Switched to BevSeal Ultra tubing; weird pours. ??

[brew703]

I routed my beer lines (BevSeal 235) around the inside of my collar. This keeps them out of the way when switching kegs. It also allows great airflow around the lines, which keeps them cold.

My fan is located on the bottom of the freezer, below the shank area, blowing upward. You can just barely see it in the bottom right of the photo. I get about 1degF difference between bottom and top.

My lines are about 7' long. I get great pours even though the lines are considerably shorter than than the calculators and conventional wisdom say they should be. I attribute this to some built-in resistance due to the right angle shank adapters, and some resistance from the flow control device in the faucets (even when wide open).

For normal pours I have the flow control wide open, I only throttle it down when filling bottles or growlers. I close the flow control after a pour as insurance against my cat knocking a faucet handle when I'm away. On the Intertap faucets the flow control will completely shut off the flow.

So far I've been very pleased with how well all this works.

View attachment 639027

Man that's clean. I'm planning on re-doing my collar, just a different color and may go this route.

 

[brew703]

So, got home, put my wireless BBQ thermometer on one of my kegs and the other right near the bottom of the keezer (not touching the floor). Both are measureing 25 degrees which I do not believe is correct. My first pour kinda sputtered a little. Drank that then poured a pint and no sputtering. Took a temp reading of my poured brew with my Thermapen and it measured 34.4 degrees. So maybe the 25 degrees is correct. I have another wireless thermometer which I will try and see what that shows.

 

[day_trippr]

You can expect swings perhaps as low as 25°F in a keezer. After all the machine was designed to optimally maintain sub-zero temperatures so what rolls off the evaporator-lined section of the cabinet interior is freaky cold.

fwiw, this is the plot of my keezer over the last 24 hours. I run a 2°F differential using the Keg channel to control the compressor (probe strapped to the side of a keg with 1" of closed cell foam over it). The cabinet temperature got as low as 28°F here.

Note how close the Upper and Lower probes track. That's all about the "stirring" fan...

I'll also note the compressor cycled just 5 times in that 24 hours...

Cheers!

 

[brew703]

I can see how that would happen. Right now, it's sitting at 35 degrees. My inkirb is registering 33.8.

 

[LittleRiver]

That's a clean looking setup! ...

Man that's clean ...

Thanks!

It's a compact keezer, and I knew switching kegs would be a hassle if I had loops of beer line in the way, so I put in the extra effort up front to get the lines out of the way. I used short shanks and right angle shank adapters for the same reason, to make sure the beer lines didn't get in the way when switching kegs.

The side benefits are that the separated beer lines get cold air flowing all around them, and I was able to cut down on line length and still get good pours. I was hoping it would work out that way, but I didn't know for sure until I built it.

 

[mongoose33]

So, got home, put my wireless BBQ thermometer on one of my kegs and the other right near the bottom of the keezer (not touching the floor). Both are measureing 25 degrees which I do not believe is correct. My first pour kinda sputtered a little. Drank that then poured a pint and no sputtering. Took a temp reading of my poured brew with my Thermapen and it measured 34.4 degrees. So maybe the 25 degrees is correct. I have another wireless thermometer which I will try and see what that shows.

???

I am not following. If you poured a beer into a glass that should have been fairly cold, it's hard to understand how beer measured at 25 degrees is, in your glass, 34 degrees.

What about putting the thermapen in the freezer and come back for it in a few minutes?

 

[day_trippr]

That's actually not unreasonable, ime. I holds my kegs between 34 and 36°F but beer in the glass is around 42°F - for a first pour, at least.

I suspect the OP was measuring air temperature inside the keezer, not the keg temperature. At 25°F there'd be a big beersicle...

Cheers!

 

[mongoose33]

That's actually not unreasonable, ime. I holds my kegs between 34 and 36°F but beer in the glass is around 42°F - for a first pour, at least.

I suspect the OP was measuring air temperature inside the keezer, not the keg temperature. At 25°F there'd be a big beersicle...

Cheers!

His was a second pour....

He needs to put that thermapen in there, IMO. That's what I used...

 

[day_trippr]

Even so he'd be measuring the cabinet air temperature and as my chart shows that can be all over the place.
If it's important enough he needs to check the beer temperature inside and outside...

Cheers!

 

[cswant88]

I routed my beer lines (BevSeal 235) around the inside of my collar. This keeps them out of the way when switching kegs. It also allows great airflow around the lines, which keeps them cold.

My fan is located on the bottom of the freezer, below the shank area, blowing upward. You can just barely see it in the bottom right of the photo. I get about 1degF difference between bottom and top.

My lines are about 7' long. I get great pours even though the lines are considerably shorter than than the calculators and conventional wisdom say they should be. I attribute this to some built-in resistance due to the right angle shank adapters, and some resistance from the flow control device in the faucets (even when wide open).

For normal pours I have the flow control wide open, I only throttle it down when filling bottles or growlers. I close the flow control after a pour as insurance against my cat knocking a faucet handle when I'm away. On the Intertap faucets the flow control will completely shut off the flow.

So far I've been very pleased with how well all this works.

View attachment 639027

Is it weird that I want to drop a keg in your keezer. I bet it just drops in real easy like. My keezer needs this.

 

[k-os]

I routed my beer lines (BevSeal 235) around the inside of my collar. This keeps them out of the way when switching kegs. It also allows great airflow around the lines, which keeps them cold.

My fan is located on the bottom of the freezer, below the shank area, blowing upward. You can just barely see it in the bottom right of the photo. I get about 1degF difference between bottom and top.

My lines are about 7' long. I get great pours even though the lines are considerably shorter than than the calculators and conventional wisdom say they should be. I attribute this to some built-in resistance due to the right angle shank adapters, and some resistance from the flow control device in the faucets (even when wide open).

For normal pours I have the flow control wide open, I only throttle it down when filling bottles or growlers. I close the flow control after a pour as insurance against my cat knocking a faucet handle when I'm away. On the Intertap faucets the flow control will completely shut off the flow.

So far I've been very pleased with how well all this works.

View attachment 639027

This is a great picture for me as I'm working on building my keezer. I actually just bought 4 of the right angle fittings so I can do some thing similar.

 

[brew703]

Yes, I was measuring air temp. I wanted to see what the temp was at the top of my keg vs bottom. It was fairly consistent, within a couple degrees. I was surprised at that.

I'm having a hard time believing the 25 degree temp was correct but I guess if my pint pour was at 34.4 degrees then I would expect air temp vs beer temp to be somewhat different.
I left the probes in my keezer overnight. When i woke this morning both were at 34 degrees. I did see it get as high as 41 degrees late yesterday evening.

My actual keezer temp probe is sitting in a pint mason jar. I used two of the gel freezer packs i cut open and put the gel into the jar and inserted my probe through the cap. The jar is sitting on the bottom of the keezer floor on top of another jar so that it doesn't sit directly on the floor. The jar my probe is in is wrapped in a towl.

 

[Tbelanger]

Mine does the same thing. I also have a fan circulating. I have different faucets though. I have 12’ per run. I feel like it’s a temperature thing though, maybe the faucet is just that much warmer. I feel it’s gotten worse with the rising temperature of my basement

 

[Carolina_Matt]

I bought a $6 fan from Walmart today. Put it in my keezer, put the thermometer on top of the kegs and lines, and it's reading 36 degrees. When I put it up there yesterday, I think it was in the mid-40's up there. Hopefully that fixes my issue!