I am currently finishing my basement and need some guidance figuring out what size trunk line to run. I have about 35 ft to run from the keezer to the wall taps that I will be doing. Goes up about 6 ft to the ceiling from the keezer, runs about 25ft, then goes down 3ft to the taps. I'm looking to use a 8 product trunk line. Can anybody help me out in what size lines I should be looking for?
Trunk Line Sizing
- Thread starter Josh_C
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You could try playing with our favorite carbonation table along with the only beer line length calculator worth using to see what your options are.
For instance, assume your preferred dispensing temperature is 40°F and you like a middle of the road carbonation level of 2.5 volumes.
Using the table, the CO2 pressure you'd use is 12psi.
Plug that 12 psi into Mike's calculator, and set the vertical distance to the net gain in height from the center of the kegs to the faucet tip.
I'm guessing the "6 feet to the ceiling" is from the top of your keezer, so there's probably a couple of feet missing from that metric.
At the other end the line is actually dropping; you want to subtract that drop from the rise at the keezer end to get the net rise.
I'm going to guess that net is 5 feet, so plug that into Mike's calculator.
If you leave the line ID set to .1875", the calculated result is 8.74 feet - obviously way short.
But change the line ID to .250", leaving everything else alone, and the result is 34.56 feet - which could be a perfect solution.
So, tweak the temperature and carbonation level you prefer first, get the resulting CO2 pressure to use, plug that into Mike's calculator and make any other needed adjustments (that net rise factor, for instance) and you can see what results you get...
hth
Cheers!
For instance, assume your preferred dispensing temperature is 40°F and you like a middle of the road carbonation level of 2.5 volumes.
Using the table, the CO2 pressure you'd use is 12psi.
Plug that 12 psi into Mike's calculator, and set the vertical distance to the net gain in height from the center of the kegs to the faucet tip.
I'm guessing the "6 feet to the ceiling" is from the top of your keezer, so there's probably a couple of feet missing from that metric.
At the other end the line is actually dropping; you want to subtract that drop from the rise at the keezer end to get the net rise.
I'm going to guess that net is 5 feet, so plug that into Mike's calculator.
If you leave the line ID set to .1875", the calculated result is 8.74 feet - obviously way short.
But change the line ID to .250", leaving everything else alone, and the result is 34.56 feet - which could be a perfect solution.
So, tweak the temperature and carbonation level you prefer first, get the resulting CO2 pressure to use, plug that into Mike's calculator and make any other needed adjustments (that net rise factor, for instance) and you can see what results you get...
hth
Cheers!
Ahhhh, I get it now. I was struggling trying to figure out how to plan this, your explanation finally nailed it for me. So it looks like the 1/4 line would be perfect for me on the IPA's. But it looks like for stouts it would only want a 10-16ft tube. Since I'm using a trunk line this wouldn't be possible. What solutions are there for that scenario? I've read that people do smaller lines to increase resistance, but not sure how to make that go the other way?
camiller
Well-Known Member
you could push the stout with a nitro mix at the higher pressure to get it the distance without over-carbonating. You would likely want to force carb the beer with straight CO2 then switch to beer-gas for dispensing.
I'm guessing, but it is an educated guess
I'm guessing, but it is an educated guess
