My beer line lengths, check please.

I am going to be adding some new beer lines to my kegerator tonight. It is a single tower with 2 taps. It is a 4.3 cubic foot fridge that has 2 corny kegs inside and the co2 outside.

Here are the specs:

Beer temp: 41F
Distance from middle of keg up to tap: 30"
Desired vol: 2.5
Serving pressure: 13PSI
Beer line: 3/16" ID

So using all the calculators that I have found, I am coming up with a beer line length of 4 feet. Just wanted to get any thoughts on this before I get started.

I used this beersmith article for the calculation.

It's very important to know how to calculate proper line length, and to understand the theory and what goes into the equation, but the pressure drop specs on beverage tubing are generally based off commercial setups and never carry over to home systems. Most of us have found that 10' of regular 3/16" tubing is the right length, or a lot more if you're using barrier tubing. The only disadvantage of longer tubing is the pour will be slower, not a big deal in a home bar.

4 feet of 3/16" will not be enough IMO. I would order 10 feet for each tap to add some pressure loss and reduce foaming. My lines are 8 feet long and could be a tidge longer (also mini fridge). Always easier to cut line than to have to buy a longer one, plus its fairly cheap stuff.

Another suggestion to reduce foaming is use a small fan to cool the tower area. Or take a tip from someone here and place the tap lines inside 1/2" copper pipes that extend from the tower shank down to 3" below the fridge ceiling. The copper pipe stays cool and keeps the beer lines cooler as well.

I agree with the 10' advice. I tried several different lengths on various set-ups and 10' 3/16" always works for me.

So if my lines are too long, the pour will be slow and less foam (head)?

So if I use 10ft to start and notice a slow pour with no head, then I can shorten my lines? 1/2 a foot to a foot at a time.

Generally getting enough head is never an issue. Even with a long line and slow pour, you could just adjust how you fill the glass (i.e. straigten it vertically sooner).

I will guess a beer carbonated at 13 psi (set and forget), 10' of 3/16" line, will not get you a slow pour and it will have plenty of head. As you get to the very bottom of the keg, the gas has to push the beer up an additional 2 feet or so and it slows down a tad. But not enough to really matter.

I'm going to covert my lines tonight to 10' lengths. I will have an extra 6 feet. Can beverage tubing be used for my c02 line? I need the same ID.

Beverage tubing is fine for CO2, but not the other way around.

OP - If you don't have enough head, just lower the glass a bit at the end. By the way, a "slow" pour might take 20 seconds, max. Personally, I went with 10' lines 8 years ago and haven't had a problem regardless of the beer.

Wow, I didn't know this about the difference between homebrew lines and commercial. I cut mine based on the commercial equation and my beers come out with so much head I have to wait and pour 2-3 times for each pint. Time to order 10' lines!

One thing to note with a tower setup is that the lines in the tower can get warmer than the rest of the kegerator. If this happens, you can have CO2 coming out of solution as the beer transits through that section of the line, and *still* end up with foamy pours despite having enough line.

There are a lot of threads on how to hook up a simple DC fan to blow cold air from inside the kegerator up into the tower to fix this issue... I defintely recommend looking into it.

Elisha8685 said:

Wow, I didn't know this about the difference between homebrew lines and commercial. I cut mine based on the commercial equation and my beers come out with so much head I have to wait and pour 2-3 times for each pint. Time to order 10' lines!

Click to expand...

There's no difference between the lines, since the beer line sold by most LHBS is the exact same stuff that's used in commercial systems. The main difference is serving temperature, and the fact that those calculators assume a constant figure for resistance, when it actually varies based on flow rate. Commercial systems are kept below 36°F, usually 33°-34°, as a measure to reduce "tainted" beer from infections growing in the dirty lines, or even in the kegs. "Ideal" flow for a bar is the fastest that the beer can be poured without excessive foam, since faster pours equal less waiting for customers and more beers poured per hour. At these temps, that usually means ~1gal/min flow rate, which is what the calculators shoot for. At warmer serving temps, like the ~40°F most of us homebrewers seem to like, the pour needs to be slightly slower to keep the CO2 in solution, which means slightly longer lines, and since the slower flow reduces the line resistance, that means even longer lines. As mentioned above, the only side effect of lines that are "too long" is a slightly slower pour, and since resistance reduces with flow, you can go with really long lines and still not see a huge difference in the time it takes to pour a beer. Since I'm not running a business where the number of pints I can pour in an hour impact my profit, a slower pour is fine. Extra long lines also give some leeway if you ever decide to serve a hefe or belgian at the customary 4.0+ vol of carbonation. I figure that if I have time to drink a beer, I also have a few extra seconds to wait for it to pour.

Hi

One of the neat things about having your own draft beer is that you can experiment with carbonation levels. You may find that you like some beers up around 18 psi (more carb) compared to 12 psi. Having long(er) lines lets you fiddle a bit without having a foam monster. Indeed you will find that other beers get a bit much over 8 psi, you will deal with "slow pours" unless you change lines each time you put in a keg.

Beer line is cheap stuff. You should be paying 30 to 50 cents a foot. Compared to the total cost of a kegging setup, an extra 10 feet is going to be in the round off error. Extending line later on is a pain (replace the entire line). Shortening up a 20 foot line to 15 feet is quick and easy.

Bob

I recommend getting the 3/16" barrier line mentioned earlier. It will take 50% more length, but it costs 50% less than plain crappy vinyl bev-line. Unless you are blind to the taste of plastic, you will notice a difference in pours when the beer has sat in the lines for a while. The barrier line imparts no taste and reduces gas permeation. Vinyl- try tasting some water after it sits in your lines for a day.

The name of it is Accuflex Bev-Seal Ultra. If you do a search for more info, there is plenty. It is sold by a few of the online HBS that advertise on here.

I wrote this post with a calculator to calculate line length based on some real engineering formulas. I've gotten a lot of really positive feedback, saying that it gives much better results than the empirical formulas.

I think for most kegerator systems it outputs 10-12 ft of tubing.

http://www.mikesoltys.com/2012/09/17/determining-proper-hose-length-for-your-kegerator/

mrsoltys said:

I wrote this post with a calculator to calculate line length based on some real engineering formulas. I've gotten a lot of really positive feedback, saying that it gives much better results than the empirical formulas.

I think for most kegerator systems it outputs 10-12 ft of tubing.

http://www.mikesoltys.com/2012/09/17/determining-proper-hose-length-for-your-kegerator/

Click to expand...

It's a fantastic spreadsheet, and I link to it often. It's the only one I know of that doesn't blatantly disregard the fundamental laws of fluid mechanics. The rest of them assume that everyone wants a flow rate of ~1gal/min because that's the fastest commercial beer can be poured without excessive foaming under commercial settings. They don't consider that not all of us want to drink 36° beer.

Any particular reason you used 1.050 for the default SG? Seems really high.

Now we just need someone to run a bunch of tests and find the relationship between temp, flow rate, and foaming. Then we could determine the maximum flow rate for a given beer temp.