Beer Forum

I want to serve a BW at a festival later this summer. (1st Annual Michigan Homebrew Festival - ( http://www.michiganbeercup.com/index.php?action=AwardsCeremony ) I plan on serving it between 3.5 and 4 volumes of C02. If the beer is 40 degrees, promash says that it will need 26 psi to maintain that. If I hook my keg up to 20 feet of bev hose, will I be able to serve it without a huge ass mess?

Mills

If you keep all that hose, and shanks, and faucets, and beer very cold, it will probably work. I wouldn't try it if it is a self-serve situation. If you have a trained pourer then you can avoid wasting half your beer.

I typically use 40F and 20psi with 12-15' of line for soda, weizen, berliner weisse, and fizzy wine. I know that is lower carbonation than it is "supposed" to be, but I need a tradeoff somewhere with servability. Soda and wine are fine, the other two pour with large heads. A trained person can let them settle, use a pitcher to decant, open the faucets all the way and that sort of thing, but it is overall a bit of a hassle. I think I may do like you and add another 6' of jumper to the serving line and see how that goes next time.

Be sure to carbonate the beer to your target... and during the fest, you can get away with turning your regulator down from the "balannced" applied pressure that would maintain 3.5-4 vols. If the beer is kept cold, it will maintain your higher carb rate... but still, err on the side of more restriction to the tap, then less.

It really depends on the brand of your dispense hose (I'm assuming you mean 3/16ths). Each has different restrictions than the next brand, so those "equations" go out the window unless you really know the true restriction per foot.

25psi is approx. 3.7 vol's at 40ºF... so force carb around that (maybe a touch higher), use a ton of restriction, and since its a one time pour at a fest, bump down your applied pressure to 15-20 - but only if you're having foaming issues at the tap.

With micromatic products... restriction per foot for vinyl hose is 3... 2.2 for polyethylene. So really, your total system restriction would need to be ballparked around 27-28... 27/3 = 9 ft of vinyl 3/16ths "should" give you a decent pour. I'd cut at least 15 feet... but I think 20 would be overkill. (unless of course you are using a larger I.D. hose). If 15 is giving you too slow a pour (under 100oz. per min) cut a foot, or two off, and let 'er rip.

Again. Worst case, keep the beer cold/ turn down your applied pressure to serve. Near the bottom of the keg, depending on the length of time/how frequently it's poured, you might loose a bit o' carb over 3-4 hrs.... but really, not much.

You can try one of those epoxy mixing nozzles in the dip tube, I hear they work very well for knocking down pressure without a bunch of foam:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/cure-yo ... es-100151/