More than likely if you’ve reached this point alone, you’re not about to hand over the rec room bars beer tap design to someone else.  If you’re only going to have one keg at a time, chances are you want a direct draw system.  So here’s what you’ll need to know:

The hardware components in a draft beer system consist of tailpieces, unions, faucets, shanks, couplers, and more. All of these components restrict the beer as it passes through. Most pieces impart so little restriction that they can be ignored.  Most tap and keggerator (keg refrigerator) systems are sold with all the parts you’ll need for an effective line.
The next trick in designing direct draw rec room bars is balancing the system.  This essentially means meeting three requirements:

• Protecting the integrity of the beer
• Eliminating waste
• Acquiring an industry standard flow rate of approximately 128 ounces per minute or approximately 1 gallon a minute.

Success in meeting these objectives depends on balancing two separate pressures:

• Applied gauge pressure
• Restriction pressure

Determining what these terms mean, and how the calculations work is simple and can be found easily on the net (this isn’t rocket science, don’t worry). 

Taking time on the draw system is more than worth it when finishing your rec room bar.  Calculating correctly once means never having to adjust regulators or pressure again.  More importantly, it also means rec room bars can have the same quality beer that you find at the pub, just the way the world intended it. 

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