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It's Kegging Time 2019


Titan

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I have a kegerator, so do not have to worry about loose lines when opening the door.

My lines are 4mm ID.  Started out 3.0 metres long.  Pour was poor.  Chopped off 30cm when I changed the kegs last time.  Two are fine at 2.7 metres, one still needs a bit more chopped off.  The Soda Water tap is fine at 3.0 metres.  12psi and 4°C.

Lines are coiled on top of keg.  Coil held together by three skinny velcro strips.

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1 hour ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

I have a kegerator, so do not have to worry about loose lines when opening the door.

My lines are 4mm ID.  Started out 3.0 metres long.  Pour was poor.  Chopped off 30cm when I changed the kegs last time.  Two are fine at 2.7 metres, one still needs a bit more chopped off.  The Soda Water tap is fine at 3.0 metres.  12psi and 4°C.

Lines are coiled on top of keg.  Coil held together by three skinny velcro strips.

Is it a pre-built one or did you do it yourself? If you did it, how did you run the gas lines? Around the sides or across the top and down to each keg?

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5 hours ago, Journeyman said:

Is it a pre-built one or did you do it yourself? If you did it, how did you run the gas lines? Around the sides or across the top and down to each keg?

Mine was ready to build.  I put it together but it is a purpose designed kegerator, not a fridge conversion.

Gas lines come in through a hole in the back.  The gas lines float free over the top of the kegs.  You can see my beer lines coiled with the velcro straps around the coils.

IMG_1848.JPG.f0b2e0b2f3fb2801c0563982d85cc5f2.JPG

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37 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Mine was ready to build.  I put it together but it is a purpose designed kegerator, not a fridge conversion.

Gas lines come in through a hole in the back.  The gas lines float free over the top of the kegs.  You can see my beer lines coiled with the velcro straps around the coils.

IMG_1848.JPG.f0b2e0b2f3fb2801c0563982d85cc5f2.JPG

Like the colour coded tape for matching your lines.

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20 minutes ago, NewBrews said:

Like the colour coded tape for matching your lines.

Got the idea from somebody on the Forum I think.  Also have matching tape on the manifold hanging on the outside back of the fermenter.  It helps for knowing which lines to turn off when force-carbing a new keg.

I created a bit of confusion for myself by making the white line for the water keg (w = w, right).  Then I made the other keg on the left the blue line, 'cos water is not blue, right.  The first time I replaced these two kegs it did my head in trying to remember, did I use white for water or blue for water.  Might have to switch out the blue tape for black tape.  I have got plenty because I bought 400 metres of insulation tape and use about 5cm for each line.

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41 minutes ago, NewBrews said:

Like the colour coded tape for matching your lines.

I've got my beer lines colour taped at each end or it gets real confusing as to what's coming out of each tap. 😄 Should do the gas lines as well.

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22 minutes ago, Ben 10 said:

4%?  Light beer   🙂

As per BJCP, it’s actually more like 4.2 but you know. 
It’s also quite delicious at that amount of abv. 

8E6B3821-033B-4C3E-8949-35694960ECA8.jpeg
mine starts and finishes on the high end

Edited by The Captain!!
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9 hours ago, NewBrews said:

I think Guinness Draught fits in the BJCP as an Irish Stout, where the Guinness Export Stout (the 6% one) is an Irish Extra Stout, hence the higher ABV?

Both are great drinkers though!

You'd be spot on with that classification I reckon. As Ben mentioned it does seem odd talking about a stout @ 4.0% ABV. A Porter yes, a stout, hmmm...

Cheers,

Lusty.

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12 hours ago, Ben 10 said:

I'm sure it is.
Odd that stout came from porter - stout porter - yet BJCP says it can be that low???

Yeah considering when asked for a stout porter, this was considered the stronger of the two. Go figure. 
I think BJCP contradict a lot of things in the classifications 
I brew this for my wife. She loves dark beers. I try to make sure she has something on tap that she likes. 

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On 6/23/2020 at 9:40 PM, Beerlust said:

I concur. Guinness Draught sits @ 4.2%. Guinness Stout sits @ 6.0%.

Yeah I don't reckon Guinness at 4.2% is worth getting out of bed for...  not worth the trouble of a Nitro pour 😜

The 6% Model is a better brew.  But... each to their own hey.

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Something super weird that I found with my InterTaps....

Ever since owning them, I have always thought that my pour was quite fast considering I have 4.5m of 5mm ID line and use a serving pressure of 12PSI. Often had foamy pours too, but just lived with it.

Lately though, I noticed my pours getting worse and more foamy. Also sometimes I would have like a stream of air in the middle of the beer flow and the beer would be flowing around this air gap. Hard to explain, but essentially resulted in a shitty pour and heaps of foam.

For some reason, I decided to take the Spout off the tap and have a look inside. When I did, I was greeted with this:

20200615_204849.thumb.jpg.db5695ad07fe722cd6aebab8ad43fb05.jpg

Absolutely no idea how this happened. These are the o-rings that sit between the tap faucet and the spout. At first thought I thought maybe they were over tightened, but the design of the spout stops this from happening, as it hits metal on metal when fully tight and that's it - then its done up.

I decided I would order a new seal kit for both my taps, and in the meantime, I tried using the taps without this o-ring.... WHAT A DIFFERENCE!

I have only used one tap so far, but the pour is nice and slow (how it should be with 4.5m of line), and perfectly smooth out of the tap. No more foaming and although it takes a bit longer to fill the glass, the pouring experience is so much better.

I'm still trying to work out how these o-rings have changed the speed of the pour. I understand that with the way the o-rings were, that they were probably sticking out into the flow path and causing C02 to come out of solution in the tap and leading to a shitty pour. I guess I could have also been sucking in air like a venturi effect from between the faucet and spout, but I doubt this is the case as it is working brilliantly without this o-ring now.

Has got me beat to be honest. And I also have no idea was has caused the o-rings to go from perfectly round to looking like my dog has chewed them in the first place........

I will still get another seal kit and update if the new seals have any impact on the pouring characteristics again. I will also do all the seals in the tap while I'm going.

Mitch.

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23 hours ago, MitchellScott said:

Also sometimes I would have like a stream of air in the middle of the beer flow and the beer would be flowing around this air gap. Hard to explain, but essentially resulted in a shitty pour and heaps of foam.

 

12 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

I have one tap that does similar.  Pour is okay and does not foam too much, but often forms a tear shaped bubble just outside the tap outlet. I will check out this seal.

Hmm... I've got a tap I better pull when it blows and check it. It pours OK but it kinda flips from a normal looking flow to a half-circle one then back again - your comment about 'flowing around the gap' sounds like what I see. What I see is like when you put your finger halfway across a hose opening, not enough to force a squirt but it shapes the flow.

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14 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

I have one tap that does similar.  Pour is okay and does not foam too much, but often forms a tear shaped bubble just outside the tap outlet. I will check out this seal.

 

1 hour ago, Journeyman said:

 

Hmm... I've got a tap I better pull when it blows and check it. It pours OK but it kinda flips from a normal looking flow to a half-circle one then back again - your comment about 'flowing around the gap' sounds like what I see. What I see is like when you put your finger halfway across a hose opening, not enough to force a squirt but it shapes the flow.

I actually have a video on my phone of what my tap was doing. I was cleaning the lines and noticed it started to do it so grabbed the phone and videoed it.

Ill try and find it and post it up.

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