CO2 Pipe sizing

[mfos]

I have recently installed a new liquid CO2 tank outside and am having difficulty
getting enough flow to maintain Pressure at the brite tank for bottling. This is a liquid CO2 tank with 3/8" fittings although the line to brewery is 1/4". I have a regulator that does 100 CFH and am going to upgrade to 1/2" lines. Tank out pressure is just 140 PSI

Five 10 bbl brite tanks- total run to tanks about 25'

Is the 1/2" line sufficient, and do the 3/8" fittings restrict the lines too much? Anything else I have overlooked?

[Michael Murphy]

hi, did you install a heater just after the CO2 tank outlet, the freezing creates a huge pressure loss.
I use 10mm SS tubbing, I run to various uses, to a 12 head filler, keg filler, 50 hl BBTs and I push the beer from fermenters, I can do it all at the same time from the same source. Before I added the heater I had trouble with doing one thing at a time, especialy the filler.

[mfos]

Thank you for the suggestion Michael. I had tried a heater placed before my regulator inside (about 10 feet away from tank) but will now try it outside next to the tank.
Michael

[fcaseyf]

I would talk to your CO2 supplier and find out about getting an expansion tower. They help out a ton when useing a lot of gas.

[Moonlight]

"Ambient air Vaporizer" is the term I've seen to help you move a lot of gas especially for dewars. 50 lb cylinders still freeze up trying to put out that much gas. The inline heaters can't solve the cylinder freeze up but they can save your regulator and keep it from freezing. I'm considering using band heaters on the cylinder at only about $17 to $20 without thermostat, $100-$200 with. Maybe pipe heating tape or rope could handle lighter loads. Please don't run frozen regulators as I have scars as a result of my learning curve when they didn't regulate pressure because they were frozen. Twice, duh.

[Moonlight]

Just found this for a couple good laughs:
www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/co2-rocket.html