Pressure and line length

[spokaniac]

I bought a keg set up from a guy, 4 kegs and a refrigerated, 4 tap, premix dispenser. I am in the process of testing it out, so I just tried a keg of water. I put 30 psi (it's about 65-68 F in that room) on the keg and let it sit for a couple days with the occasional shaking and checking the carbonation. Today it seemed about right so I turned the chiller on and gave it an hour or so and it was pouring nice and cold. I tried adding a little flavored syrup to a glass and filling it with the carbonated water and it was pretty good.

I have my stout that I put in another keg with priming sugar to carb, I got that keg a couple weeks before getting the rest of the set up. I checked it last night but putting a picnic tap on it and using the internal pressure to draw off a few ounces and it is getting carbed and tasting pretty good.

My question is should it be OK to hook that keg up to the same 30 psi or will that affect the carbonation level? Should I get another regulator to be able to have diffferent pressures or play with line lengths?

 

[cfonnes]

I typically set my regulator at 12, it seems to give me good delivery with 8 ft of beer line. My kegerator is set at about 45 F.

Are you planning on leaving the regulator set at 30? Seems very high for delivery pressure, how long are your beer lines?

I do not get in a hurry about carbonating, I just put the keg in at 12 psi and in a couple of weeks it is ready to go.

Hooking your stout to 30 psi will cause it to overcarbonate.

 

[spokaniac]

The kegs are sitting at room temp, 65-68. With the chiller, the water I've tested so far comes out nice and cold and not too fast, actually slower than I thought it would. I cranked the water up to 30 cause I was anxious to try the system out and see if I could make some pop for the kids by carbing up water then adding it to syrup instead of having to clean soda residue from the kegs.

 

[audger]

http://www.classhomebrewers.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Force-Carbonation-Chart.gif

soda normally takes 3-5 volumes of carbonation, so using 20-30psi is OK. this will most likely be way too much carbonation for your beer though. look at the chart to see what different pressures and temperatures will do. most beers in general are carbd to 1.7-2.5 volumes btw.

 

[spokaniac]

Thanks. That's a great chart. Now with it being naturally carbed already, will applying the CO2 just cause it to eventually equalized out to the volume according to the applied pressure? Will the fact that it is getting chilled between the keg and the tap change the carbonation?

 

[spokaniac]

I am not sure of the exact line length. There's about 3' or so of line from the keg to the chiller, then there are what look to be 1/4" stainless coils that are immersed in the cold tank. Not sure how long those are but would have to be a few feet worth. The water tank I have hooked up now at 32 psi doesn't gush out of the tap at all.

 

[cfonnes]

Did you hook up the stout? Kind of curious how it pours, I am guessing that you will have to adjust line length.

 

[spokaniac]

will try hooking it up tonight. Woke up this morning and discovered there was a leak in one of the beverage lines in the dispenser. The keg of water I had hooked up to it had been slowly leaking into the evaporator tank and it had overflowed. It is a pretty slow leak and at least it happened with water, not beer or sugary soda. It looks like it is just that one line, so until I get time track that leak down I'll just use the other 3.

On the bright side I called Cornelius and they were nice enough to dig up the old manual, scan it and send it to me.