Regulator Questions

[Mrobson]

I need help, Ive been searching the forum all day and can’t seem to find a definitive answer.

Basically I’ve bought 3 kegs off THBC and I’m struggling a bit with the regulator side of things. I normally brew pale ales / ipas so I’m planning on using 2 of the kegs for similar serving pressures, the other I’d like to have the option of serving at a different pressure.

I think I’ve weighed up my options but if I’m honest I’ve overloaded my head with information and I’m struggling.

Is it better to use a dual primary regulator, splitting one line to feed the 2 pale beers and not bother with a secondary. Or do I go down the secondary route for each keg with a normal regulator?

Cheers

 

[SheffieldBrew]

You could do this with a single primary regulator and single secondary regulator.

If your "different" serving pressure is lower than your serving pressure for your pale ales then you can split the line after the pass-through on the secondary regulator and have both of those lines going to your pale kegs and set your secondary regulator for the lower pressure and have that output going to your other keg. If it's higher or you want to force carbonate then you can swap it over and have the split to your pale kegs on the regulated output of the secondary.

http://www.cellartrainingcourse.co.uk/page15.html This was useful to me when I was getting my head around things.

Hope this helps

R

 

[Jakeyboi]

Ideally you need your primary regulator, followed by a three way splitter, two of the lines from the splitter to serve both your pale ales, and the third line to have a secondary regulator to be used at a lower pressure when you want less carbonation.

my setup has a 4 way splitter off the primary and each line has a secondary on it, allowing me to have a different pressure in each keg.

I made mine out of 10mm copper and bought the secondary regs online for about £15 each iirc.

If you want any more info I what I did let me know.

jake

 

[johncrobinson]

Re:> SheffieldBrew

I had a setup like this in a small factory i used to own,It worked quite well (compressed air not brewing).

 

[Mrobson]

Cheers for the input guys, decided to go for a secondary on each keg. Waiting for the postman to bring me a package from RLBS. Just need another fridge now!

 

[peebee]

Cheers for the input guys, decided to go for a secondary on each keg. Waiting for the postman to bring me a package from RLBS. Just need another fridge now!

You've picked perhaps the most versatile setup. If something needs some radically different arrangement, you'll be able to accommodate it easily. But you will need to be fairly organised, or things can turn into a cat's cradle fairly easily.

The problem with the alternative (feed some kegs and a secondary regulator from the same "primary" regulator - a setup you've avoided) is there will not be a big difference on the low pressure and high pressure side of the secondary regulator. The regulator in this position may start acting a bit erratically and may not have the accuracy you desire. But with your "primary" regulator set to output a "fixed" pressure (say 4BAR) you wont be seeing that.