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It's Kegging Time!


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Thanks for the pic Otto. I spent all of last Summer thinking I had issues with nailing the correct pressure or using the wrong beer lines. But that pour looks the same as mine. My lines were unchilled for probably 1.5m from fridge to spout. Lots of foam.

 

Thinking about building a sealed glycol system. Small pump cycling line full of glycol that zigzags over the cooling plate in the fridge then up into the font. Not as effective as a flooded font but hopefully good enough for a proper pour.

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Bar fridge, 6mm poly line from Bunnings, dual tap font and cheap simple short shank taps. Love it but the taps gum up real easy. Had to strip em and soak em after one of them siezed. Probably also wasn't careful enough with cleaning the lines regularly but now have a spare keg full of starsan to pump in after each session.

 

New set up will only have the font about 4 inches from the fridge, but from the look of your beers thats still too far for my comfort.

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Were you getting bubbles in the beer line? Your line diameter may be part of the cause too. I have 5mm ID line, a bit over 2m per keg, creates more resistance which helps lower foaming issues. Once I get this font fan installed, there won't be any of the line warming up. I can deal with a tiny bit of foam from the tap itself being warm but at least I won't be pouring a glass of foam before the beer chills everything down properly. I suppose I can take something from the fact that hardly any of the glass is actual beer so it's not wasting much. Not for much longer though!

 

Sucks about the taps gumming up though. One thing I like about the forward sealing taps - they don't do that. I've already worked out a cleaning regimen involving running sodium perc through the line and tap each time a keg blows. Should see it remain clean.

 

If you're setting up a font on top of the fridge, it needs to be high enough for the taps to be sitting about a foot above the fridge otherwise you can't get a glass under it to pour a beer. 4 inches would be nowhere near enough in this scenario. If it's not being being set up like that then obviously disregard. tongue

 

Edit: this is a glass poured after everything had properly chilled down...

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Looks much better!

 

Have got about 4m of 6mm line, but I thought length was to reduce overpressure ("bleeding" of sorts) to avoid foaming? Obviously plenty coiled inside the fridge.

 

Font is going on a bartop with the fridge directly under that part of the bar. Never had an issue with tap height allowing the glass under. Definitely going to chill the font somehow though. I suspected it was contributing to the foam problem but had no idea the impact was that massive.

 

Although in hindsight my third beer poured in quick succession was a winner so I should have known!

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Yeah, once the line and tap is chilled it pours perfectly fine. I knew I'd need a font fan, I was just waiting for them to be back in stock from my preferred supplier. Should be here tomorrow or Friday so I can set it up while there's still only one keg in there, which makes it a bit easier. biggrin

 

The line sounds like it should be long enough depending on your storage temperature too. At the moment I've got mine set at -2C, but I will raise it once I get the font fan installed. It's only down there currently to try to minimise the time it takes for the foaming to stop. Line length creates resistance, as does line diameter, which does reduce the pressure and aid in preventing foaming. The advantage of smaller diameter line is that you don't need as long a length of it to achieve the same outcome. I found though, when my keg was overcarbonated that I had to increase the pressure on the regulator to about double what it should be in order to stop it foaming. But, this was an issue of overcarbonation, not warm, or too short beer lines. Once I fixed the overcarbonation issue, it poured fine at my desired pressure setting.

 

Ok well that sounds like it should work out fine. You may be able to use a font fan in that scenario, otherwise the glycol system would be the way to go I'd think.

 

 

 

 

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Beware of rapid carbing then. Much harder to hit the sweet spot and I've had to deal with that too because most of my initial kegs were rapid carbed (and rapid drunk). I think with carbing at 10psi for a week or two I will be ok with the rest of the setup... once the font is cooled.

 

Hoping the glycol idea will work out cheaper than the fan. Just another DIY project for me to get half right!

 

Would be nice to finally pour a good beer. I had to resort to keeping a soft drink bottle under the bar to catch the warm flow before pouring. So much wasted beer crying

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That's exactly the method I used on this first keg. lol I mucked it up due to a leak from not tightening the JG fitting onto the gas disconnect enough. So what happened was despite the small leak at the fitting, it still carbonated somewhat, and then I re-carbed it too far after tightening it. pinched It took about a day of periodically venting the keg to drop it back to a more normal carbonation level, then the gas was turned back on and it has been fine since. The plan is for all future kegs to simply sit at serving pressure for a week or two to carbonate.

 

Hopefully it does! I debated getting a flooded font but I decided to go with the fan instead. It was a bit over $70 plus a bit for postage.

 

Yes, that would be an issue when you have 1.5 metres of beer line unchilled! crying Hopefully you can get this problem sorted quickly though, wasted beer is not fun!

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The font snake arrived yesterday and has been installed in the kegerator earlier. Bit of a tight fit trying to get the conduit up through the lines and insulation foam that's inside the font but eventually got it up and have positioned the top just below the shanks. Any higher and it blows cold air up but this air seems to slip down the outside of the insulation foam, i.e. between the foam and the font, rather than inside the foam where the lines are. Maybe I'll just remove the foam but it would seem more useful to leave it in there.

 

I'm gonna leave the thing running while I go back to work for my second half then pour a glass when I get home and see how it's worked.

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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Nice one Otto. If you've got the means, it'd be interesting to know the pour temp vs the fridge temp - see what sort of "efficiency" the snake offers.

 

I ended up laying awake last night planning a glycol system. If it works I'll post build notes in case anyone else wants to have a go, but here's the prelim:

 

500ml Propylene Glycol: $15 (ebay)

12V submersible pond pump: $7 (ebay)

10m x 5mm poly tube: $11 (Bunnings, irrigation section)

1.5L reservoir (drink bottle?)

 

The reservoir will go in the back of the bar fridge. Cooling plate of the fridge has been moved from the back wall of the fridge to the ceiling, so glycol line will run over the top of the cooling plate with as much surface area contact as possible.

 

This section will either be more poly tube zigzagging back and forth across the plate, or possibly a 3m coil of 1/4" copper pipe for improved conductivity. More poly is $11, copper would be $30. We'll see.

 

From the cooling plate the line will go to the top of the font, then a tight downward spiral hugging the outside wall of the font, will take about 10m of poly at the most - I will probably use 8 or 9 metres though because of obstructions and so on.

 

Then it drops back down into the reservoir in the fridge.

 

The reservoir will hold 1L of 50:50 glycol, but I will probably dilute it further for more volume. 10m of poly only hold 200mL and I expect it to take no more than about 15 second to complete a single revolution. Lots of variables on that though so I'm not sure.

 

I was going to have a closed (sealed) system with no reservoir but realised that would leave coolant up in the font, warmed by ambient when it's not pumping. That'd increase the average temp and require more time to bring it back down to suitable temp. The fridge is always on to chill the beer, so if gravity drags all the glycol back to the reservoir when the pump is off the it will all be at 1° when I switch it on. Instacool.

 

In my head it will be a massive winner. But I've got a tendency towards great theory and questionable outcomes rolleyes

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I don't know much about glycol systems but it sounds reasonably logical at least and it should work alright. I'm happy for this thread to be used for others to talk about their kegging setups as well, it wasn't really ever intended to be only about mine so feel free to post pics or discuss or whatever. happy

 

I do have a couple of pics of this fan setup now (finally remembered to take my phone out when I poured a beerlol) The second pic is a bit bright but is looking down the font and you can see the pipe sticking up in there.

 

I've been having issues with gas in the beer line again since installing this thing, and I'm not sure what it is that's caused it. I raised the fridge temp from -2 up to 0C and I think that might be why it's happened - warming it up a bit has caused the CO2 to come out of solution. I've dropped it back down to -2 now and I may well just leave it there. The beer doesn't seem any more carbonated than it was before, so I don't think overcarbonation is the problem. I can fix the issue in the interim by turning up the pressure on the regulator to pour it though. Next glass I'll take the thermometer out and see what the temp in the glass is.

 

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Cheers

 

Kelsey

 

 

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I've tried relieving the pressure and it's still having issues, so I'm really not sure what's going on. For tonight's session I've turned up the pressure to about 20PSI. I'm pouring the beer, then turning off the gas at the bottle and turning it back on only to pour. Once I pour the last of the night, I'll turn off the gas, turn off the font fan, burp the keg, leave the gas off, then burp it again in the morning and turn it back on to the 10PSI it normally sits at. Hopefully that fixes the issue.

 

Edit: Whose stupid bloody idea was it to get into this kegging caper?! lol

 

Edit #2: Measured the temp of the beer in the glass, it read at 4C. Fridge temp is between -2 and 0C. However, this is probably more due to the temp of the glass itself than anything else.

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I've tried relieving the pressure and it's still having issues' date=' so I'm really not sure what's going on. For tonight's session I've turned up the pressure to about 20PSI. I'm pouring the beer, then turning off the gas at the bottle and turning it back on only to pour. Once I pour the last of the night, I'll turn off the gas, turn off the font fan, burp the keg, leave the gas off, then burp it again in the morning and turn it back on to the 10PSI it normally sits at. Hopefully that fixes the issue.

 

Edit: Whose stupid bloody idea was it to get into this kegging caper?! [img']lol[/img]

 

Edit #2: Measured the temp of the beer in the glass, it read at 4C. Fridge temp is between -2 and 0C. However, this is probably more due to the temp of the glass itself than anything else.

 

Sounds like a whole lot of fun biggrin

 

Just dont have too many and forget to turn the gas off lol

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Hi Kelsey.

 

My advice, give the new fan set-up time to settle. If I'm right, you've introduced the fan part way through a keg that you've been able to settle & eventually pour at good levels into a glass prior to the introduction of the fan.

 

Temperature & pressure levels play a huge part when pouring beer from a keg. Right now you are playing around with each quite a bit. Everything is moving in the right direction, so just do as you & I would often advise, & show a little patience. wink

 

Cheers,

 

Lusty.

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lol Yeah I will definitely remember to turn off the gas! I have actually revised my plan - the gas is now on at 10PSI as once I poured this current (nearly empty) glass, there were no bubbles in the beer line. I will check it before I pour the next one though.

 

Lusty, you are right yeah, this keg is well I dunno, 2/3 empty at a guess. I'm not planning on having the fan running 24/7 though, so what effect would you predict might happen by only having the fan running while I'm serving beers?

 

Cheers

 

Kelsey

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lol Yeah I will definitely remember to turn off the gas! I have actually revised my plan - the gas is now on at 10PSI as once I poured this current (nearly empty) glass' date=' there were no bubbles in the beer line. I will check it before I pour the next one though.

 

Lusty, you are right yeah, this keg is well I dunno, 2/3 empty at a guess. I'm not planning on having the fan running 24/7 though, so what effect would you predict might happen by only having the fan running while I'm serving beers?

[/quote']

As Gash Slugg advised (from memory), just start the fan up at least an hour before you plan to start pouring/drinking. That seems to make practical sense anyways (at least to me).

 

FYI, I haven't gone through with my keezer build. I run picnic taps off 1.5 metre lines inside my temp controlled freezer. No fan needed as all the beer lines & pouring devices are constantly in chill. Definitely not as pretty as a cool tower setup, but in a practical sense, far easier to use & produces a great pour over & over.

 

Cheers,

 

Lusty.

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