Question about Kegging and Lines...

Hello all,

I've been brewing for a couple of years and I've decided to take the leap into kegging. Previously I'd always bottled my beer, but after a while it gets a bit tedious, and I wanted to start kegging. After lots of research, and watching a ton of videos, I decided to build my own Kegerator, bought my corny kegs, got a fridge, Co2 canister, regulator, SS Tower and all the lines I needed.... or so I thought.

On further inspection of the lines I had bought, I was very confused, most of the lines seemed wrong! I've Googled and searched countless forums and web pages and still I come up blank! So I'm hoping you lovely people can help me!

Let's start with the gas line, I purchased 3/8 x 1/4 Gas line:

This gas line is meant to come off my regulator onto a two way gas manifold, and from there connect to the two corny kegs via a disconnect. It seems to fit in the regulator fine, fits in the disconnect fine, but seems far too narrow to fit onto the 2 way gas manifold, when I've looked at the spec sheet for the gas manifold it says "3/8" O.D. (To fit 5/16" I.D)". Now my guess is that I need to find a 3/8 gas line that has an ID of 5/16, not an ID of 1/4 which I currently have. Is this correct? If so, where can I find such tubing, along with the correct John Guest style converter because I can't seem to find any in the UK. All of the stuff I find is 5/16 OD, which is what I have now. See the pictures below, for the current Gas Line tubing I have and the gas manifold:

Next up, I have my SS Tower, which came with what seems to be: 5/16 beer tubing.

Now, as I don't know a whole lot about lines/tubing in general, can somebody tell me is that 5/16 the OD or the ID, my guess would be OD, but if that's the case, then what the hell is the ID? I'm sorry if these seem like really stupid, obvious questions, I'm just super confused.

During my research and reading I've read that the best type of tubing for beer lines is 3/16 line, so of course I went online and ordered a bunch of 3/16 line, which when it arrived, looked like this:





Now that to be seems absolutely too narrow. It doesn't look like the same size line I've seen in other peoples Kegerator builds online, in fact, the beer line in other peoples videos seems more like the 5/16 that is coming from my SS Tower.

If anybody can help me understand these lines and where I've gone wrong, I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you in advance!

P.S. If I've posted this in the wrong section, then I apolgise, this seemed the most suitable place.

You could replace the manifold connector with john guest fittings that work with the OD of the gas lines you have, personally I have found the john guest fittings to be really easy to work with. https://brewkegtap.co.uk/collections/beer-line-and-connectors/products/john-guest-regulator-fitting

This might help with your beer lines http://www.mikesoltys.com/2012/09/17/determining-proper-hose-length-for-your-kegerator/, I'm using the 3/16 type line for party tap dispensing from a keg.

I think this is a great post by LH and similar to them one I was about to post. I am a little lost with pipe sizes and fitting sizes particularly when it comes to John Guest fittings where it isn’t a simple case of measuring, as far as I can see.

Is there any chance of some one posting a ‘master class’ of how to identify and measure various fittings and pipe?

I am about to start my project this weekend. I was hoping it would be like putting together an Ikea wardrobe just without the left over parts. Now I’m beginning to wonder....

Mike, I did find it to be very easy to setup, but I did use john guest fittings, here's some pictures hopefully might help someone... where you need to screw on the john guest fittings hand tight is enough no need to use PTFE tape. I did use PTFE tape on the metal connectors from the gas cylinder to the regulator, and used spanners to get that tight. Not had a leak (apart from where I have left a valve open and nothing connected )

Got all equipement from Jonny at BrewKegTap

Looking good! Got all my stuff from Malt Miller. I'll work it out but may off the beer til after I've done......

Pete Mc said:

This might help with your beer lines http://www.mikesoltys.com/2012/09/17/determining-proper-hose-length-for-your-kegerator/, I'm using the 3/16 type line for party tap dispensing from a keg.

Click to expand...

I used this calculator and the flow is like a toddler peeing (2m of 3/16" at 10-12PSI). Going to resort to trial and error.