Rationalizing a beer delivery system

[TGTimm]

We finally got our new beer cooler and delivery system done!

Before, in the kitchen walk-in:



What a mess! 8 taps, 2 of them serial. The kitchen supplies stacked on the kegs, no light, crowded, tangled lines, just your average pub cooler. All the kegs are fed CO2 from one, under-sized regulator fed by an undersized line, which causes horrible foaming when we're drawing fast on busy nights (most of them). Beer pumps supply the outdoor serving kiosk via a 70' beer trunk. Indoor pub taps are pushed with CO2.

After:






New (used) walk-in cooler. 12 taps, 8 of them serial. Lines that won't tangle. Lots of light. Spare full kegs stored in the cooler, lots of room to work (Until the kitchen staff starts piling their crap in here!). One secondary CO2 regulator for every 4 kegs, and the regulators are fed by 1/2" lines from the primary. All delivery is now by beer-pump and 2 45' beer trunks from the new cooler.

We started planning this back in March. I ordered all the parts around the end of March. It takes a while to get everything for a project like this out here in the boonies, but we now (for now) have the nicest beer cooler in the area!

[sopbeer]

cost for this

We have a customer that has a mess like your first picture multiplied by 10. What did the new system cost you in parts? I want to share this with them.

[TheCarolinian]

Great job! What's the size of that walk-in? How much space do you have in there for other kegs?

[TGTimm]

We have a customer that has a mess like your first picture multiplied by 10. What did the new system cost you in parts? I want to share this with them.

Most taverns, bars, and pubs I've seen have systems like our old one. They suck.

All in, including used walk-in and condensing unit, evaporator, 95' of 12 product beer trunk, two new 12 product towers, 12 Flo-Jet beer pumps, 5 regulators, a few hundred feet of 3/8 and 3/16 beer line, Oetiker clamps, etc, and 2-pump glycol power pack to chill the trunk and towers was around $12K--before labor. Simply cleaning the lines up and making the system make sense could be done for a few hundred bucks--the price of beer line, fittings, etc. Plus, of course, labor. Lots of fiddly labor.

The walk-in is, I think, 8X12'. Seems like there is lots of room, until the kitchen starts filling it up. I argued for a dedicated beer cooler, but....

[rdcpro]

Question on serial hookup

I've always wondered: When you run two (or more) kegs in series like that, and the back keg empties, what the steps are to replace the empty? I guess you can simply swap out the keg, but then that leaves some headspace in the lead keg, which gets worse each time the tail keg kicks.

Do you simply bleed the gas out of the lead keg, allowing the tail keg to refill (but I'd think you'd get a lot of foam from the beer cascading from the gas-in)? Edit: Actually, now I think about it, since the relief valve is in the cavity where the gas in line is, you couldn't bleed gas from the keg this way).

Or do you swap the lead keg, putting the new keg in the first position, and moving the partially full lead keg out to the tail position?

Or something else?

Regards,
Mike Sharp

[MikeyB]

Rationalizing a beer delivery system

Or do you swap the lead keg, putting the new keg in the first position, and moving the partially full lead keg out to the tail position?

Or something else?

Regards,
Mike Sharp

Yep! Gas => Keg1, Keg1, liquid out => gas inlet Keg2 (remove gas check valve,) Keg2 liquid out to tap. Full keg always is Keg2 position so no splashing or foaming of incoming beer.

[rdcpro]

Yep! Gas => Keg1, Keg1, liquid out => gas inlet Keg2 (remove gas check valve,) Keg2 liquid out to tap. Full keg always is Keg2 position so no splashing or foaming of incoming beer.

Right, there's a serial connection, but when Keg1 empties, unless you're right on top of things (which defeats the purpose of a serial draft setup), Keg2 will be partly empty when you replace Keg1. So you're saying that when you replace Keg1, you move Keg2 to the end position, and the new keg goes in the original Keg2 position?

If that's the case, what's the advantage of the serial system (except, possibly, you get to choose the time of changeout; e.g. at the end/beginning of the day)?

I've seen a serial system many years ago at the Gilroy Garlic Festival where there were at least 6 serial kegs, but I think they just waited until the whole line kicked, and then tapped 6 new kegs, which were standing by. They did this so there were no interruptions to the pour, until they poured all 6, then it's a fast changeover to six new kegs. BTW, they poured a helluva lot of beer in one day!

Mike

[TGTimm]

In theory, someone comes in every morning (or better, shift change) and checks the kegs. Any of the gas-end serials that are empty are removed. A fresh keg goes at the front--beer delivery keg--and the old front keg becomes the gas-end keg. Push with a partial or empty keg, deliver from a full one.

If we want to use just one keg on one of these serials, we can put a serial cleaning cup on the gas-end coupler, or just leave an empty keg there--lots of surge buffering with an extra 1/2 bbl of CO2 on call.

Where this is a saver is at peak hours, when we can serve twice as much beer before changing kegs. When a serial set up blows, both kegs are replaced. Less frequent changes of more kegs vs. more frequent changes of fewer kegs--the former actually saves time, from experience. It's the servers who have demanded more serial set-ups--we used to have two, and now have eight--so it works for them.

I've left room in the new draught system for FOBs at some point in the future. I think we'll just start with one, as the reports on their effectiveness have been mixed.

One of the most important fixes I've made here--aside from being able to change a keg without moving boxes of groceries and untangling a couple of yards of line--is the CO2 delivery system. Our old cooler used a single secondary regulator, fed by 50' of 1/4" line to push 8 taps stations. During peak hours, the beer would start breaking as the CO2 couldn't keep up. Now we have 1/2" mainline to three regulators, each of which pushes only 4 keg stations through 3/8" line. Since all the beer is now being pumped, rather than pushed to the faucets, we can turn those regulators down to about 2 psi above EQ for the beer, and we can serve 3 differently carbed beers at proper pressure.

[MikeyB]

Rationalizing a beer delivery system

If that's the case, what's the advantage of the serial system (except, possibly, you get to choose the time of changeout; e.g. at the end/beginning of the day)? ...BTW, they poured a helluva lot of beer in one day!

Mike

What Timm said. I've done this in a high volume brewpub, where more than 1/2 bbl of any given beer will pour between the time a brewer leaves for the day, and another shows up in the morning; and, sadly, leaving something as complex as changing a keg to the bar managers (with detailed instructions) led more often than not to chaos.

[TGTimm]

I forgot one very important thing: To thank Mike at F H Steinbart Co. in Portland, OR for all his help in getting this project together. Mike is the go-to guy when it comes to draught beer system design, construction, and de-bugging!

Thanks, Mike!

[Starcat]

Timm, nice work.
Ban the Kitchen from your space.


Star

[mikeyrb1]

Nice looking system there! See how long it lasts in that nice clean organized fashion

Any info on why you went with beers pumps instead of just a CO2 push? We have a run twice that length with 17 taps at 9k' and still went with a CO2 push and works great. What do you think were the advantages?

[TGTimm]

Warren--I'd love to. Not gonna happen. But at least I'm getting shelving that we can store stuff on without having crap sitting on the kegs. In theory.

Mikey--I built this to stay "tight and tidy". All the lines are anchored and zip-tied so they don't have room to tangle. Clean? Nah, that won't last. This will never again look as good as it does now. Kinda' like myself.

[mikeyrb1]

Mikey--I built this to stay "tight and tidy". All the lines are anchored and zip-tied so they don't have room to tangle. Clean? Nah, that won't last. This will never again look as good as it does now. Kinda' like myself.

Just giving you a hard time. We tried the same thing but our bartenders found ways to screw it up. I swear, they can't tie their own shoes but they can tie some interesting knots in our system. We have a much more crowded cooler too though.

[Bainbridge]

What Timm said. I've done this in a high volume brewpub, where more than 1/2 bbl of any given beer will pour between the time a brewer leaves for the day, and another shows up in the morning; and, sadly, leaving something as complex as changing a keg to the bar managers (with detailed instructions) led more often than not to chaos.

Bingo. We run serial kegs but use stackers so they're on top of each other. No kitchen in our 12 x 20 cold room, but easily 50bbls of beer...so...space is at a premium. Staging kegs before opening is really handy for us because we often have just one person on in the taproom. If it's busy and a keg kicked, they'd have to abandon the front and go tap another keg, or flag a brewer down to do it. Furthermore, if you've ever killed a keg during a growler fill then you know you just lost that whole growler full. So it reduces waste.

The only thing you have to pay attention to is that there's a risk of kegs (and beer) becoming 'eternal'. If keg 1 empties and you put a new keg on keg 1, keg 2 is still there. So you need to rotate them, as mentioned above. But if you do that and say you have your year-round IPA line going, and you don't occasionally run both kegs dry, a portion of each new keg gets blended into keg 2. So you get a solera thing going. Over time I'm not big on the idea of having a (thankfully small) portion of months old beer in there.