Finally pouring! Upstairs walk-up bar with kegs in basement

[mattdee1]

I started kegging in early 2018. Initially, I had a beat-up old fridge that I converted to a 4-tap kegerator, which served me well for about 18 months. But it was kind of unsightly and was therefore relegated to a dark corner of our unfinished basement. I really wanted a way of serving the beer upstairs, mostly because I was finding that guests just don't like to climb stairs, even if it means free beer. Unexpected, but true.

I considered a coffin-keezer type project but I just couldn't come up with a design I liked. The problem, to my eye at least, is that the physical dimensions of chest freezers don't quite look right as furniture that will go in the upstairs room that I had to work with. So, I decided to put the kegs in the basement and just build a walk-up bar.

Features:

• (6) Perlick 650SS flow-control faucets
• Total run length from kegs to taps: ~18ft, which includes a vertical lift of ~10ft.
• Insulated, glycol-cooled trunk line
• Digital beer list on 38" TV, powered by Taplist.io
• Integrated beer fridge
• 75" x 15" granite top

It's been a few hundred hours to get this thing running, but here we are. The glycol-cooled line was a pretty big headache, but I'm able to get first pours with a ~2-finger head. I'm still dialing things in a bit, but I'm pretty happy with it so far. I've learned a lot, that's for sure. If I had to do it again, it would go much smoother.

When I get a chance, I'll post some photos of the downstairs setup. Cheers

 

[Spin711]

Awesome setup! Really clean with the granite and appliances.

I have a similar setup with about a 9ft rise to my kegs in an insulated trunk line. I did a DIY glycol chiller and have a submersible penguin glycol pump. I feel that it cycles on fairly often (about once an hour) to hold a temp of 35F in the glycol cooler. Can I ask what pump/setup you went with and if yours cycles on as often as mine? My ambient in the basement is about 70 and will get cooler as temps drop in the fall and winter which should help.

 

[mattdee1]

Awesome setup! Really clean with the granite and appliances.

I have a similar setup with about a 9ft rise to my kegs in an insulated trunk line. I did a DIY glycol chiller and have a submersible penguin glycol pump. I feel that it cycles on fairly often (about once an hour) to hold a temp of 35F in the glycol cooler. Can I ask what pump/setup you went with and if yours cycles on as often as mine? My ambient in the basement is about 70 and will get cooler as temps drop in the fall and winter which should help.

I have about 4 gallons of propylene glycol in a keg, which I chill in a small chest freezer. It gets pushed through the trunk line using an external pump. Highly inefficient I guess, but pretty low cost. I just let that glycol freezer go full blast, with no temperature control. I monitored the temperature of the glycol for about a week, and it seems to hover around 26F or so most of the time during normal operation. I let it cold soak for a few hours without running the pump and it dropped down to about 14F.

I only run the pump intermittently. To start, I have it set very conservatively; it only runs for about 20-30 seconds every 12-15 minutes or so. I'm trying to dial it in to a point where it only runs the absolute minimum needed to do its job. Like I said, I'll post photos later.

 

[Jag75]

Very nice man . Job well done

 

[mattdee1]

So here's what it looks like in a dark room with the LED lighting. It's hard to do it justice, but it looks pretty cool.

And here is the setup in the basement:

As is plainly obvious here, aesthetics were not a concern in the basement; I just wanted things to be functional. On the left is the freezer containing the kegs and on the right is the freezer containing the glycol reservoir. The insulated trunk line can be seen going up to the ceiling, where it goes upstairs to the bar. The panel at the back has a pair of STC-1000 controllers, one each for the keg freezer and the glycol pump. The probe for the pump STC-1000 is inserted into a slit I cut in the trunk line. The pump can be seen on the little table in the middle. Near the top center of the photo you can see the pump's 120VAC -> 12VDC power supply and the little board with the red light is the timer circuit that cycles the pump on and off at configurable intervals.

On the collar of the keg freezer, the two posts sticking out on the left are liquid ball lock posts. There are also posts on the inside of the freezer. I will use these pass-throughs to clean the lines in pairs, by pumping cleaning solution from a bucket on the floor up through the exterior post, up through one line, out the tap, looping over to another tap, then back down through a second line, and out the second post back into a bucket. This way I can let it circulate for a while without having to keep the freezer lid open.

Lastly, here's a diagram showing how it works:

 

[Jag75]

Man I really like that !

 

[dickiedubrewer23]

That is impressive. Thanks for sharing.

 

[TwistedGray]

This just illustrates what I tell my wife all the time ... I need better friends!

 

[bracconiere]

I'm not sure what's sexier. stuff like this here, or a google images search for naked women....(nah, i know this is sexier! )

 

[crazyjake19]

Very impressive! I'm running a similar setup but with a much less fancy bar, and I'm trying to run the glycol reservoir and pump inside the keezer which is proving difficult.

 

[mattdee1]

Very impressive! I'm running a similar setup but with a much less fancy bar, and I'm trying to run the glycol reservoir and pump inside the keezer which is proving difficult.

When I was researching this project, what I found frustrating was the constant dead ends. There were lots of threads and reddits or whatever around the internet where people would say they're attempting some sort of glycol-cooled trunk line system, and they'd make a few preliminary posts to describe what they're planning to do, then they'd vanish and never report back with how well it did (or did not) work. A lot of these dead-end threads talked about a plan to put the glycol reservoir in the same freezer as the kegs. To me, that didn't bode well for the viability of this method.

I have never attempted that method myself, but based on my experience with the setup described in this thread, I don't see how it can work. The problem is, in order to get the desired cooling effect between the beer lines and the glycol, you need a temperature differential; you want the glycol to be kept at a temperature several degrees below that of the beer serving temperature. If you have the glycol in the same freezer as the kegs, it will have more or less the same temperature as the beer to start. Then, you have the warming effects of the "cycled" glycol coming back into the reservoir, plus the heat generated by the pump. A freezer set at keg temperatures is not going to be able to cool the reservoir quickly enough to offset the incoming heat, meaning the temperature of the reservoir will gradually rise, completely defeating its purpose.

My system is working quite well so far, but I must say, I was a bit taken aback by how much cooling power is needed for this. I thought the dedicated glycol freezer would provide way more than enough cooling capacity to do this job, but I'm finding I need to crank it up to maintain a glycol temperature below 32F.

Part of the problem is that a container of glycol inside a freezer is a very inefficient way of pulling the heat out of the glycol, because it requires the heat to be transferred from the glycol, through the wall of the container, to the surrounding air inside the freezer. Air is not well-suited to this job, and works slowly. A much more effective way, I imagine, would be to have the glycol somehow be in direct contact with the freezer's icy cold surfaces. This is why you see people taking air conditioners and placing the coils right inside the glycol bath to make DIY chillers.

 

[IslandLizard]

Nice clean build. Very inspiring!

My wife and I have been thinking about something like that in the past, but jettisoned the idea basically with (beer) logistics and things. Now this got me thinking again...

 

[mattdee1]

Nice clean build. Very inspiring!

My wife and I have been thinking about something like that in the past, but jettisoned the idea basically with (beer) logistics and things. Now this got me thinking again...

Hope you get around to building something! Long draw systems like this are very fiddly, but it really is nice to not have to work around the dimensions of a bulky freezer or the like.

You have to be careful planning your budget, too. This project nickeled-and-dimed me to within an inch of my life. There are lots of little costs that are easy to overlook in the planning stages, but they add up big time. For example, I bet I have close to $200 worth of hose clamps in this thing...

 

[Spin711]

Hope you get around to building something! Long draw systems like this are very fiddly, but it really is nice to not have to work around the dimensions of a bulky freezer or the like.

You have to be careful planning your budget, too. This project nickeled-and-dimed me to within an inch of my life. There are lots of little costs that are easy to overlook in the planning stages, but they add up big time. For example, I bet I have close to $200 worth of hose clamps in this thing...

I agree that there are a lot of additional costs that you may not think of when setting up. I was at the Home Improvement store constantly picking up supplies.

I will say I recommend a DIY glycol chiller for this purpose. The lines come out of the reservoir and then through the chest freezer and into the trunk line. The lines are insulated on the outside of the chest freezer but sweat inside the chest freezer as the glycol is kept at 33 with a beer temperature of 37. The build for it was fairly cheap. Chest freezers themselves don’t have enough cooling capacity per surface area to properly chill glycol directly.

The only issue I have is frequent cycling of the chiller. Once every hour. I have 2 gallons of glycol with 4 gallons of distilled water and could add more glycol water mix if needed. Possibly a larger liquid volume would help keep the temperature more consistent? It is about 70 in my basement now but will get colder for fall and winter.

My beer lines are 5/16 so I have about 9oz of beer sitting in the lines between pours. If I don’t pour a beer after about a day I find that the co2 comes out of solution and I have 9oz of flat beer before fresh comes from the keg. But with that size tubing and about 11psi on my regulator I have good carbonation/no foam consistent pours.

 

[mattdee1]

The only issue I have is frequent cycling of the chiller. Once every hour. I have 2 gallons of glycol with 4 gallons of distilled water and could add more glycol water mix if needed. Possibly a larger liquid volume would help keep the temperature more consistent? It is about 70 in my basement now but will get colder for fall and winter.

Yeah, I figure I have about 1/3 of a pint sitting in the lines. I do get a bit of a burp of foam when pulling the first pint but I’m just not seeing it as an issue. The first pint overall pours OK and there is no wasted beer.

Does your penguin pump run non-stop or do you have it on some kind of controller?

 

[Spin711]

The first burp of foam is normal. I just find that the first 9 oz is warmer and less carbonated. Over a week of no pours and it’s staled.

My penguin pump runs non-stop to keep cold glycol circulating. I have a temperature controller attached to the power supply of the glycol chiller. The probe is submerged in the glycol mixture and once it reaches the max limit the ac unit turns on and chills it to 33. My only other thought is mounting an external pump to circulate the glycol which would limit the heat transfer from the pump.

 

[mattdee1]

The first burp of foam is normal. I just find that the first 9 oz is warmer and less carbonated. Over a week of no pours and it’s staled.

My penguin pump runs non-stop to keep cold glycol circulating. I have a temperature controller attached to the power supply of the glycol chiller. The probe is submerged in the glycol mixture and once it reaches the max limit the ac unit turns on and chills it to 33. My only other thought is mounting an external pump to circulate the glycol which would limit the heat transfer from the pump.

How many beer lines do you have? You say the chiller is cycling once per hour, but honestly, I'm a bit surprised it's not more frequently than that with a submersible pump constantly running inside such a small fluid reservoir. That pump is not only rejecting heat into the reservoir, but it's also doing work on the fluid, which has a heating effect as well.

An external pump would help, by keeping some of that heat out of the reservoir. I'm also wondering if you might benefit from running the reservoir temperature a bit colder and running the pump on a duty cycle. The idea of this would be to not unnecessarily dump waste heat from the pump into the glycol at times when circulating coolant doesn't provide much cooling effect. I figure you get the most "action" from the coolant when there is a temperature differential between the coolant and the beer lines. Once the beer lines are cooled down, the temperature differential with the glycol is reduced to a point where not much heat is being pulled out of the beer lines. So, continuing to run the pump at this point isn't doing much other than putting a heat load on your glycol, causing your chiller to cycle more often.

There are lots of interacting factors on these systems so maybe I'm missing something, but my experiments thus far seem to support this. I've tried a bunch of different timing schedules and I'm finding that I'm able to maintain a satisfactory temperature in the trunk line by running the pump in short bursts just to make sure the coolant lines are recharged with ice cold coolant every few minutes. Since it's not running continuously, I can run the coolant a bit colder (26F or so) without worrying about freezing anything.

 

[Spin711]

How many beer lines do you have? You say the chiller is cycling once per hour, but honestly, I'm a bit surprised it's not more frequently than that with a submersible pump constantly running inside such a small fluid reservoir. That pump is not only rejecting heat into the reservoir, but it's also doing work on the fluid, which has a heating effect as well.

An external pump would help, by keeping some of that heat out of the reservoir. I'm also wondering if you might benefit from running the reservoir temperature a bit colder and running the pump on a duty cycle. The idea of this would be to not unnecessarily dump waste heat from the pump into the glycol at times when circulating coolant doesn't provide much cooling effect. I figure you get the most "action" from the coolant when there is a temperature differential between the coolant and the beer lines. Once the beer lines are cooled down, the temperature differential with the glycol is reduced to a point where not much heat is being pulled out of the beer lines. So, continuing to run the pump at this point isn't doing much other than putting a heat load on your glycol, causing your chiller to cycle more often.

There are lots of interacting factors on these systems so maybe I'm missing something, but my experiments thus far seem to support this. I've tried a bunch of different timing schedules and I'm finding that I'm able to maintain a satisfactory temperature in the trunk line by running the pump in short bursts just to make sure the coolant lines are recharged with ice cold coolant every few minutes. Since it's not running continuously, I can run the coolant a bit colder (26F or so) without worrying about freezing anything.

That is good advice. I started using a short timer switch so that it cycles on for a few minutes and then is off for double that or more. I find that now the glycol chiller is turning on less than once per hour. Perhaps it’s closer to once every hour and a half.

I have 8 beer lines with the glycol running through the center. The beer lines are twisted around the glycol lines so there is good contact, however I find that after beer has been sitting in the lines for a few days, it’s oxidized. The trunk lines are silver barrier, but I still think the small area where the lines are pvc (connecting the stainless insert lines to the barrier lines) is causing the oxygen ingress and staling the beer. It’s not that big of a deal as I just pour out the 9oz or so of stale beer before pouring a proper pour. But I would like to limit that waste.

How’s your setup running after a few more weeks?

 

[mattdee1]

That is good advice. I started using a short timer switch so that it cycles on for a few minutes and then is off for double that or more. I find that now the glycol chiller is turning on less than once per hour. Perhaps it’s closer to once every hour and a half.

I have 8 beer lines with the glycol running through the center. The beer lines are twisted around the glycol lines so there is good contact, however I find that after beer has been sitting in the lines for a few days, it’s oxidized. The trunk lines are silver barrier, but I still think the small area where the lines are pvc (connecting the stainless insert lines to the barrier lines) is causing the oxygen ingress and staling the beer. It’s not that big of a deal as I just pour out the 9oz or so of stale beer before pouring a proper pour. But I would like to limit that waste.

How’s your setup running after a few more weeks?

Sorry, haven't been on here in a while.

My setup has been running for about 4-5 months solid and I'm overall very happy with it. I did make a few tweaks and learn a few things since my last post but I haven't adjusted anything in a while. Actually, the whole system is currently down because I have no beer left (family/friends + holidays = bye bye homebrew). That's fine, gives me a chance to clean up the freezers and do some improvements.

The glycol pump I'm using is still going strong but I can't shake the feeling that there must be a better-suited pump for this job. One that provides at least 25 or so feet static head, relatively low flow, reasonably quiet, and designed to handle near-continuous operation over long spans of time. But I have searched high and low and I just can't seem to find any solution that is "obviously" better than what I have.

I've learned a few lessons about temperatures and pressures on a system like this that you don't have to contend with on a direct-draw system. Even when the insulated line and glycol are doing their jobs, unless you have a very strong glycol system, you still get a noticeable warming of the beer as it travels through the system to the tap. To compensate for this, it's tempting to simply turn the temperature down a bit on the keg freezer, but this can cause problems if you're not careful. I kept getting beers that would be fine for a while but would gradually start to develop crazy foam problems at the tap. This happened because I lowered my keg temperatures without lowering my CO2 serving pressure. More CO2 would dissolve into the beer, which would then come back out as the beer warmed up slightly on its way to the tap. I'm a fan of low-to-moderate carbonation levels in most beers, so by trial and error I've settled on using about 7psi serving pressure, which has provided a nice compromise between serving temperature and carbonation level at the tap.

This whole problem arises from the limitations of my glycol setup. If I had a stronger glycol cooler I could reduce the temperature differential of the beer between keg and tap, run my keg freezer a bit warmer, and my serving pressures a bit higher without issue. But my glycol-reservoir-inside-chest-freezer system is pretty much maxed out on how much cooling it can provide, and even if it could provide more cooling, I'm loath to run the pump much more than I am currently. Oh well, I've dialed the system in to the point where it works quite well overall, so I'm pretty happy with what I have, but I might consider splurging on a real glycol powerpack in the future.

My current project is to build a "line cleaning cart" that I can wheel up to keg freezer, attach a few fittings, and circulate cleaner. Cleaning 6 lines is an enormous pain in the ass, so I need to make it very convenient to ensure I do it on a regular basis - preferably at every other keg change or so.

I am a bit curious about your problem of the beer being oxidized if it sits in the lines for a few days. Luckily, I haven't noticed anything of the sort, and I know some taps go for long stretches of time with no pours. I suppose it helps that my lines only hold about 1/3 of a pint, which isn't very much.

 

[day_trippr]

The oxidized character is due to the EJ beverage tubing.
Turns out their proprietary compound used on their lines is barely better than solid pc tubing...

 

[Spin711]

Sorry, haven't been on here in a while.

My setup has been running for about 4-5 months solid and I'm overall very happy with it. I did make a few tweaks and learn a few things since my last post but I haven't adjusted anything in a while. Actually, the whole system is currently down because I have no beer left (family/friends + holidays = bye bye homebrew). That's fine, gives me a chance to clean up the freezers and do some improvements.

The glycol pump I'm using is still going strong but I can't shake the feeling that there must be a better-suited pump for this job. One that provides at least 25 or so feet static head, relatively low flow, reasonably quiet, and designed to handle near-continuous operation over long spans of time. But I have searched high and low and I just can't seem to find any solution that is "obviously" better than what I have.

I've learned a few lessons about temperatures and pressures on a system like this that you don't have to contend with on a direct-draw system. Even when the insulated line and glycol are doing their jobs, unless you have a very strong glycol system, you still get a noticeable warming of the beer as it travels through the system to the tap. To compensate for this, it's tempting to simply turn the temperature down a bit on the keg freezer, but this can cause problems if you're not careful. I kept getting beers that would be fine for a while but would gradually start to develop crazy foam problems at the tap. This happened because I lowered my keg temperatures without lowering my CO2 serving pressure. More CO2 would dissolve into the beer, which would then come back out as the beer warmed up slightly on its way to the tap. I'm a fan of low-to-moderate carbonation levels in most beers, so by trial and error I've settled on using about 7psi serving pressure, which has provided a nice compromise between serving temperature and carbonation level at the tap.

This whole problem arises from the limitations of my glycol setup. If I had a stronger glycol cooler I could reduce the temperature differential of the beer between keg and tap, run my keg freezer a bit warmer, and my serving pressures a bit higher without issue. But my glycol-reservoir-inside-chest-freezer system is pretty much maxed out on how much cooling it can provide, and even if it could provide more cooling, I'm loath to run the pump much more than I am currently. Oh well, I've dialed the system in to the point where it works quite well overall, so I'm pretty happy with what I have, but I might consider splurging on a real glycol powerpack in the future.

My current project is to build a "line cleaning cart" that I can wheel up to keg freezer, attach a few fittings, and circulate cleaner. Cleaning 6 lines is an enormous pain in the ass, so I need to make it very convenient to ensure I do it on a regular basis - preferably at every other keg change or so.

I am a bit curious about your problem of the beer being oxidized if it sits in the lines for a few days. Luckily, I haven't noticed anything of the sort, and I know some taps go for long stretches of time with no pours. I suppose it helps that my lines only hold about 1/3 of a pint, which isn't very much.

Sorry I haven’t been on for awhile either. The pump I use is Penguin’s xl submersible for my diy ac glycol system. 8 gallon reservoir with a short circuit timer on the pump helps keep the unit to cycle about once every hour and a half. Not too bad. The pump is expensive however it has good head capacity at 32ft with 6.3 gpm. Monitoring the outflow into the reservoir I think it maintains good flow without being overpowered. Overall building the AC glycol unit even with the pump wasn’t too expensive and it has good cooling capacity.

What I do for cleaning is setup a small 2 gallon bucket with submersible pump at the tap, take off all faucets, and add jumpers to my ball lock connectors in the keeper, and route the cleaner through all 8 lines with return line to the bucket. BLC at 100*F recirculated continuously works great. After a few weeks it’s surprising how dirty the lines are. After recirculating that, I rinse with water and then attach each line to a keg of Star San and run that through and soak. Takes less than an hour start to finish and you can do other tasks while it’s cleaning.

The oxidized character is due to the EJ beverage tubing.
Turns out their proprietary compound used on their lines is barely better than solid pc tubing...

The tubing that came with my trunkline is Bevex PE Ultra. Not sure if that’s the same product you’re referring to? When I eventually replace the lines, I will look into Micromatic Barriermaster Flavourlock.

https://www.micromatic.com/5-16-inc...inch-id-8-products-w-2-glycol-lines-cdi852-bf

It won’t be anytime soon as I have to open up everything to make the connection but I’m thinking it will have better properties than my current lines.

 

[day_trippr]

I was referring to the "silver barrier" tubing used by Spin711. Imo, it's crap and like all EJ Beverage tubing should be avoided, especially considering the "wunder line" EVAbarrier tubing performance, ease of use, and price, as a far better alternative...

Cheers!