Trunk lines for long draw beer systems
Industry leading draft beer trunk lines
Our beer trunk lines are designed for long draw glycol cooled installations in demanding environments.
- Durable extruded jacket makes the trunk lines flexible and easy to install
- Moisture wraps prevents condensation within the foam insulation
- FDA approved for food safety standards
- Color coded lines make it easy to identify each product line and the in- and outgoing glycol lines
- Barrier protected product lines: CO2 stays in and oxygen stays out. This also prevents mixing of aromas between different beers.
How to select the right trunk line for your glycol cooled long draw beer system?
There are two parts to this question:
- The amount of product lines
- The size of the product lines
The first question is easy to answer: how many beers do you need on the tap? You need 1 product line for each beer type. Another consideration with this is that the 10, 12 and 14 product trunk lines have 2 glycol loops (2 lines out and 2 back in, so 4 glycol lines in total), which affects your choice of glycol chiller. If you have questions about this, please contact us!
The size of the beer lines is a little bit more complicated question. Here are some pointers:
Generally, the longer the total beer trunk line run, the larger you want the product line diameters to be. While there can be some exceptions, usually 1/4" is used only for short runs, and 5/16" and 3/8" are for longer runs.
The product line diameter in the trunk line functions as one part of the long draw system, and the whole system needs to be in balance. A well balanced beer serving system has an optimal flow rate of about 1 gallon per minute (about 8 seconds for a pint), with the optimal carbonation and foam. To achieve this, the total restriction of the system needs to match the gas pressure in the beer kegs.
You can think of the trunk line as the "middle part" of the system, and the total amount of restriction is a sum of all parts: the beer jumper lines from the keg couplers to trunk line (within the walk-in-cooler) add some restriction, maybe about 1.2 pounds. Then the trunk line adds some amount of restriction, and finally the product line in the tower is used to fine tune the total restriction so that the flow rate is correct. This is why the trunk line needs to be selected so it works well with these other parts of the system.
Amounts of restriction per foot of barrier jacket beer trunk line
1/4" I.D barrier trunk line: 0.3 lbs / foot
5/16" I.D barrier trunk line: 0.1 lbs / foot
3/8" I.D barrier trunk line: 0.06 lbs / foot
This works out to following amounts of restriction for a typical 75 foot run:
1/4" I.D barrier trunk line: 75 x 0.3 lbs = 22.5 lbs
5/16" I.D barrier trunk line: 75 x 0.1 lbs = 7.5 lbs
3/8" I.D barrier trunk line: 75 x 0.06 lbs = 4.5 lbs
If you need more help in selecting the right beer trunk line for your long draw installation, please contact us! You can also read this blog post about selecting the right trunk line, where we discuss the important selection factors in more detail!
