iralosavic said:
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