Easily adjusting beer line length?

Anyone have a good way to quickly adjust beer line length in their kegerator? I'm thinking of some kind of quick disconnect setup where I could easily splice in or take out a couple feet of beer line when switching between low- and high-carbonated beers...the ordinary bitter kicks, you splice in a few feet more beer line, jack up the PSI, and put the hefe on.

Anyone doing anything like this?

Sounds like a plan. I just use 6' of 3/16" ID and take what I get at 8-12 psi. Works for me.

I've been mulling this around in my pea brain a bit and came up with although I haven't done it yet...

My faucet lines are 5"

I make a lot of Hefe Weizens which by my understanding is that I need to start off with 10' and cut off a foot at a time to get to about 6-7 ft (so start with 8 is what I think).

Any way, since I have a tap on one end and a quick disconnect on the other what I really need a straight in-line connector. With this you can just trim hose from the center while not having to tinker with the ends.

At the same time your original 5' tap line is untouched.

Of course, once you find your optimum hose length all you have to do is cut to size.

My 2 cents are spent...

Any kind of connector or splice will only act as restriction. A large restriction (pressure drop) across a very small area. This will cause the CO2 to quickly come out of solution at that point and all you will get is a glass of foam. I only know because I tried several methods of doing this quite some time ago and that was the result.

If you want to serve beers of differing levels of carbonation through the same line a compromise must be reached. Set up your serving line to serve the highest carb'd beer that you expect to serve. Doing this will give you the proper pour with your higher carb'd beers. Using the same length of line with your lower carb'd beers will result in a pour that is free from foam, but it will just pour more slowly. That's the compromise.

12' of line works well for every style of beer I have kegged. From Hefe's to stouts, the result is the same. The only difference is the time it takes to fill the glass.

I thought about the restriction thing also...probably why I'm not wasting my time on that idea....

12' is pretty long, at what psi??

homebrewer_99 said:

I thought about the restriction thing also...probably why I'm not wasting my time on that idea....

12' is pretty long, at what psi??

Click to expand...

The pressure depends on the style. Like I said, the 12' of tubing is a compromise. It allows me to serve my Hefe that is currently on tap at a pressure of 18 psi. The pour rate is perfect. When I finish the Hefe, I have a creme stout on deck. It will be carbonated and served at 10 psi through the same 12' of tubing. The only difference will be that the stout will pour much slower. But again, that's the compromise.

I bought two of the Ventmatic Flo-Gates a year or so ago to help solve this problem... not sure if they are still available, but they work rather well until you start getting above 17-18psi. I think I end up with 4-5ft of hose.

I've threaded fittings on two of my taps, so I can change out a beer line without too much trouble. Probably cheaper than disconnects.

Yuri_Rage said:

Sounds like a plan. I just use 6' of 3/16" ID and take what I get at 8-12 psi. Works for me.

Click to expand...

Sorry for the dumb question but what is "ID"?

ID = Inner Diameter
OD = the dog in Garfield

I got a cat lazier than Garfield...fatter too...

Typical kegerator fits 2 corny's-use a long line and a short line and don't mess with changing for different beers-just install in the proper orientation and call it good.