Beer Lines Outside Keezer Issues?

[phoenixdigital]

Ok I have almost finished my keezer which I will post up here when complete. I just need some advice on beer lines.

Basically its a wooden box (to hold the keezer) with a tabletop (screwed to top of keezer.... yes the lid can still open) with a 'font' with four taps. I have a homemade beer font (a wooden box 30cm tall) with four taps with flow controllers on them.

Taps
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...em=290699912408

I was planning on going straight out the top of the keezer through the lid into the 'font'. This would mean the beer lines would be outside of the keezer for about 20-30cm. However this design leaves about 40 cm at the back of the benchtop.


Now I have had a redesign idea to move the 'font' to the back of the table. This however means that the beer lines will be outside the keezer for a further 40cm or so.

So before I drill more holes in my tabletop to move the 'font' back, will 60-70cm of beer lines outside of the keezer cause issues?

I am aware I could probably get some insulation for the beer lines which will reduce cold losses.

But will I have other issues like foaming with beer lines outside the keezer?

Will I cause massive inefficiency (power wise) with the keezer having beer lines full of liquid sitting outside of the keezer?

 

[XavierZ]

My 2 cents:

With a quick guestimation, about 30-40ml of beer will eventually come into equilibrium.

In consideration that a greater volume (200-500ml) will be in an inevitable battle with room temp for a longer period of time,
is a shot glass quantity, really worth the worry?

 

[phoenixdigital]

In consideration that a greater volume (200-500ml) will be in an inevitable battle with room temp for a longer period of time,
is a shot glass quantity, really worth the worry?

I am assuming you mean a pot/pint of beer battling with rooms temps. That makes total sense and thats not really my concern as to warming beer. Good point about it only being a shot glass worth of beer too.

I have read about issues with warm beer lines causing excessive foaming in beer. I am more concerned from something I dont know about rather than warm beer for such a short line.

Or excessive loss of keezer 'coolness' due to lines being outside (with no beer being poured for days at a time) hence higher power bills.

 

[pfitz]

I speak with experience here.

The taps you are dealing with, whom ever you bought them from, CNC are great people, do not compare with other taps available.
I had foaming issues with these taps, whatever the line lenghts were.
I had a pluto gun that gave me no problems, changed to the flow control tap, foam everywhere at 400mm of line, changed the line to 3.75 Meters of line (basically cut off the gun) and attached to the gun line, still foam.
Bought a Celli flow control tap, with the 440mm of line, a bit of fiddling, perfect beers.
Whilst they are the same basic design, the others (I cant talk about the Perlicks which have a great reputation but as I don't have one) have a couple of holes drilled in the flow control member to aid flow, these I believe add to the foaming at restriction and are not evident in the Celli or maybe others.
Maybe I overgas my beer causing my problems, but why should the gun work OK and not the tap?

If you pour off a bit and discard, it will chill the tap and give the best beer possible.

 

[phoenixdigital]

I speak with experience here.

The taps you are dealing with, whom ever you bought them from, CNC are great people, do not compare with other taps available.
I had foaming issues with these taps, whatever the line lenghts were.

I did fear this when I bought them. Hopefully I wont have these issues, but I reckon cheap taps probably mean cheap results. Fingers crossed. I might just connect one up before I finish the keezer to test one out.

 

[phoenixdigital]

The taps you are dealing with, whom ever you bought them from, CNC are great people, do not compare with other taps available.
I had foaming issues with these taps, whatever the line lenghts were.

Sadly I plugged it all in and as you predicted I got major foaming issues.

I tried

• 2 meter lines
• 3 meter lines
• reduced serving pressure right down
• fiddled with the flow control high, low, medium

Plug a picnic tap in.... PERFECT beers...

I contacted them a day or two ago about returning them and didn't hear anything back. 3/4 are unused and have not seen a drop of beer.

They failed to respond to the first request so I sent them another email tonight asking how I can go about returning them. Prior to this I have had no problems with the other items I purchased from CNC and My Beer Shop (CNC is their ebay arm).

I really hope they come to the party and let me return these taps as they are just no good at all.

 

[mxd]

I have had no problems with the other items I purchased from CNC and My Beer Shop (CNC is their ebay arm).

there stuff is just from keg king I've had no issues with them but the taps I did buy from there were crap that I just tossed.

Can you tell us about the pressure you pour and carbed at ?

Can you do a vid ?

If you stat the pour into a bucket then put glass under does that assist ?

 

[phoenixdigital]

there stuff is just from keg king I've had no issues with them but the taps I did buy from there were crap that I just tossed.

Can you tell us about the pressure you pour and carbed at ?

Can you do a vid ?

If you stat the pour into a bucket then put glass under does that assist ?

I would toss the tap too however I bought 4 so they matched. I cant justify tossing them all when I will most likely be forking out $130/tap for better ones.

Will do some measurements over the weekend and get back to you. From recollection the pressure is at 80 kpa and the beer line is 3meters and the temp about 2 degrees.

I have tried the bucket trick but no joy.

Why would a picnic tap be fine but these taps not though?

 

[adz1179]

Sadly I plugged it all in and as you predicted I got major foaming issues.

I tried

• 2 meter lines
• 3 meter lines
• reduced serving pressure right down
• fiddled with the flow control high, low, medium

Plug a picnic tap in.... PERFECT beers...

I contacted them a day or two ago about returning them and didn't hear anything back. 3/4 are unused and have not seen a drop of beer.

They failed to respond to the first request so I sent them another email tonight asking how I can go about returning them. Prior to this I have had no problems with the other items I purchased from CNC and My Beer Shop (CNC is their ebay arm).

I really hope they come to the party and let me return these taps as they are just no good at all.

i just got 2 of these taps for my new keg setup also... yet to finish the build and try them out, but doesnt sound good. Keep us posted if you get any response from CNC as i may need to do the same. Cheers.

 

[phoenixdigital]

I filled in the beer balancing spreadsheet at
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...st&p=287729

Came up with these results which indicate that my 2m line lengths were near perfect. That plus the fact that picnic taps work perfectly seems to indicate the problem lies with the taps.

More than happy to be proven wrong or for someone to find a solution. I would much prefer to keep the taps and not spend 5 times as much.

One other thing I forgot to mention. I even tried removing the internal flow controller to see if that solved the problem but nope, foam central. I am wasting soooo much beer testing this.

Results from spreadsheet below.


Step
1 What is your desired serving temperature in whole or half degrees C between 0 & 15.5? 3 degrees C
2 What is your desired carbonation level (volume of CO2)? 2.5 L CO2 / L beer
3 How high is your tap above the centre of the keg? 0.5 metres
4 What size beer line are you using? 5mm I.D. plastic beer line

Required regulator setting for desired volume of CO2 @ desired serving temperature 75.4 Kpa

5 Calculated line length (standard pressure output ie 6.89KPa) 1.91 metres
Calculated line length (higher pressure output ie 13.78 KPa) 1.70 metres

 

[phoenixdigital]

Ok an update of where I am at here.

After many discussions off thread with some members here I came to the conclusion that the taps are just not up to scratch and will never produce a normal pour.

I ended up buying one of these
http://www.craftbrewer.com.au/shop/details.asp?PID=1116

It came with all the beer lines and taps. Fitted it to the keezer and not only does it look better than my wooden font, the taps also pours beers perfectly with no foaming issues.

I took one of the taps into Ross and he had a look at the internals and showed me a few points which were causing the foam only pour. In particular looking at the flow controller internals there were a few points which had been machine drilled during manufacture. You could still see the tool marks and there were even some metal burrs remaining. As Ross pointed out beer hitting any of these points will cause the CO2 to come out of solution and cause the foaming issues I and others had experienced. He stated that these cheap knockoffs will get better with time as they refine the issues but at the moment they just dont cut it.

I ended up getting contacted by mybeershop eventually after I put in a PayPal dispute. They stated that the person who monitored the contact us form had been away for 2 weeks which was why I didn't get a response to my other two messages.

Regardless they were very helpful and after some discussions about the tap issues they sent up a return post satchel to me. I packed up the taps (marking the one I had used) and sent them back for a full refund including the original shipping charge.

They also said they would get in contact with the manufacturer to try and resolve the issues I had experienced.

All in all very happy with all parties involved and a lesson learn that you probably should just fork out money for good taps as its generally a one off expense.

 

[pk.sax]

Glad you got it sorted.

I had a look at the Keg King taps while in their store, while most of their stuff is basically quite easy to tell the quality of, I don't have that much faith in their assembled parts. Hidden crap in most things, even the steel fittings have imperfections in them. You get what you pay for. Go by function and intended use.

Perlicks flow control taps here, Ross helped with all the disconnects on the dispense system, can't be happier.

 

[seemax]

Did look at these few months ago when I was setting up my keezer... luckily common sense prevailed and I ended up with Perlicks Couldn't be happier with the pour and the price wasn't much more than these ebay ones.

Anyone tried the KK Perlick knock offs???