# Jockey esky thoughts



## Aussieben (7/8/19)

hey everyone. 
So, we go away camping a fair bit on the Murray. I’ve been doing some research and the most feesable thing to take kegs camping is make a jockey esky with taps straight off the esky, keep the keg outside of the esky and have long coils in ice cooling the beer.
All that will be easy enough to make but the questions I have are as i don’t have much knowledge about kegged beer is..

1. What ambient temp can a pressurised keg get to before problems arise? Camping over summer is normally around 40c for the week

2. I’ve seen plenty of people saying that doing it this way works well when then ambient is 25c. Will a 35c beer be chilled enough just going through the coils in the esky full of ice?

Any other suggestions or tips are appreciated


----------



## MHB (8/8/19)

Plates work way better than coils, they are available in single or twin for 1 or 2 tap setups.
How well they work is more a function of the draw rate than the temperature, obviously the hotter the beer coming in the longer it takes to cool it down and the slower you get to draw off cold beer.
A well made coil or plate should hold at least a schooner so when you take out a beer and close the tap all of the next beer is sitting inside the coil/plate getting cooled rather than trying to chill the beer as it flows through.

Everything you can do to keep the kegged beer cool will help, even just keeping it in the shade, putting a bag over the kegs and keeping it wet...
When it comes to the pressure, there really isn't much you can do, luckily home brew kegs have Pressure Relief Valves (PRV). About all you can do is get your beer conditioned (the right amount of fizz), keep them as cool as you can. because of the PRV you cant develop dangerous pressures as it will let out any excess.
Don't worry even at 40oC you wont loose too much pressure/fizz.

Look on Gumtree, eBay and even on here for a Jockey or Miracle Plate. There is a single listed on Gumtree right now in SA as a Miracle Plate and a couple under Beer Jockey Box. One was being offered here last week, so a bit of patience and you should find one, or you could spend the money on a new one, all the commercial beer equipment sellers have them.
Mark


----------

