DKC645BLS - putting in longer beer line

[lunkhead]

After my last post on 7-12, with half of labbat blue, I found out this is a 2.7 vol of co2 beer. I up the pressure to 13.5 with 35.8 degree beer temp. This keg is going on it's 6th week and it's still just about perfect.

[daswerve]

I take my hose off the tap everytime I clean it, it isn't hard what-so-ever, then again, I put it on myself and know what is back there.

On mine:
It is connected to the faucet barb with a hose clamp, a simple flat head will loosen this enough for you to pull the hose off the faucet barb(remember to disconnect your keg and turn off your gas first so you don't have a fountain of beer pouring all over the place). Then you will need to unscrew that brass nut so the faucet/tap can be pulled away from the tower if you need more room to work. If not, leave everything connected and attach your 10ft hose.

What might be on yours:
I saw plastic hose clamps on the old/moldy line that came with my used kegerator. They simple need a flat head screw driver to pry the two pieces apart. They kind of work like a zip tie or zipper, they interlock. (Again, untap coupler, turn off gas first) Once you have these off you can pull the hose off and attach your new one. Take the faucet/tap off if you need more room to work. I would recommend replacing the plastic hose clamps with stainless steel hose clamps.

How your hose is attached to your keg coupler, is the same way it should be attached to your faucet/tap. So look at that first.

When in doubt, look at your instruction booklet.

I'm attaching a photo of what the back of my faucet looks like - no clamp of any kind. Anybody know what I would do here so I can replace my stock line with a longer one?

[lunkhead]

Use a razor blade and gently cut the hose where it goes over the barbs, but DO NOT NICK the barbs with the razor and pull the old hose off. Take the new hose and dunk the end in your hottest tap water for a minute to soften it up. It will slip right over the barbs. Put a small stainless steel clamp around it if you want, but at normal beer pressures it's not required, that's why there's not one on it now.

[daswerve]

Awesome, thanx Lunkhead

[daswerve]

2morrow, I'm gonna splice in 3 feet of new line (giving me 8 feet total) and see how it works first, then move to a complete new line if problems arise. Lunkhead stated earlier in this post that the splice works just fine for him. Anybody else have any success/failure stories using a splice?

[daswerve]

I'm planning on cutting off the existing line about 2 or 3 inches from the tailpeice/hex nut that connects to the coupler and adding the splice of new line there. Is that ok?

[OlDirtyJohn]

2morrow, I'm gonna splice in 3 feet of new line (giving me 8 feet total) and see how it works first, then move to a complete new line if problems arise. Lunkhead stated earlier in this post that the splice works just fine for him. Anybody else have any success/failure stories using a splice?

why not just go with what you know will work for sure the first time? if splicing may or may not work, and totally replacing will for sure work, i would just totally replace the first time around and save myself the headache. its really not hard to do at all. In fact, it would actually be harder to splice as you would have to make twice as many connections. 2 instead of just 1.

[daswerve]

It took less than 5 minutes to splice in 3 ft of line and it works just fine, no issues whatsoever. Thanx again to Lunkhead for letting me know the splice worked for him, too.

[Gordy]

.

And is there a reason I can't go get that size line from Home Depot. Is there something special about the beer lines purchased at Beer supply stores?

DO NOT get plain old line from H.D. or any other hardware store as it is not food grade and your beer will end up tasting like plastic/vinyl/rubber etc. Usually an online search will provide a homebrew supply store in your area if the line can't wait to be ordered.