77 replies to this topic

[Steve Urquell]

Ken, when I was thinking about swapping out my stubbed icemaker tubing, I was gonna use john guest female to male barb and use a short piece of PVC beerline to hook it to my barbed connectors. Like this.

 

[Big Nake]

Okay, breathe deep. There is some good news but there is also a lot of WTF.

I remembered that I had traded with another Chicago area brewer years and years ago. I gave him a tower, a drip tray and some other things. He sent me a box of stuff like QDs, etc. and I found that box and sure enough there were two 4" stainless shanks in that box sans nipples. Hooray. But I need 4. I called a local place and they had 2 more. Hooray! So those were $18 each so I figure that for $36 I might as well get this done today. I remove two of the old shanks, clean things up, etc. and I ask my son to hold the beverage line straight along my 10' tape so I can cut it. I cut 10', then another 10' and guess what? There's only 11' left. My receipt shows 40' but they sent me 31. Seriously? So I cut the last 11' in half and make two 5.5' pieces. I put the two 5.5' pieces on taps 1 and 2 and put the two 10' pieces on taps 3 and 4. Everything is in place and all faucets are pouring beer but I am getting foam everywhere. I'll have to email BrewRite and ask them for another 20' (I assume). My pressure is pretty low on my tanks mainly because I was already using only 5' lines. I'm going to leave the pressure on taps 1 and 2 low for now and try to adjust 3 and 4 upwards towards 10psi (it's low now... like 4psi or something).

Finally... this tubing is truly satanic in that it doesn't want to just "lay" where you want it. I assume it's GREAT tubing but it is hard to work with. The John Guest fittings are fantastic. They definitely made it easier. I can't see how anyone could get this tubing over one of these nipples... it actually looks impossible. So I will continue to play and see what happens. Thanks again for the help everyone.

[matt6150]

Okay, breathe deep. There is some good news but there is also a lot of WTF.

I remembered that I had traded with another Chicago area brewer years and years ago. I gave him a tower, a drip tray and some other things. He sent me a box of stuff like QDs, etc. and I found that box and sure enough there were two 4" stainless shanks in that box sans nipples. Hooray. But I need 4. I called a local place and they had 2 more. Hooray! So those were $18 each so I figure that for $36 I might as well get this done today. I remove two of the old shanks, clean things up, etc. and I ask my son to hold the beverage line straight along my 10' tape so I can cut it. I cut 10', then another 10' and guess what? There's only 11' left. My receipt shows 40' but they sent me 31. Seriously? So I cut the last 11' in half and make two 5.5' pieces. I put the two 5.5' pieces on taps 1 and 2 and put the two 10' pieces on taps 3 and 4. Everything is in place and all faucets are pouring beer but I am getting foam everywhere. I'll have to email BrewRite and ask them for another 20' (I assume). My pressure is pretty low on my tanks mainly because I was already using only 5' lines. I'm going to leave the pressure on taps 1 and 2 low for now and try to adjust 3 and 4 upwards towards 10psi (it's low now... like 4psi or something).

Finally... this tubing is truly satanic in that it doesn't want to just "lay" where you want it. I assume it's GREAT tubing but it is hard to work with. The John Guest fittings are fantastic. They definitely made it easier. I can't see how anyone could get this tubing over one of these nipples... it actually looks impossible. So I will continue to play and see what happens. Thanks again for the help everyone.

It sucks but I did it.

 

Some good and bad I guess. That sucks that they shorted you. So are taps 3 and 4 pouring ok?

[gnef]

Yea, the stiffness can get in the way. I have 14 taps, so they can get tangled inside the walk-in, and they do obstruct my ability to move around as easily as I used to.

 

It is pretty bad that they shorted you any amount, but especially that much. I bought mine through a friend with a foxx equipment account, and they didn't seem to pay any attention to the amount that they were sending out. I ordered 100 ft rolls twice, the first time they sent about 180ft, the second time, they sent 88 ft, and then he had them send a replacement roll that had a bit over 100 ft. There is really no excuse though, as the line is printed with the length every two feet.

 

This stuff is great though for usefulness to the beer itself. No oxidation, no plastic taint, no flavor leaching when changing kegs, etc. Hopefully the rigidity of the line doesn't pose too much of a problem for you.

 

I also hope that 10 ft of line is enough for you to balance your lines with your given temperature and desired volumes of CO2.

[Big Nake]

My guess is that some dingleberry read the order, put "30 feet" into his head and measured out 31. I'm fine with mistakes but it was not welcomed today with the shank issue as well. Taps 3 and 4 seem to be okay although a little foamy. Taps 1 and 2 I'm working on now but the game is coming on and pizza is about to be set forth so I may just have to deal with whatever comes out of the taps until I can focus on it. This is one reason I hate this stuff because there ALWAYS seems to be something that I didn't foresee but I'm going to assume that it will be worth it in the end.

Also... one of the coiled-up lines is so stubborn that I can't close the fridge door. Clearly I can resolve that issue but for now the fridge's door is held closed with duct tape. WTF!!

[Big Nake]

I found THIS site today which has a beer line balancing calculator. I have the one fridge with 2 kegs and 10 feet of beer line each. I'm about 1.5' from the center of my kegs to the height of the shank and faucet. If I plug in the rest of the numbers, it shows that about 12psi will work for 10' of tubing. In the other fridge I have the 2 kegs which both have only 5.5' of beer line and the calculator shows that about 7psi will work for 5.5' of line. I know that Matt mentioned that there is less resistance with this beer line which makes me wonder if these numbers are skewed. I continue to play with the pressure (and tap beers!) to see if I can get things balanced. I did send an email to RiteBrew asking them to send me another 20' of this beer line. Question: Does anyone with experience with this line think that I could balance the line properly using only 5.5' of beer line? Question 2: Does anyone else have a link to some other trusted site with some good line balancing information or does anyone with experience with this beer line have any pearls of wisdom to share regarding balancing? Thanks gang.

[djinkc]

I found THIS site today which has a beer line balancing calculator. I have the one fridge with 2 kegs and 10 feet of beer line each. I'm about 1.5' from the center of my kegs to the height of the shank and faucet. If I plug in the rest of the numbers, it shows that about 12psi will work for 10' of tubing. In the other fridge I have the 2 kegs which both have only 5.5' of beer line and the calculator shows that about 7psi will work for 5.5' of line. I know that Matt mentioned that there is less resistance with this beer line which makes me wonder if these numbers are skewed. I continue to play with the pressure (and tap beers!) to see if I can get things balanced. I did send an email to RiteBrew asking them to send me another 20' of this beer line. Question: Does anyone with experience with this line think that I could balance the line properly using only 5.5' of beer line? Question 2: Does anyone else have a link to some other trusted site with some good line balancing information or does anyone with experience with this beer line have any pearls of wisdom to share regarding balancing? Thanks gang.

 

Every time I made a major change with my beer lines I ended up just playing with it until I found the right mix.  And swearing a lot.  I've used calculators for elevation, pressure, line size, temp ect..  Never worked until I tweaked it.  IMO longer lines for kegerator setups makes life easier.

[Big Nake]

Every time I made a major change with my beer lines I ended up just playing with it until I found the right mix.  And swearing a lot.  I've used calculators for elevation, pressure, line size, temp ect..  Never worked until I tweaked it.  IMO longer lines for kegerator setups makes life easier.

Thanks for that.

I just heard back from RiteBrew and they're sending me another 20' of this line so now I have a small project for next weekend or whenever the line arrives.

Also... for anyone who uses these John Guest fittings: When everything is snapped together and connected, can I assume that everything on the inside is relatively smooth so that it won't create any additional foaming? I cut the line using some uber-sharp and heavy-duty scissors and I got a good, clean cut. But it's hard to see what's going on inside of the plastic fittings so I'm just wondering about how snug those pieces should be tightened and whether I should have been more careful about how the lines all fit together. I did get the two 5.5' lines balanced pretty well yesterday (of course, those are about to be changed) and I will work on the longer lines this week. Cheers.

[Brauer]

How low a pressure to balance 5.5 feet?

[Big Nake]

How low a pressure to balance 5.5 feet?

According to the calculator I used, about 7 psi. Taps 1 and 2 were pouring quite nicely last night so that's a plus but if I'm changing those lines out with 10', it's just a temporary victory.

[3rd party JKor]

I recommend changing the lines every 3,000 pints.

[Big Nake]

Okay, an update: I received the other 20' of this Bev-Seal Ultra tubing in the mail yesterday. I had the time this afternoon to go to the one draft fridge (with the two 10' sections of line) and coil them up to about 8" across and then zip-tie them together. Then I removed the original 5.5' lines in the other draft fridge and replaced them with two new 10' sections and coiled those up the same way. It's better but it's still a cluster in those fridges with one 5lb tank in each one, gas lines, 20' of this satanic beer line and two kegs. Everything has to be just so or the doors won't close.

On the topic of the balancing: Yesterday I tapped a few beers from the lines that already had the 10' of line. I assume that my pressure was a little low because when I pulled the faucet open, I got some air and some foam and eventually beer. This tells me that the lines were empty or partially empty. When the beer flowed, it was okay and I got about 1-2" of foam on top of the beer. I went into the bunker and slightly adjusted the pressure upwards to keep beer in the lines. The next beer I tapped was at a pretty high pressure and that pressure created a lot of foam once the beer hit the glass. On that one I got about 40% beer, 60% foam. I have no doubt that I will get these lines balanced but does anyone who uses this line have any information that is unique to this product? If I had to err on one side or another I would want the pressure to be slightly low because I seem to get less foaming that way. Cheers gang.

[gnef]

Yes, definitely err on the side of low pressure for that tubing. When doing my research a while ago, I recall most people were putting 18-20 ft of that line per tap to be able to pour at their serving temperatures and appropriate volumes of CO2 that they wanted.

 

Since I only have 8 ft of the 1/4" ID line, I had to go with the flow control faucets, because to properly balance I would have needed around 40-50 ft of line.

[Big Nake]

Another update: With all of that postseason baseball over the last few weeks, quite a few beers were tapped. I adjusted and tinkered as I saw issues. I ended up right around 10psi on both regulators and this seems to be working decently. What I notice is that the first pull of a faucet will bring some CO2 and foam and then beer and the beer flows well with a nice pour. From that point forward, any beer tapped from the same faucet in that session will pour perfectly. The next day I might experience the same thing (one airy and slightly foamy pour first and then fine). This tells me that the pressure is just slightly low and that over time the beer slowly falls back down the line creating some open space in the line. I hesitate to futz with it because it seems like a slight increase in pressure will create a very quick and foamy pour. I might be able to make uber-small adjustments to increase the pressure but they would really have to be small so I don't go too far. Cheers gang.

[matt6150]

Another update: With all of that postseason baseball over the last few weeks, quite a few beers were tapped. I adjusted and tinkered as I saw issues. I ended up right around 10psi on both regulators and this seems to be working decently. What I notice is that the first pull of a faucet will bring some CO2 and foam and then beer and the beer flows well with a nice pour. From that point forward, any beer tapped from the same faucet in that session will pour perfectly. The next day I might experience the same thing (one airy and slightly foamy pour first and then fine). This tells me that the pressure is just slightly low and that over time the beer slowly falls back down the line creating some open space in the line. I hesitate to futz with it because it seems like a slight increase in pressure will create a very quick and foamy pour. I might be able to make uber-small adjustments to increase the pressure but they would really have to be small so I don't go too far. Cheers gang.

This is exactly my experience as well. Although I kinda chalked it up to the fact that my beer lines travel outside of the freezer for a bit before the taps. And my whole setup is exposed to outside weather.

[djinkc]

Another update: With all of that postseason baseball over the last few weeks, quite a few beers were tapped. I adjusted and tinkered as I saw issues. I ended up right around 10psi on both regulators and this seems to be working decently. What I notice is that the first pull of a faucet will bring some CO2 and foam and then beer and the beer flows well with a nice pour. From that point forward, any beer tapped from the same faucet in that session will pour perfectly. The next day I might experience the same thing (one airy and slightly foamy pour first and then fine). This tells me that the pressure is just slightly low and that over time the beer slowly falls back down the line creating some open space in the line. I hesitate to futz with it because it seems like a slight increase in pressure will create a very quick and foamy pour. I might be able to make uber-small adjustments to increase the pressure but they would really have to be small so I don't go too far. Cheers gang.

 

That breakout close to the tap is something I just live with.

[Big Nake]

This is exactly my experience as well. Although I kinda chalked it up to the fact that my beer lines travel outside of the freezer for a bit before the taps. And my whole setup is exposed to outside weather.

Mine too. I use two 4.4cf fridges and the lines go up through the top of the fridge, into some insulated tubing and then to the faucets. The total length of tubing that is outside the fridge is probably about 8-10". If the beer falls back into the line that means it stays cool which is good.
 

That breakout close to the tap is something I just live with.

Yeah, I think that's what will happen here too. It doesn't have to be PERFECT and as I said, the subsequent pours are great.

Thanks again to all for the suggestions and the direction. I mentioned before that I dislike playing with this stuff because I'm never sure if I'm going to get things back the way they were. But I do like this beer line (except the stiffness) and if it stays cleaner longer and is easier to keep clean in general... I'm all about it. Cheers.

[SchwanzBrewer]

Depends on if they get cleaned right away, but I've used some for years.