help with balancing my setup

[cookie1980]

hi was after a little help with balancing my keg system,everytime i pull a beer its too foamy, i have a cornelius keg my beer is cooled to 3 celcius, the tube i have is approx 10mm and it is 7ft long, and i am using the set and forget method at 12-15 psi to carb and serve. I did read somewhere its best to use 3/16 tube is this correct. thanks

 

[Gfei]

By 10mm do you mean inner diameter? If so that is really wide. I use 3/16 " (~ 4.7 mm) inner diamter tubing for my kegging system. Otherwise your pressure/temp/line length look ok.

Basically you need to match the resistance of the line to the pressure in the keg. The tubing i use has a resistance of about 2.2 pounds per foot so 12 psi you would need about 5.5 feet of tubing to balance your system.

It definitely sounds to me like your tubing is too large and not providing enough resistance.

 

[cookie1980]

ok thankyou, think i will have to buy some smaller diameter tube 3/16 sounds like what i need, thankyou again for your quick responce.

 

[Brewnoob1]

Is there a way to figure out tube resistance somewhere out on the web? Try lowering your pressure and see if that helps with your current setup. Ultimately, you want the beer at the nozzle coming out at 0psi.

 

[cookie1980]

probally a very noobish question here.. if im using 10mm line and 3/16 is say 4.7mm couldnt i just not half my length of tube.??

 

[Brewnoob1]

Wider tube will have less resistance. So, you'd need twice the length if that were the case. Though, I don't know the mathmatics behind which is the 1st part of my question to others. I do know that you want virtually no pressure at the nozzle in order to minimize foam.

 

[Gfei]

Wider tube will have less resistance. So, you'd need twice the length if that were the case. Though, I don't know the mathmatics behind which is the 1st part of my question to others. I do know that you want virtually no pressure at the nozzle in order to minimize foam.

My gut says the resistance is related to the cross sectional area of the tubing and not the diameter. So resistance would be related to tubing size by r^2.

Which means for double the tubing diameter you actually need to quadruple the length rather than double it. So he would be looking at 28 ft of 10mm tubing. I could be wrong here since I just pulled everything mostly out of my a$$.

 

[dpittard]

Does your tubing stay at the same temp? My brother has a keezer with a custom tower on top and the tubing in the tower warms up because the cold doesn't travel into the tower.

 

[cookie1980]

My gut says the resistance is related to the cross sectional area of the tubing and not the diameter. So resistance would be related to tubing size by r^2.

Which means for double the tubing diameter you actually need to quadruple the length rather than double it. So he would be looking at 28 ft of 10mm tubing. I could be wrong here since I just pulled everything mostly out of my a$$.

lol 28 ft i think ill buy some 3/16, and the beer line is always cold thankyou all for your input