Home bar: tower mounting & line cooling

[stubob2517]

I'm building a garage at my house and am turning the back half in to a pub. I plan on having beer on tap but want to have the tower ON the bar - just like in a pub. If I were to get a kegerator would the process to move the tap to the bar be as simple as removing it from the kegerator, sealing around the lines coming out of the box, putting heavy-duty insulation on the lines to the tap and mounting the tower to the bar? Would it be possible/recommended to build a tower extension to the kegerator to keep the lines cool instead of or in addition to the insulation?
As you can see I have a lot of questions because I want to do this right and afford the beer the respect that it's due.
Thanks for your help.

[zoom6zoom]

Welcome to the board.

We've discussed this very topic on several occassions. If you'll use the search function, search for tower and or cooling, I'm sure you'll find a few hits. Or just browse through the kegging subforum, you'll probably find a lot of interesting stuff.

[danno]

Originally posted by stubob2517
...and afford the beer the respect that it's due. sheesh, are we scaring people off here? :D

I'd build the bar so you have a minimal amount of clearance between the kegerator and the bottom of the bar. then, your insulation issues would be minimized, I'd probably even look at PVC tubing, anyone that's ever worked on their house plumbing most likely has a few feet of it laying around, (I know I do...) between 6" of pvc and a can of Great Stuff foam sealant, you could do a pretty decent job of keeping your beer cold...

[stubob2517]

Nope, not scaring me off...But I've had beer all over the world and it truly is the Nectar of the Gods. No matter where you go there is at least a semi-drinkable beer, and in some of the places I've been it was recommended over the water. I like beer, I enjoy beer and I'm thankful for beer...may make me sound like a looney - but there you go!

[brian92]

Check the archives and most recently this thread: http://www.realbeer.com/discussions/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8437

I did exactly what you are trying to do. I ended up doing an air cooled system. The shorter the length from the kegerator to the bar, the better. In my experience, just insulating it will not work unless you don't mind getting foam for the first pour after the tap has been sitting for 20 minutes or so. Overall, building the system is not that tough, it just takes time.

[stubob2517]

Brian92

Thanks for the thread! IF things go as planned I'll be putting the kegerator under the bar so the tubing run shouldn't be more than 12"-18" max hopefully less from the top of the box. I found this last night which seems like a easy way to do it;

http://www3.telus.net/sockmonkeysandbeer/beer/Kegerator/kegerator.html

Sorry, don't know how to hyperlink. Anyway if you look at the bottom of the page the next to last photo shows a cooling system set up from copper pipe in the kegerator that run to the top of the tower. Certainly the easiest way I've seen so far and seems as though it should be efficient.

[brian92]

That cooling method should be fine for such a short run. You can also insulate the rods and line if you are still getting a temp drop.

[Jughead]

Can you do like danno mentioned and minimize the distance by raising the fridge up off the floor so the top of it is right under the bar?

[HogieWan]

building a riser for the kegerator would probably be a lot easier than an extension for the tower.

[chazwicke]

Originally posted by stubob2517
I like beer, I enjoy beer and I'm thankful for beer...may make me sound like a looney - but there you go!


You'll fit in just fine on this board - Welcome!

[stubob2517]

Yes, I could raise the kegerator - I guess I could cut a hole through the bar where I was going to mount the tower and slide the tower through then re-mount it to the kegerator...sure would make life easier! What I WAS thinking about (prior to the inout you guys have given me) was a wooden bar with the tower mounted on it with the lines run through it to the kegerator. The catch tray was also going to be a cut through, mounted to the bottom of the bar - more I think about it the harder it sounds since I'm a weekend carpenter at best. but damn it would've looked good!

[Thirdrail]

as far as keeping the lines cool in the tower i been thinking of a makeshift chiller system utilizing water instead of glycol....should be rather cheap and probably just efficient enough....if anyone is interested i can go into detail

[zoom6zoom]

For a drip tray, look at some of the brass covers for heating vents that are available... have seen a lot of these used, then just need a pan or whatever underneath to catch.

[OhAodha]

Thirdrail, before you build this system see if anyone has been successfol with it yet. I just built one of these cooling systems this week and I am still having problems making it work.

Here is what I did:
I put a large flower vase that holds about 2 gallons of liquid in my fridge and placed a pond pump in the bottom. I ran my 3/16" beer line out the top of my Kegerator, across about 3.5-4 feet and up about 18"-24". I attached 2 3/8" vinyl tube lines to the 3/16th line and insulated them together with foil backed polyfill and surrounding that with rubberized insulation. I did a turnaround inside my tower so all but 3" of beer line comes in contact with the cold liquid. I initially filled the tank with glycol but the temp on the Glycol would not go below 60 degrees. I drained it and replaced it with water and got the water temp down to the high 40s. The line feels cold on the way to the keg. and liquid is flowing. The problem is it still is not keeping me from dumping a lot of foam. My co2 is set below the recommendation for keg balancing so that is not it. I am wondering if the 3/8 vinyl is too thick walled and not conducting enough cold?
The fridge air temp is between 34-42 and my beer temp is 41 so that is good.

If anyone has any ideas let me know. I will post pic of the system when I get a chance but before anyone tries this again they might want to be careful

Thanks

[buckrogers71]

if i read correctly (which i dont always do :( ) it sounds similar to what I did. I drilled a hole (dont remember the diameter and snaked my beer line through that into the kegarator. to keep the line cool i used flexible HVAC insulation and zip tied it.

here is a pic of my tower:

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f357/buckrogers71/ea43e629.jpg

if you want some more, let me know!

[basementbrewR]

OhAodha, I was thinking of doing exactly what you did but as I read your post I agree that the tubing wall will not transfer the cold and keep the beer lines cold. Once you pull a beer and get the lines cold, recirculating the water might help keep them cold longer. I just finished my kegerator conversion and am having the same issue. The first beer is 2/3 foam until the lines are cold. I think a double wall tube with beer on the 3/16" line surrounded by cold water might work. Maybe thread the beer line into a larger diameter tubing like 1/2" and recirculate it back to the resevoir in the fridge....and keep it from leaking....

[OhAodha]

basementbrewr:
I gave up on this idea because I never got it to work. The problem was not keeping the line cold but that the warmth from outside the kegerator was transferred into the kegerator making it so I could not keep the temp down. I found out that to do this I needed a separate freezer unit to super-cool the glycol and to keep the transferred heat out of the unit with the beer. I was able to reduce the foam to 1/2 of the first beer (which I dump) by adding extra insulation to the inside of my kegerator and adding a velcro strap to pull the door shut tight. That appears to be the best I can do without adding an extra freezer unit.

Let us know if you get it to work.