"champagne" or sparkling wine on tap

hector219 · Jul 31, 2015

I'm using one of my taps to have sparkling wine on tap. The problem is that the amount of hose required to balance the pressure is out of control, like 40 feet or so. I tried a cheap fix, an inline flow restrictor, just some corrugated plastic that goes inside 3/16 tubing, and wasn't very useful.

Have any suggestions? Has anyone used any other flow restrictors or does anyone have enough experience with the perlick 650ss to know whether it would work with pressures around 40-45 psi? Thanks for the help.

billl · Jul 31, 2015

I was just considering doing this. My plan was just to turn down the pressure to serve.

I generally use the plastic mixer sticks you can put in the dip tube. They cut down on foaming, but I can't imagine they would make much of a dent in 45psi issues.

andrewmaixner · Jul 31, 2015

Perlick Flow control tap. I've used mine at 30PSI for non-head-retaining stuff like cider and skeeter pee, and at 10PSI for my occasional beers where the head is just insane.

Yooper · Jul 31, 2015

I just went with the 30' of line to serve soda at 30 psi in mine. I bought some semi-rigid stuff from McMaster-Carr, and it just curls around the top of the keg. It was 15 cents/foot when I bought it, so it was cheap and easy although the tubing was a little hard to jam onto the shank (I used boiling water to soften it a bit).

johngaltsmotor · Jul 31, 2015

I'm surprised, I wouldn't think it takes that high of a pressure to carbonate wine. But your options are really limited to a ridiculously long hose or a much smaller hose and spending even more money to get the adapter fittings to mate to the typical keg and tap fittings.

I've got 5 gals each of carbonated Tang and Arnold Palmer on tap right now as thirst quenchers. It took almost 3weeks to carb up but at my usual serving 12PSI they are perfectly carbonated (the Tang tastes and pours just like Sunkist). I would have thought wine would be similar.

Yooper · Jul 31, 2015

johngaltsmotor said:
I'm surprised, I wouldn't think it takes that high of a pressure to carbonate wine. But your options are really limited to a ridiculously long hose or a much smaller hose and spending even more money to get the adapter fittings to mate to the typical keg and tap fittings.

I've got 5 gals each of carbonated Tang and Arnold Palmer on tap right now as thirst quenchers. It took almost 3weeks to carb up but at my usual serving 12PSI they are perfectly carbonated (the Tang tastes and pours just like Sunkist). I would have thought wine would be similar.

Wine is similar, but he's talking about 'champagne' levels of carbonation. Soda is pretty close to that, at 30 psi at 40 degrees.