Can beer lines be too long?

I'm trying to help someone get their 3 tap kegarator system right, and need some advice. I've tried to explain to him the longer line setup, be he just doesn't see how that can help. I don't keg, so I can't prove it to him, but I tell him what I've read here. Here's the problem, more times than not, he complains about not having bubbles IN the beer. It usually pours pretty nice with a perfect 1.5" head, but the beer below is almost flat. When this happens, he cranks up the pressure which makes for a foamy pour, and still flat beer when foam settles out. He has the temperature/pressure/desired volume chart, and tries to follow it, but after a couple years, he (I) is (am) still not completely happy with the final product. I know it's good beer, because we have split several batches and I always prefer my bottled over his kegged. His experience with the kegged beer is pretty much why I have stuck to bottling. So, before I ask for suggestions, I'll share what I've already convinced him to try (he's very doubtful, and doesn't have complete faith in my regurgitated HBT info).

Here's his setup: (not sure of brand) kegarator with 3 tap tower. Tower not cooled, but insulated inside. Single regulator w/ 4 way splitter manifold. 5 lb co2 bottle kept inside fridge. Think he's got 4-5 foot standard size lines, which I believe to be the problem. He has it set to 38-40°F, and typically tries to run 12 psi.

What he has tried:
1. High pressure forced carb with shaking, which I recommended against and never really turned out well.
2. Setting at serving pressure (12 psi) and leaving for a couple weeks. Better, but still not right.
3. Batch priming in keg with proper amount of dextrose for desired carb level and leaving at room temperature for a couple weeks. Then chilling and hooking up the gas. A little better, but still not enough bubbles IN the beer.
4. He's considering using a stone running from the gas in connection thinking that will get the bubbles IN the beer instead of on top of it. I didn't think this would help and told him that's not how it works and I don't have to do that with bottles.

I have my doubts about the 12 psi. being enough for any style, but I know that's what a lot of people suggest, and what the chart specifies. I know it varies by style, but we're shooting for maybe 2.75 volumes for most of his styles. So the higher end of the carb levels for most beers. He will be switching to a 3 regulator setup soon for better control, but that won't solve the problem. I think I finally might have him talked into longer lines and that gets back to my original question. What is too long? I see that a lot of people say 10 ft. Will that cover ALL situations? If he's running a Hefeweizen and shooting for 3.5 volumes, is 10 ft enough friction loss? Would 12 ft be a safer bet? Is 12 too long? What is the downside of going longer than necessary? Will a longer line negatively affect a lower carbed beer? Changing the lines out is a real pain because the connections inside the tower are hard to get at, so I want to make sure the change will cover all possible scenarios. I know there are line length calculators, but I want real experienced advice. I also don't want to waste any more time fixing someone else's problem, but it's really bothering me. I want to see his kegged beer coming out just as good as my bottled. If that happens, then maybe I will make the step to kegging, but at this point, I'm not convinced that the quality is the same. I know that people swear by kegging, but I'm sure they are having better luck with it. Thoughts?

I think that 10 foot lines would reduce the pressure at the faucet by about 10 psi which would slow the pour and result in less carbonation loss. Also, if the tower is warm, it will come out foamy and turn flat quickly.

...and I only have a single regulator so I set it 14psi pretty much always. That's what works for me.

Often the lines to get good beer can stretch for blocks....oh....we are talking about chase lines!

DanH said:

I think that 10 foot lines would reduce the pressure at the faucet by about 10 psi which would slow the pour and result in less carbonation loss. Also, if the tower is warm, it will come out foamy and turn flat quickly.

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So it's actually losing carbonation moving through the line too fast?

DanH said:

I think that 10 foot lines would reduce the pressure at the faucet by about 10 psi which would slow the pour and result in less carbonation loss. Also, if the tower is warm, it will come out foamy and turn flat quickly.

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Would that short length of warm beer in the tower really affect it that much? We're definitely not going to glycol. Maybe the copper conducting pipe trick?

I'll be honest, your post was too long so I did a quick scan so hope this helps. Not only do you use lines to get beer from keg to tap, you use it to control flow rate of the beer to keep the beer from flowing too fast out of the tap which results in excess turbulance and will rip the CO2 out of the solution (excess head and flat beer) or flowing too slow (wasted drinking time) or not at all if too long a line is used (boo). If you use too long a line for your given CO2 volumes you will get no flow as I mentioned and in order to deal with that you need to crank up the CO2 which will cause over carbonation. The fix for this is to use mixed beer gas (common in bars) which contains nitrogen that is not readily soluble in beer so you can use it to push the beer through a long line without causing over carbonation.

Bensiff said:

I'll be honest, your post was too long so I did a quick scan so hope this helps. Not only do you use lines to get beer from keg to tap, you use it to control flow rate of the beer to keep the beer from flowing too fast out of the tap which results in excess turbulance and will rip the CO2 out of the solution (excess head and flat beer) or flowing too slow (wasted drinking time) or not at all if too long a line is used (boo). If you use too long a line for your given CO2 volumes you will get no flow as I mentioned and in order to deal with that you need to crank up the CO2 which will cause over carbonation. The fix for this is to use mixed beer gas (common in bars) which contains nitrogen that is not readily soluble in beer so you can use it to push the beer through a long line without causing over carbonation.

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I realized that my post was way too long, but I wanted to give as much info as possible. Thanks for the help. This should help me explain this to him. If 10 ft is ideal, how much will 2 extra feet hurt? It can always be cut I guess.

jmcquesten said:

So it's actually losing carbonation moving through the line too fast?

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Once it comes out of the faucet.

jmcquesten said:

Would that short length of warm beer in the tower really affect it that much? We're definitely not going to glycol. Maybe the copper conducting pipe trick?

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I think if the cooler is at 40 and the faucet itself is at 65, that could be a problem. You could probably put a computer fan on the underside of the tower to blow some cold air up into it.

I wouldn't use glycol.

As for nitrogen, I wouldn't do that either. You just have to find the right line length. Start with 12 feet and cut it back a half foot or a foot at a time until you're happy.

But get this figured out fast cuz you have your own keezer to build!

You could lower the temp just a little bit, raise the pressure a little bit, and/or trade out the lines for longer ones. For all the times someone confidently proclaims that 10' of 3/16" ID serving lines solved all their foaming problems, there are just as many who cut it down as a poor solution. Tell your buddy that Bobby said to put 10 foot lines on there.

With an unchilled tower, you either have to blow cold air up into there or resign to the fact that the first 4oz pour after any significant rest period is going to be flat and foamy. Knock that back and proceed with the real pour.

jmcquesten said:

I realized that my post was way too long, but I wanted to give as much info as possible. Thanks for the help. This should help me explain this to him. If 10 ft is ideal, how much will 2 extra feet hurt? It can always be cut I guess.

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No no, wasn't complaining, just explaining why my answer may have been off base...at work so I didn't have the time to read details. There really isn't an ideal, it is based off how many volumes of CO2 you have, how far the beer has to travel (usually not an issue for home), beer line diameter, and how much upward (head pressure) travel the beer has. I believe Micromatic has a calculator on their website to help dial in hose line requirements for a system.

DanH said:

I think if the cooler is at 40 and the faucet itself is at 65, that could be a problem. You could probably put a computer fan on the underside of the tower to blow some cold air up into it.

I wouldn't use glycol.

As for nitrogen, I wouldn't do that either. You just have to find the right line length. Start with 12 feet and cut it back a half foot or a foot at a time until you're happy.

But get this figured out fast cuz you have your own keezer to build!

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We'll change the lines and hopefully that helps. And about my own, I'm actually giving up the 3 regulator setup that I just got off ebay for $70 for his purpose. He's giving me what I paid for it, and I'm putting off kegging until I see proof that it's just as good as my bottled beer. It's worth noting that it's my dad that I'm trying to help. Thanks for the tips. I'm determined to get this right.

jmcquesten said:

We'll change the lines and hopefully that helps. And about my own, I'm actually giving up the 3 regulator setup that I just got off ebay for $70 for his purpose. He's giving me what I paid for it, and I'm putting off kegging until I see proof that it's just as good as my bottled beer. It's worth noting that it's my dad that I'm trying to help. Thanks for the tips. I'm determined to get this right.

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You get the benefit of not having to bottle and you can control oxygen much more easily with kegging. You can flush the keg with CO2, flush the headspace after filling and if you want to go all out you can push the beer from the fermentor with CO2. If you find you prefer natural carbonation to forced carbing you can also do that in a keg easy enough...with an adjustable pressure valve and a pressure dial you can dial in your CO2 volumes easily on a keg doing natural carbing and since it is the entire batch you don't have to worry about getting bottle to bottle inconsistency should you not get a good mix of the bottling sugar.

I know, and all that sounds really nice. I'm sure I'll make the leap some day, but now just isn't my time. Possible move in the near future so I'm done sinking money into my beer for a while. I'm actually trying to figure out if I'll be able to brew at all where I'm going, and if so, it will be as minimalist as possible. Won't be able to bring the recently built two tier, 3 keggle brew rig with me.

Try using the line length calculator in this thread. It's the only one of the bazillion I've tried that gets it right.

Most brews will be fine at an average volumes of CO2 around 2.5, and it would be easiest to tune a dispensing system around the CO2 psi required to sustain that volume at the given holding temperature.

So you could start with 10' of 3/16" ID barrier tubing (other than the Bev Seal Ultra "glass lined" tubing - you need a lot more line with that stuff). For the boisterous brews like highly carbed wits and such, you could add one or many 1/4" epoxy mixer sticks and discussed here.

This is how I set up my six faucet keezer, and it works beautifully...

Cheers!

The warmer or more carbonated the beer, the slower the pour needs to be to prevent excessive foaming from the turbulence of entering the glass. Even just a couple degrees can make a huge difference. At 2.75 vol and 40°, he's gonna need a pretty slow pour, which will require relatively long lines. The only line balancing calculator I've ever seen that accounts for most of the many variables involved is this one, which allows you to choose the desired pour speed (time to fill a pint), and then tells you the line length required to achieve that-

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApGb-vIKLq7FdGtzN3BrY2xZSldORzQ2bHVVX0hzaEE#gid=0

For the above described situation, I'd probably shoot for a 10 second pint fill, which equals about 13' of beer line.

Don't forget he has his CO2 tank in the kegerator so that will have an effect on the actual vs read pressure on the regulator. I have found that I get perfect pours with 5ft line with my regulator set to 11-12psi and I have my tank on the outside. When I had my kegerator and the tank was on the inside I only needed 7-8psi once carbed for a good pour. Any higher and it was all foam.

^ While a tank gauge will show the effects of low temperature, where the tank is located should not affect the regulator output...

Cheers!