Needing Some Help With My New Keg System.

[zrated]

Just wanted to bounce some ideas off the AHB's...

Over the Christmas break I finally set up my keg system in my bar however there's still a lot of work to be done till I'm happy.

Currently my set-up consists of a glass ice-cream freezer, will easily fit 10 corn kegs in, so she's a big one. I've also got a 30L cube of chilled water over the compressor hump which I'm using a pond pump to cool my lines down. I've made a home made python, it has 4x 8mm OD beer lines and 2x 14mm OD lines for cooling the python. The python is approximately 9m long, the fridge sits out in my garden shed and the python is fed underground and up into my bar.

The problems I'm having at the moment is a bulk amount of foam for the first pint and a 1/2, then it pours well and you can see the tap chill up nicely.

Now I definitely know I have a flow issue with my 'cooling system' as the line is quite kinked where it does a 180deg inside the font (returning back to the 30L cooling cube).

After doing some testing, the flow rate of the cooling lines is probably close to a pint per minute. Obviously this is quite slow so I'm hunting around for some fittings to remove the kink from the line and increase the flow rate, hopefully this will help a bunch but I'm still not convinced it will be the answer to my problem.

What do you guys think I should do? I spotted a cheap temprite in my local area for only $400.... Should I can the keg fridge, keep them at room temp and run it through a temprite or should I keep battling with my current set up? I think my current set up would work well if I ran a glycol cooling system but I really dont want to add another freezer to the power bill!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Edak]

Have a look at THIS thread, some useful information about temprite systems and other points to consider.

 

[stux]

I'd look at fixing the kink.

I can't find it now, but I've seen something for use with python where it bleeds off some of the cooling to the font and the rest reflows up and down the python. Maybe a JG fitting?

 

[NewtownClown]

Obviously the beer is warming in the lines whilst not being poured.
Have you measured the temp of the "cooling" line at the font? Is the returning line warmer? Can you isolate the return line from the "python"?
I would, personally, continue the battle.

 

[zrated]

Thanks for the responses guys...

The cooling water is 3deg and when it returns it's sitting at 7deg.

I'd have to strip the return line out of the python which would mean pretty much building a new python, but I think that would warm the return line even more wouldn't it?

I think I'll look at the kink first and then decide on the temprite afterwards...

 

[cdbrown]

9m is a fair distance to push the beer, I'm guessing to get the pouring speed right your gas pressure is fairly high? What about cellar mix gas (CO2 and nitro mix)? Unfortunately the first pour will always have foam unless you can get your font down to pouring temp all the time along with the beer in the line. Before your first pour - does the font feel very cold? Does the tap feel very cold. After the pour does it feel colder or about the same?

You say it's about 1.5 pints of foam, when you let it all settle how much beer do you think gets wasted?

 

[glenwal]

Can you flood the font instead of having the cooling line bend back around?

 

[GalBrew]

Half of your problem has to be the long draw of your draught system. 9m of beer line from fridge to tap is a shiteload of line to cool down. I'm suprised you are only losing 1.5 pints of beer to cool down your lines. I'm not sure that is an ideal setup (i'm sure you have logistical reasons) it is going to be a massive pain when you want to switch out your lines. On one of the recent BN Sunday Sessions, one of the interviewees was extolling the virtues of making your lines as short as possible for that very reason (Eg. if you want to swap your lines over if the last beer, say a sour is affecting the flavour of your new beer).