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Brewpub draft issues...SV vs. kegs

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  • Brewpub draft issues...SV vs. kegs

    Anyone out there experience this or something similar?
    At my brewpub we typically pour draft beer from Serving Vessels (24bbl) at 15-18 psi pure CO2. If the walk-in refrigeration and glycol chiller are operating properly then the beer pours great.

    The issue comes when I keg off a beer to empty a SV. I'll hook the keg up to the draft line manifold and will not get clear, non-foamy beer at the taps until it's pushing at 30 psi! Of course this is an issue because the beer pours really fast, and soon that keg will overcarbonate making things worse...

    Some thoughts before you reply
    1. The system is old, put in twenty years ago way before I started here. System balancing could be suspect, but I keep everything clean and sanitary. Everything else being equal I'm not sure why kegs would pour differently, as I've never had this issue at other brewpubs.
    2. I fill the kegs fairly slow under pressure, and cold. Kegs don't have issues pouring anywhere else.
    3. Beer carbonation is checked by a Zahm after forced carb, usually between 2.3 and 2.5 volumes. Also, the beer doesn't seem to be overcarbonating as a result of pushing with pure CO2 in the SV.
    4. The regulators work fine.

    I figured I'd put that out there since those would typically be troubleshooting points. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated! A friend has already suggested putting a beer pump in line to address the issue. But I still wanna know why it does that though...

  • #2
    With pure CO2, I believe you want the head/dispense pressure on the Brite or Keg to be roughly the same as what your target CO2 volume at that temp would be otherwise you're going to eventually over-carbonate. So for us, for example, I want 2.7 volumes, then at 34 degrees, I push the beer from keg/tank at 11 psi. If it is not sufficient to get through any long line length to the taps, as is the case with us, then you'd need a beer pump, which we did. We also installed FOBs after each pump. Can also get nitrogen and a blender to mix with CO2 to get the right dispense pressure.
    Dave Cowie
    Three Forks Bakery & Brewing Company
    Nevada City, CA

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    • #3
      A couple thoughts for you.

      The last draft system I built was in a brewpub and we took the height of the beer in the tanks into consideration for balancing the draft system (I assumed the level of the beer in the tanks was half full). There might be something there with a balancing issue on length of lines or elevation etc.

      Are you pouring kegs off the same lines that feed the tanks or different lines? If you're using a different tap line for the kegs try pouring a keg on a tap line that usually pours well. I've had problems in the past where a single line in a trunk isn't cooling as well as the rest of the line bundle, or you could have an issue in that tap line due to age..

      Also, depending on the set up of the tap lines, is there any chance that you have some sort of a gas bubble somewhere in the tap line caused by changing over to the keg? That's been known to cause major foam problems.

      Cheers
      Manuel

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      • #4
        You've definitely got a balance problem. Using our jockey box, with 50' of 1/4" coil, we still don't exceed 25 psi.

        The head pressure in your kegs/SVs should not be more than a little higher than the EQ pressure of your beer at the serving temp--especially in SVs--unless you intend to serve beer-champagne.

        If your system is 20 years old, it's time to rebuild it anyway. I change our lines out every 2 years or so. The balance problem could be anything from undersized and over length lines to biofilms obstructing the lines. Likely both.

        As mmunsen wrote, you will probably need to balance the lines for kegs and SVs separately. Not a big deal--use some beer Ys and valves and get some cheap caps for the unused keg heads.

        Meheen has a good white paper on balancing draft systems, and the Draught Beer Quality Manual is an excellent resource--not as good on draft delivery systems as it used to be (oversimplified)--but still excellent. DL both and study.
        Timm Turrentine

        Brewerywright,
        Terminal Gravity Brewing,
        Enterprise. Oregon.

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