Secondary regulater. High or low pressure.

[odie313]

I am building my keezer and I am not sure if I should go with a low pressure or a high pressure system.

I plan on having the tank on the outside of the keezer. I would like to be able to have the availability of different serving pressure for the different styles of beer I plan on brewing. I would think that if I go with a high pressure system, the serving pressure could be as high as I want it to be. If I go with a low pressure system, I would have to set my primary regulater to the sum total pressure of all my different beer styles.

Sorry if this is confusing.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I'm not sure what you mean by high or low pressure system. Feel free to elaborate.

If I go with a low pressure system, I would have to set my primary regulater to the sum total pressure of all my different beer styles.

Yes, if there exists the potential that you might have all of your taps open simultaneously. Otherwise, no. The typical home draft system is static (no flow) or near static (I.e., during carbing, where a very small amount of gas is being gradually pushed into/absorbed by the liquid) most of the time. The only time even a moderate demand for pressure occurs is when a tap is opened or you're charging a non-pressurized keg. Both instances are relatively brief and then the system returns to a static (or near static) state.

If you plan to have a primary/secondary setup, you only need to feed the secondary with enough pressure to meet or exceed your highest output setting on your secondary, which means maybe 12-14 psi. With that said, I'd set the primary to 30 psi and feed that into the secondary. The 30 psi will come in handy when you need to seal a keg lid or burst carb at greater than serving pressure.

 

[odie313]

So, it sounds like if I use low pressure secondary; I would only need to set the primary regulater pressure to the highest pressure I plan on serving. For example, If I'm doing carbonated water for sodas, and a couple of kegs for beer. I would set the secondary for the water at 30 psi, since it would have the most pressure. I would then set the primary for 30 psi, since my primary only needs to match the highest pressure in my secondary. I hope that's what you meant.

 

[odie313]

Duplicate.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Yes, that's correct.

 

[odie313]

Thanks for the reply, I have decided to go with the low pressure secondary regulators.

 

[ericbw]

So, it sounds like if I use low pressure secondary; I would only need to set the primary regulater pressure to the highest pressure I plan on serving. For example, If I'm doing carbonated water for sodas, and a couple of kegs for beer. I would set the secondary for the water at 30 psi, since it would have the most pressure. I would then set the primary for 30 psi, since my primary only needs to match the highest pressure in my secondary. I hope that's what you meant.

I think you have it backwards. You'd set the primary at 30 (for soda) and secondary at 10 or 12, or whatever your serving pressure for beer kegs is.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I believe his plan is to serve everything from the secondary. The only purpose of the primary is to provide X amount of pressure to the secondary. If he needs 30 psi out of the secondary to carb soda, he needs to have at least 30 psi going into the secondary regulator from the primary. It certainly wouldn't hurt to push a little higher pressure into the secondary, but for all practical purposes 30 psi is all that is required.

 

[odie313]

LLbeanJ is correct, my plan is to have the tank on the outside of the freezer. I wouldn't want to drill more than one hole thru the collar for the secondary lines.

 

[ericbw]

I believe his plan is to serve everything from the secondary. The only purpose of the primary is to provide X amount of pressure to the secondary. If he needs 30 psi out of the secondary to carb soda, he needs to have at least 30 psi going into the secondary regulator from the primary. It certainly wouldn't hurt to push a little higher pressure into the secondary, but for all practical purposes 30 psi is all that is required.

But why would you have a secondary then? Why not one reg set at 30? If you want two pressures, then your first has to be higher, right?

The tank will provide 30 psi to the regulator. The regulator steps it down from the pressure in the tank, right?

 

[LLBeanJ]

Yes, he could go with a high-pressure hose straight from the tank (no regulator at the tank) thru the keezer collar and into a multi-body regulator inside the keezer. If it were me, though, I'd put a single body primary on the tank set to 30+ psi and have a multi-body secondary inside the keezer, then connect the two regs with low-pressure hose.

OP, is this what you meant by high-pressure vs. low-pressure system? One regulator + high-pressure hose vs. two regulators and low-pressure hose?

 

[odie313]

Yes, that is what I meant. I would have liked to just run a hose directly from the tank, however it sounds like it would be safer to have a primary regulater connected, then run a low pressure hose to the low pressure secondary.

 

[LLBeanJ]

Well, then it makes perfect sense to me now.