has anyone set up a long beer line system at home???

[cblzaccie]

I want to put 2 kegs in the garage and have a double tap mounted in the kitchen. has anyone done this before? if so nay tips? I know the lines need to be refrigerated. here is how i intent to make the system.

1: the kegs. these will go into a chest freezer with a refrigerator thermostat keeping the beer in the kegs cold

2: the co2. this is in a 10 pound takn that will sit next to the refrigerator and be connected via a shank on the top

3: the lines to the kitchen. around 100ft of lines ( not sure what inside diameter to use yet, however i will refrigerate them by putting both lines inside an inch and a 1/2 pvc pipeing, the same they use for pool pumps. at the other end i will use a t connector and a shank to get the beer lines out of the pvc pipe, the other part of the pvc tube will be the coolant return line which wil run back to the refrigerator. In the refrigerator there wil be a 5 gallon tank of coolant and a pump that will constantly circulate coolant around inside the pvc pipe. this whole pipe will then be insulated with foam.

4: the taps. these will sit on the counter and hopefully provide cold beer on tap when ever myself of my guests desire one.


This should about do it. has anyone tried anything simalar v???

[Dirtbag]

Man - your opening a can of worms.

First thing is your not going to be able to use CO2 on this set up. 100 feet is about 50 feet too far for CO2.

The next thing is you need to test your cooling system before you spend money and time putting the rest of the system together. You need to make sure it can maintain a liquid temp of 38 degrees. Simply having the coolant running at say 35 will not be enough. The LIQUID (beer) temp is all that matters. What do you plan to use for coolant anyway? If you can get the coolant itself to temp out at about 30 degrees at the furthest point from the pump and stay there, then that is a start, but it must stay at that temp.

Until you get your coolant system right you might as well not do anything else.
I will tell you this though, that when you say 'around' 100 ft of line, beer does not understand the word 'around'. You need to know exactly how far the lines will run, that is a critical number in your calculations to get the proper flow rate at the faucet. There are other critical numbers as well, but you need to know the length of the run.
If you do get things running - 5/16 ID beer line will be easier to keep cold, less volume of beer per foot than 3/8" ID.

I don't mean to sound harsh or like I'm shooting holes in your plan, I'm just trying to save you a lot of work. If anything is not right about your set up it will cause you nothing but problems.

[cblzaccie]

thanks for the reply, i just hooked up 100ft of 3/16 line to a keg and with 15 psi on the co2 it flowed the beer out nicley. did you mean that at 100 ft i would need so much pressure that i would switch over co2 the beer? if i notice that i wil switch to a co2 / n2 mix

I havnt tested the coolant system yet i was going to use glycol as the coolant. the pipes could be insulated and as far as i can tell it should work actually i will be pumping a lot more coolant though than what i can tell regular bar systems use so in theory it should work at least as well since there is a lot more coolant to keep the beer at a constant temp.

not too sure how to test it without installing it as the pipes are not easy to install

[CoreyD]

I wouldn’t worry about the length too much. Look in the commercial forums for ideas or post questions there. There are plenty of bars / restaurants that have runs of that length and longer. It all comes down to how much you have to spend. If commercial equipment is too expensive, make it yourself and adjust it later.

[cblzaccie]

thanks cory. here is the finished work, it was a LOT of fun designing and building and i have leaned a LOT about beer , and ac systems.

YouTube - Home made glycol beer cooling system

[CoreyD]

It's always fun building something new and when you build it yourself you know how it all works and can fix any problems. It may not be the "correct" way to setup a system but it works for you. I use the exact same cooler as you for a portable setup. It has 2 16oz CO2 tanks built into the bottom and a 50' coil up top. I was told it wouldn't work but it does. I had to manufacture fittings and the cooler and it was fun. Now I can bring a draft setup to a party that will dispense up to 4 kegs without a bulky tank.