Bench top draught viability

[iralosavic]

I've been thinking about upgrading my kegging/draught system as my next investment into the brewery and one possibly crazy idea that crossed my mind is that I could put a bar fridge / small chest freezer, UNDER the house (stumped on a gradual slope) and run the beer lines through the floor within one of the under bench cupboards.

I would probably have to dig a bit of a hole to set the fridge or freezer into, in order for it to have the space to fit and even after doing this, it would still not be directly under the floor where I would tap it, so there would be at least 2 metres of line traveling from fridge to the entry point and presumably another 1.5-2 to the tap/s.

At what point does the length of the lines become a significant issue?

Even if the idea is too crazy to be viable, it could be an interesting discussion.

Cheers

 

[Nibbo]

Same theory to a pub with a cellar. Only they are most likely running a temprite to chill the beer just before the taps. You're wanting to chill the kegs which will mean you have beer in roughly 3.5 - 4m of beer that'll warm up. Not such a concern in winter (well here anyway), but in summer, it'll be a problem. Maybe if you run a foam conduit around the lines and run a coolant line as well would help.
Running the longer lengths shouldn't be a problem if you running a larger ID beer line. It'll take a little fine tuning though to optimise.

 

[MastersBrewery]

agree with Nibbo, you could also look at flooding your font, there's a few threads on here that'll help do a quick search.

 

[donburke]

yes it works, my setup has a total line length of 5 metres over a rise of 3 metres

my pouring pressure is at 70kpa and I get a decent pour through 5mm id lines

my lines are insulated with armaflex, but I also run a glycol chiller and flooded font, which keeps the beer in the lines cool

without glycol, i'd say you will have foaming issues, or at least the first pour of the day would be foamy

how much room have you got to get in and out from under the house to replace the kegs when they empty ?

 

[iralosavic]

Thanks for chiming in... the amount of space I would have depends on how close I try and get it to the bench/cupboards. At the lowest side of the house (around 3-4m from entry point), I'd say there is around 4 foot height and it quickly lessens as it's a sharp angle and the other side of the house is only elevated by around 10cm.

I wonder if all the water flow and dust etc would be problematic towards the fridge.

A temprite is sounding tempting hmmm Can you run glycol through a spare line in a temprite or would it just not get cold enough?

I could fit a temprite in a spare cupboard in the breakfast bar, but there would be no freezer nearby or anything to chill glycol...

 

[Nibbo]

If you were looking at running a temprite, your kegs and gas would live under the house. You run the beer lines up into the temprite and the beer cools down in running through the coils. They exit the temprite and head straight to the font and taps. Again here i'd insulate the beer lines leaving the temprite and would look into flooding the font with the temprite glycol/water mix.

So you would try and fit the temprite as close to the font/beer taps as you can.
A simple pond pump sitting in the temprite can be used to flood the font (as long as it's able to be flooded that is).
An advantage to this is you're not always cooling your beer when not needed, thus wasting power.
A disadvantage to this is you don't have cold beer on tap whenever you like unless you run the temprite 24/7. You need to plan when you want a drink.

Not sure if the above makes sense or not. Hopefully you can make heads and tails of it.... :blink:

 

[donburke]

Thanks for chiming in... the amount of space I would have depends on how close I try and get it to the bench/cupboards. At the lowest side of the house (around 3-4m from entry point), I'd say there is around 4 foot height and it quickly lessens as it's a sharp angle and the other side of the house is only elevated by around 10cm.

I wonder if all the water flow and dust etc would be problematic towards the fridge.

A temprite is sounding tempting hmmm Can you run glycol through a spare line in a temprite or would it just not get cold enough?

I could fit a temprite in a spare cupboard in the breakfast bar, but there would be no freezer nearby or anything to chill glycol...

water wouldn't be good for the fridge, put in on bricks or channel the water so its doesn't flow under the fridge, a bit of dust would be ok, probably no more than gathers on a fridge in the house anyway

a temprite is essentially a glycol chiller,

the unit is basically a 20 litre reservoir holding a 50/50 mix of glycol/water with a refrigeration unit in it to keep the 20 litres at sub zero temps (somewhere b/w -2 and -3 degrees in my case)

the unit also has an agitator built into it that continuously pumps the liquid in the resevoir through a closed circuit (i.e. through a flooded font),

there are also product coils that sit inside the reservoir, that can be used to run beer through just before the font, in my case i only use the product coils to pre-chill my tap water when chilling on brew day



you could in theory get away with just a temprite/glycol chiller and not need a fridge to store the kegs in, but storing kegs at ambient temps would certainly reduce their shelf life & freshness, and increase activity of spoilage organisms if any are in the unpasteurised beer

check where your rain water flows and collects before digging a hole for the fridge, it might create a sump and collect water

i'd put the fridge where you have the clearance, your lines might be 7 or so metres long, which is fine, you might need to run a higher pressure or you can compensate by using a larger id line

if a glycol chiller or temprite is cost prohibitive, you could put a reservoir of glycol in the freezer section of the fridge and use a pond pump to recirculate (alongside your beer lines) through the font (caution with this as a freezer sits at -18 and would probably freeze the beer in your lines if kept on long enough)

whatever you do, make sure you pass the beer and cooling lines through armaflex, choose the tightest fitting size to accommodate the number of lines you have and choose a wall thickness of at least 35mm, 50mm would be better, seal all joints of armaflex with silicon and then when cured, wrap some electrical tape over the joint, you want to insulate it best you can, which means you want the least amount of air in there as possible

if you go ahead with it, let me know, i can also explain what i did as far as integrating the drip tray in the caesarstone if you plan on doing something similar