ss flow control faucets in order to get the restriction I needed. Even with only 8 ft of tubing inside the walk-in cooler, with 14 faucets, it is a mess. I can't imagine what it would be like to work in there with all the tubing needed to 'properly' balance the lines only with the restriction in the tubing.

I will also add that if the beer is under average carbonation (2.5 volumes) and at 40F or less, you can attach these 650ss faucets directly to the keg and pour directly without problems. You do have to go slower than normal, but it does work. I built two direct draw keg gadgets just so that I could do this, one for ball lock and one for pin lock. If the beer is carbed much higher than 2.5 volumes, or if the temp is higher, it does reach a point where it will no longer be able to pour directly from the keg. With my testing though, I am quite impressed with these faucets, and in total, I have 16 of them now, 14 for the walk-in coffin box, and two for the direct draw gadgets.

This is a long-winded way of adding to the conversation that there are many ways to do things, we should be encouraging others to experiment and try different methods, and we should working to collectively increase our understanding and pushing the craft forward as much as possible.

I've got a bunch of other thoughts on other things, but that can be saved for another day, and much is already in an older thread from years ago. I do get a good bit of flak from others here as well as in the club for some of the things that I've tried and the way I work. If you don't agree with me, great, lets have a mature conversation and add to the body of knowledge. We don't all need to think and do things the exact same way to be happy. Let's figure out what works best for each of us and be good with that.
 
Pkrd said:
I’m still wondering why we don’t have appropriately sized beer line so we don’t need the extra length.
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I've actually seen some use really narrow rigid tubing in the past, I think maybe around 1/8" ID, and only needed a couple feet of it for the restriction. It is also difficult to directly attach this to a shank, as most of them are designed for wider tubing.

Everything is a balancing act though. If you have a really high restriction tubing, it may be too short for some people, or they would need to add 50% more, which could slow down the flow too much.

Some people also need really flexible tubing, so the tubing I use (bev seal ultra 235) would be inappropriate for them.

Some people are really sensitive to plastic taint, so just about any standard PVC line would not work for them.

Some are using towers, others have a chest freezer behind a wall, etc.

Does anyone also remember when brewers were putting the epoxy mixers in the beerline and in their liquid dip tubes?

There are so many different configurations for different people, there isn't one beverage line that can do it all. You've got to figure out what can work the best for you and your priorities.
 
Just put the finishing touches on my new build!
IMG_20190615_153315.jpeg
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Snowblind258 said:
View attachment 629693

My first keg in a Danby DAR044A4BDD. I haven't hacked it up yet so its pretty basic.
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Update: I hacked it up. After making sure the fridge was not a lemon I have hacked it up to accommodate two kegs. Its beautiful :D.
Currently my plan is to serve off one keg while my backup carbs at serving pressure, once a keg kicks a brew starts.
 

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These are in the garage, the iPad is a tap board.
IMG_1304.JPG


The one is in what my wife calls my man cave.
57222712676__1674B423-3AEC-4E85-A888-676A13FA641E.JPG

The barrels are ten gallons and have sours in them now, saison in the one on the left and a Flanders brown in the one behind the pachinko machine. Both have a great bug collection in them, both a bit different.
 
Dr_Jeff said:
Both have a great bug collection in them, both a bit different.
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Are you saying there are literally bugs in your sour? I don't know much about them but my brother is really into them, and I just recently started looking at recipe's. JW if that is literal or something different, and if that's normally the case or in yours since you're using barrels =)
 
SEndorf said:
Good gawd... After looking at many of the pictures in this thread, I'm wondering if expert woodworking is a prerequisite for home brewing. Those are beautiful.
I have a simple collar on a freezer. That's it. May have to re-think the next one.View attachment 569955
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Replying to an old post...do you remember where you bought that drip tray? Just upgraded to a 14 cu ft keezer and need a long tray.
 

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