My new kegerator can hold 2 corny kegs and a 5 lb. CO2 tank, allegedly. Keeping 10 feet or so of beer line in order is a challenge.
Anyone care to share best practices or pictures of their beer lines inside a fermenter?
I coil the beer line into a loop maybe a foot across and use a couple zip ties to keep it coiled. Don’t pull the zip ties tight enough to restrict flow.
EDIT - Obviously be sure to leave enough room in the loop to get the QD onto the post of your kegs.
Get 3/16" instead of 1/4" & you won’t need a long a piece.
I’m using 3/16" at 5 feet a piece. Upon further inspection, looks like I only need 4 feet of line based on the keg line balancing equation. 10 PSI, 2.2 lbs. of resistance on the line, and 3 feet or so from the middle of the keg to the tap equate to just under 4 feet of line!
This right here. I’m running 6 ft lines.
I run 9’ lines at 3/16 - I’ve always found that 2 psi/ft restriction a bit liberal, more like 1.25-1.5 which makes a difference. Here’s my setup with 7x lines, held with 1.5" pipe hoops.
Holy…!!! That’s a thing of beauty.
I run 3/16 lines and most beers get away with under 4 feet at 40 degrees. No issues. My English Mild was rocking about 2 feet. I’m currently carbing up some higher volume brew that I expect to need 6 ft lines to properly serve.
Thinking of the beer length equation, is that reliable most of the time? I wanted to ask before I cut off a foot or two of beer line.
*i should probably cut my gas line back as well. No need to run 3 feet IMO.
I would start with a couple more feet of line than you think you need and see how it pours. If it works well, leave it alone.
You shouldn’t have an issue if your lines are a few feet longer than what the equation suggests, though you will have foamy pours if your lines are too short.
Having one long gas line in your system (like 10 feet or so) can be handy for purging kegs, racking under CO2 pressure, etc. If you get a gas manifold with one more port than you would otherwise need, you can have a dedicated line for those kinds of things.
+1. I’m using 8’ of 3/16 and like it pretty well. And yeah, that’s a thing of beauty.
Wow… that’s some organization. Looks great, although I know I’ll never do it. LOL
Thanks guys. Actually since that photo’s been taken, I’ve continued the pipe loops round under the gas manifold, where they all branch out. And somebody mentioned the gas lines, I have mine at 4’ so they reach the corners of the freezer, with the exception of 1 which is 12’, for use when purging kegs outside the unit.
Question for you and anyone else that has built a something like this: do you have any problems going without insulation inside the collar?
The plans I was following call for gluing insulation sheets inside the collar, but I was wondering if that was just going to be a breeding ground for mold. The other thing that’s nice about no insulation is having the collar available for mounting hardware.
So how is it working out for you?
I’ve never really noticed an issue. I like the mounting options, and it’s a cleaner build.
I did my collar a bit differently. I built a shell of 1/4" paneling around the insulation board. It looks like wood all around but the whole center is blue insulation board. I did put solid wood in where the taps are to make tightening nuts on the shanks and such a bit more solid.
It works well and is still insulated. Just something else to think about.
Paul
Good idea Paul - I’ll have to remember that option