How Many (& What Sort) Of Fridges Would Work Best?

[Diesel80]

Thanks again Kev.

Hmmm, got me thinking now (which is good)! A freezer located through a wall isn't an option due to house layout unfortunately. A standalone bar is possible if tricky $$$ and space-wise. When you suggested a standalone bar was that purely for the bling factor? Or would it have some impact on font temps? (I'm guessing it was just the looks)

Celli taps are out of reach at this stage.

I'm now thinking I will go with the font on top of the freezer, with lines insulated once outside the freezer. If I'm still getting warm beers then I'll look to retro-fit some sort of font cooling. Maybe put it on a timer so that it is only keeping the font cool in the evenings (& weekends!) to reduce power usage. I'll get some searching done on here on that front.


If the ambient temperature in the pub is usually say no higher than 20 degrees, do you think that will cause enough of a problem to need fixing? Hard to quantify what someone else calls a problem I know, let's just say I don't want warm beer or too much froth.

Cheers again for the help, I really appreciate it.

May be worth looking up some of the Coffin Keezer builds popular on the US homebrew sites. There are some mind boggling creations out there. Limited by time and $ only.

Cheers,
D80

 

[Giddo]

Thanks Diesel. There are some pretty crazy creations out there. I think I'll keep mine a bit more low key!!!

Been reading around AHB on font cooling, and came across a product on the chi website. Wondering whether this on a timer (to kick in at 4pm, off at 10pm) would be effective? http://www.chicompany.net/index.php?main_p...roducts_id=2966

Flooded fonts seem like quite a lot of time and effort (& cost) so I'm less keen on that approach.

 

[stux]

As Glen W mentioned, if there is a light make sure you don't drill through the wires.

As you mentioned about the weight, it may be enough to prevent the lid staying opened by itself. Also if the font is solidly mounted to the lid you will need space behind the freezer to get the lid fully open.

Have you used a font setup vs taps through a collar. I have a font in the house, and through the fridge door taps in the carport. I thinks fonts look nice for bling factor, but I don't like them as they heat up the beer to much, unless you go flooded and then you need some decent cooling capacity to handle it. If I set up a freezer I would go a collar.

QldKev

Hey Kev, have you considered a air based tower cooler?

Something like this http://towercooler.com/index.php?option=co...7&Itemid=54

edit: snap

 

[Giddo]

snap

Hahaha

 

[QldKev]

Thanks for the idea. I had a look at those type fans, and even purchased a small 12v blower and hose from ebay. Pretty much the same as the ones above but DIY. My intention was to have a switch mounted on the side of the fridge and throw it on 15min before I'm ready for a beer. I guess I never got around to installing it as I had heard that trying to cool the font that way sucks a lot of power due to the font basically becoming a huge metal heat sink, a bit the same as a flooded font (but probably not as bad)

What I did do today as I needed to run into town anyway, I picked up a couple of meters of stuff like this. It was under $4 a meter from Bunnings. I got the stuff with 19mm (ID) core and put it all the beer lines through it, and shoved it up the font. I'll see later when I pour a beer how well it works. I still expect the small vol in the beer line to be warm, but hopefully the rest will be better.

It also happens to be an excellent fit over the silicone hose in the brewery, but I'm not sure how well it will wear. I think in the brewery it will end up ripped too easy.

QldKev

 

[mikec]

I was actually considering those exact models when I was going into kegging but I won a fridgemate so didn't go down that track. I believe they also hold 2 kegs?

Worth a look.

Just saw this, sorry.

Yeah, you can fit two kegs in front of the hump, but then the rear is wasted.
I have a kegerator like yours for the kegs, which holds 3.
The Westinghouses are just for fermenting/conditioning.

 

[Bribie G]

I'd agree with Kev about the Kegmate / Font tower pouring warm beer for a while before the freezing stuff. Personally being a pom = hot beer + cold pies it's not much of a problem for me and I keep my keggo set to 8 anyway as I mostly brew UK and American style Ales. Some sort of a font-blower fan would be the answer and not too hard to fix up with a computer fan.

Also my serving Keggo is the old 2-8 model whilst the latest from Ross is the minus 1 - 8 model which I'm sure would freeze the tonsils after the first glass if you want to drink that cold.

:icon_cheers:

 

[Florian]

Hey Kev, have you considered a air based tower cooler?

Something like this http://towercooler.com/index.php?option=co...7&Itemid=54

edit: snap

Hey Stux,

have you got that particular unit and if so, how does it work for you?

Been meaning to DIY something for a while now but keep putting it off.

 

[NickB]

I reckon I have most of the bits to make one of these. But my font is flooded, so looking at hooking up a brown pump to the spare freezer....

 

[Batz]

I have a flooded font, simple pond pump and a willlow jerry of water on the hump. Yes after a few hours the temperature does rise by around 2C, but hell it's rare I run it for two or more hours. If I do run it for a function here and I have gone off to bed and not realized till the next morning it's still only a couple of C's. OK the freezer ran for a while and cost me $2.00....and we drank $50.00 worth of beer, really who gives a tinkers cuss?
It's worth it hey?

Batz

 

[Dickster86]

What does your budget run to? The thing about kitchen fridges and freezers is that they are not manufactured with beer in mind, unfortunately
Fridges in particular are made tall and thin so you don't do your back looking for the butter, but can only hold a couple of kegs at most unless you start going over $1000.
This is why keezers are a good option. Personally I'd never buy a second hand fridge, although I've inherited some from trusted sources.
New equipment will pay for itself in power bill savings etc over their life.

Walk into an electrical store with $400 and they'll laugh at you but for that sort of money you can pick up a brand new, energy efficient Kegmate style fridge.

My two fridges are amazingly flexible. Using a fridgemate I can do fermenting, lagering etc in one and the other one fits 3 kegs. Of course you would need a font tower but then you're going to have to buy taps anyway.

Being short and "square" they are quite roomy for fitting a couple of jerry cans, or two square cubes on top of each other, or a fermenter and a jerry, etc etc.

Sorry to restart such an old thread. But just wondering why you need the temp controller? i was habving a look at doign the exact same as you, ie. one fridge for kegs and one for fermenting / lagering. And as far as i can tell the fridges can go up to 28 degrees, Do the older models not have that setting?