Hose clamps come in a variety of sizes for a variety of hose sizes and applications. Our hose clamps are all made of 304 stainless steel.
The first thing you need to know about the step-less style ear-clamp, AKA oetiker style clamp is that they are measured based on the inner diameter. The clamps have a small number imprinted on the side of them that represents their size. The size is the inner diameter of the clamp when open/not-clamped.
FOR EXAMPLE; if you look at the hose clamp size chart (below), at the 15.7 clamp size and follow the lines down from the left and right side of the bar, you will see the open size of the clamp is 15.7mm inner diameter when not clamped, and then when clamped it will compress to approximately 13.2 mm I.D.
Ideally, you always want the OD. of the barbed fitting that is inserted into your hose to match the hose's I.D., BUT if the barb is slightly larger than the I.D. of the hose, remember that the hose will balloon around it slightly and this will increase the O.D. of the hose. So in this case, you may need a slightly larger hose clamp than what you would typically select for that hose.
If you are new to kegging and looking to setup your first draft system or keezer build, we always recommend our Oetiker Clamp Starter Kit. This comes with 10 pieces of the 3 most common sized clamps used with the beverage lines that we recommend as well as the clamp tool.
What size hose clamp do I need for my beverage and gas lines?
How to use a clamp tool and stepless ear clamps or Oetiker clamps for your draft beverage and gas lines: