Ideas For Bar Setup/flooded Font Advice/pics

[RetsamHsam]

G'day

Currently my bar is housed in the garage where I have a fridge setup with taps protrudingfrom the door. The woman has advised that if I am to move the bar inside than I will have to ditch the "UGLY" fridge. So I told her that I can only ditch the "UGLY" fridge if I move to a chest freezer/flooded font setup on the bar. Much to my amazement she uttered the words "well fathers day is coming up"

So I have a font lined up (3 tap andale flooded with florytes) and have been looking at past threads about others that have been in the same boat.

I would like the font to ice up so I am looking at bar freezers to house the glycol/metho & water/salt water solution, will this do the trick?

Chest freezers for the kegs.

I will probably have about 3-4 metres of beer line all up, so I will be insulating the line.

I have also looked at drip trays (especially worried about the condensation dripping onto the bar and ruining the finish) but they seem to be expensive,so I am thinking of getting a standard drip tray and then mounting the font over a piece of clear acrylic/perspex, what do you think?

What did everyone else do?

Has anyone got any pics they would be willing to share to help me out?

 

[RetsamHsam]

bump

 

[raven19]

Iced up fonts are only for show... but you knew that already.

I would have a good look thru the kegging setups thread... lots of pages though.... Here

Not sure I am clear on the drip tray situation, you can have a normal drip tray (some ok prices on evilbay - keep an eye out...) and if need be you can add a drain hole then drain that to a bottle hidden away out of sight.

Are you worried re condensation from the iced font? there is an easy solution... ditch the iced font!

Two separate freezers seems overkill personally. Do you have any plans for layout inside, etc?

Sounds like a great little project though.

 

[RetsamHsam]

y eah i'm looking at a normal drip tray to collect the beer overflow, and the perspex sheet to collect the condensation from the font. The second freezer is probably overkill but with about 4m of line outside the kegerator i thought it might help reduce foaming at the taps... And i know the iced font is just for show

 

[Guest Lurker]

4 m of warm line is going to allow a big pocket of CO2 to build up in the line. Chilling the font isnt going to change that, and the first pour is going to be pretty frothy I think. For that much line, you need to cool not just the font, but the beer line as well using cooling tubes wrapped around it. This cooling will need to run all the time, not just when you want to pour a beer. The closer you get the taps to the freezer, the easier your life will be.

 

[clean brewer]

Hey mate,

As for the drip tray, I bought one of these Drip Trays and Im very happy with it, solid SS and Free Postage, mine was actually able to be attached to my fridge, it was sent Express aswell and is long enough for 4 taps(mounted through fridge)....

Have a look at some others on Ebay

:icon_cheers: CB

 

[schooey]

If you're gonna go flooded font, and you want it to condensate or ice it up, get yourself a drip tray like that. took me a while to find it, but I got it for a song. You're in Colyton, duck over to Rivo, around Wellington Street there... There's a few really good sheeties there that I've had do jobs for me for cash and beer in the past. worth a try anyway, and best on Saturday mornings when the boss isn't about.

Personally, I think having the ice up thing is a bit OTT and more effort than it's worth, but if it's what you really want, then who is anyone else to argue.. But just remember it's ver fickle to set up without the proper gear, and will use a fair slug of power. The other thing is, those iced up fonts you see in the pub are used for serving ice cold megaswill lagers, and consider if thats how cold you want your beer served at home

My system just has an old 19L corny sitting in with the kegs full of Glycol and a pond pump in it. It keeps everything at a nice temp to the tap, but not too cold. It does shed a fair bit of condensate on occasion

Only other thing I have to add is if you still go ahead with all that, and you have to go 4m or so with lines, have a hunt around for some second hand beer python, it's good stuff

 

[Brewman_]

Along the same lines of Schooey, I got a SS tray made up so that one of the STD perforated trays from mash master fit nicley into it as well. The outer tray catches condensate from the font and the inner tray catches beer over flow. It works great. The only issue with mine is the SS is 1.6mm thick so it was a little hard bending the edges in nice and tight - I mean with 2T weight on it, so a little thinner may be better and safer.

I also have seen some very nice drip trays on e-bay that were perfect for certain sizes of fonts, just look out for one that fits your set up.

Fear_n_Loath

 

[davelovesbeer]

Watching with interest as I have just bought a font that looks the same as schooey's, and am working on upgrading from garage beer fridge to inside bar. Got the font and 4 taps for a song $20, but anyway, just wondering, do you have to use glycol for the flooding? I thought Id read somewhere about people just using water and a submersible pump. Would this keep it all cold enough. And how much water/glycol is required.

Also just wondering freezer sizes to fit the four kegs in (plus font chilling gear), or maybe some pics...

 

[yardy]

G'day


Has anyone got any pics they would be willing to share to help me out?

Y'adg RetshamHsam,

there's a few pics here, THE BAR

Yard

 

[Brewman_]

Watching with interest as I have just bought a font that looks the same as schooey's, and am working on upgrading from garage beer fridge to inside bar. Got the font and 4 taps for a song $20, but anyway, just wondering, do you have to use glycol for the flooding? I thought Id read somewhere about people just using water and a submersible pump. Would this keep it all cold enough. And how much water/glycol is required.

Also just wondering freezer sizes to fit the four kegs in (plus font chilling gear), or maybe some pics...

My Freezer is a 216L. It can just fot 3 corny kegs, a 4.5Kg gas bottle and a 10l cooling reservoir. I use water as the coolant. Reason is my beer is stored at 3 Deg.C, so is no chance of freezing. The good thing about Glycol is you can go below 0 Deg.C and not freeze it. The question then comes doen to where you store your cooling reservoir. If it is in teh freezer with the beer, you will not be going to below zero temps anyway. Just depends if you really want ot freeze up your font, I personally don't worry about that.

One tip on the freezer size. If money, and space permits, go for a freezer that you can store an extra Keg, so you have one ready, and it is also useful to have space to crash chill your fermenter. Lots of brewers use a separate fridge for this, but hey if you have space in your freezer that would be good. Also if you have a smallish freezer like my one, be carefull around where the font lines come into the freezer that they are not going to hit the top of a keg, as sometimes there is not much room. You need to think about where everything will sit inside the freezer before you start cutting.

Fear_n_Loath.

 

[Sammus]

Another thing is that you can't beat water for cooling efficiency. I can't remember the numbers (theyve been posted here a bunch), but a glycol solution has only a fraction of the specific heat capacity to water, so it will warm up much quicker. You only need it if you want it to ice up, if you decide condensation is good enough, then water does a much better job of it

 

[tomtoro]

Hi mate,

I recently built a big piss off bar with a 10 tap flooded font on it and i can tell you that trying to get proper ice on your font without the proper equipment is not quite as easy as it sounds. The trouble is, if your glycol is much below -4 degrees it will actually freeze the beer in your lines - and i'm not talking about lines that have sat still for an hour, i'm talking about lines that have sat still for 45 seconds in some cases. The second problem is that if your glycol is much above -4 degrees you won't get any ice on your font.

In my case I have a 20L reservoir of glycol solution which sits in a dedicated freezer with a pretty powerful aquarium pump plumbed into the font. Upon arriving home of an afternoon I can turn on the pump and the glycol, which has been sitting in the freezer at -18 all day, circulates around and puts ice on the bar literally within 1 minute. Trouble is the beer lines freeze within one minute as well. Fortunately, if I leave it on for another 30 mins the font will have built up a nice layer of ice all over, and the glycol will have gained enough heat from circulating through the font that the reservoir temperature is above -4 degrees and my beer will once again flow. During this period my system functions perfectly. There's plenty of ice on the font, and the beer pours at a lovely temperature. I don't find that having the font flooded below 0 causes the beer to serve too cold because I only keep my beer fridges at 6 degrees anyway, so whilst it might lose a couple of degrees as it passes through the -4 degree glycol, it's still very satisfactory.

Unfortunately my system will only ever stay in this utopian balance of perfection for <30 mins. After that time the glycol solution reaches an equilibrium above 0 and the ice very quickly starts to melt off the font. Admittedly it will produce nice condensation for a long while thereafter, but my dream of building up a semi-permanent layer of ice (for no purpose other than my own gleeful observation), seems a little out of reach.

I reckon if you had a glycol reservoir big enough, and with surface area large enough that it could cool in the freezer as fast as it warms in the font then you'd be laughing, but even then you'd still need the system to reach equilibrium somewhere in that range between -1 and -4, which would obviously be extremely difficult if the ambient temperature around the font fluctuated (e.g. summer/winter or day/night).

So whilst I'm not trying to crush your dream, bearing in mind that i'm still plugging away at achieving the same dream, please be advised that a large bucket of glycol solution in a freezer with a pump will probably not be sufficient equipment. If you (or anyone else) find by some chance that this does work, please let me know so as i might discovery what i'm doing wrong.

Tom

 

[GMK]

tomtoro

get a length of 12mm anealed copper - make a coil - put that in the freezer in line with the return from the Font - now you will prechill alot of the heat out of the Glycol before it hits the reservior.

This at the least should extend your perfection time...

Post results back if you give it a go.

 

[absinthe]

you must be one of the only people i have heard of that likes paying the power bill.

i have worked in quite a few bars with glycol fonts and if the air temp gets over about 30C no ice..

if the glycol varies from -2.7 ether no ice or frozen beer (normaly the light though, full strengh would prolly go down to about -4 before freezeing)

The amount of energy to keep ice on the font would be quite alot for a standard freezer to cope with for a long time in the warmer months. (remeber a freezer is very well insulated and only opened for short amounts of time) if this is inside it will heat up the room its in LOTS, i have noticed a temp difference cause of my freezer bar and i have an insulated flooded font.

even with the insulation condensation is a pain in the bum sometimes..

an idea i toyed with (as i did consider an iced up font till i got the power bill with a normal flooded font. i decided insulation would look better ) was to make an insulated box that you sat over the font when she wasnt being used. i even thought of adding a thermostat that i only plugged in (used to turn the pump on and off) when the box was on to keep the air in the box at like 5C. and when the box was off the pump ran all the time

im not saying dont do it im just saying have a think about it before you jump into something you may not end up using

 

[Brewman_]

I have not tried to freeze my font, but judging from the last few posts I'll give it a miss. I only ever flood my font when I am using it, otherwise it is turned off.

Again when it is hot the cooling water does warm up quickly and it losiing that nice chill on the brass font. My plan - have not done this yet, is to change my reservoir to a SS one rather than plastic as it currently is and on hot days, remore some of the water from the reservoir and throw in a heap of ice. That should do 3 things to help it's performace. The SS will trasfer heat faster than the plastic, the ice will bring the cooling water down near 0 Deg.C while the rest of the freezer contentsd are at 3 Deg.C and the latent heat of melting the ice will hold the water at 0 Deg.C for some time.

Fear_n_Loath

 

[jasonharley]

Hi mate,

I recently built a big piss off bar with a 10 tap flooded font on it and i can tell you that trying to get proper ice on your font without the proper equipment is not quite as easy as it sounds. The trouble is, if your glycol is much below -4 degrees it will actually freeze the beer in your lines - and i'm not talking about lines that have sat still for an hour, i'm talking about lines that have sat still for 45 seconds in some cases. The second problem is that if your glycol is much above -4 degrees you won't get any ice on your font.

In my case I have a 20L reservoir of glycol solution which sits in a dedicated freezer with a pretty powerful aquarium pump plumbed into the font. Upon arriving home of an afternoon I can turn on the pump and the glycol, which has been sitting in the freezer at -18 all day, circulates around and puts ice on the bar literally within 1 minute. Trouble is the beer lines freeze within one minute as well. Fortunately, if I leave it on for another 30 mins the font will have built up a nice layer of ice all over, and the glycol will have gained enough heat from circulating through the font that the reservoir temperature is above -4 degrees and my beer will once again flow. During this period my system functions perfectly. There's plenty of ice on the font, and the beer pours at a lovely temperature. I don't find that having the font flooded below 0 causes the beer to serve too cold because I only keep my beer fridges at 6 degrees anyway, so whilst it might lose a couple of degrees as it passes through the -4 degree glycol, it's still very satisfactory.

Unfortunately my system will only ever stay in this utopian balance of perfection for <30 mins. After that time the glycol solution reaches an equilibrium above 0 and the ice very quickly starts to melt off the font. Admittedly it will produce nice condensation for a long while thereafter, but my dream of building up a semi-permanent layer of ice (for no purpose other than my own gleeful observation), seems a little out of reach.

I reckon if you had a glycol reservoir big enough, and with surface area large enough that it could cool in the freezer as fast as it warms in the font then you'd be laughing, but even then you'd still need the system to reach equilibrium somewhere in that range between -1 and -4, which would obviously be extremely difficult if the ambient temperature around the font fluctuated (e.g. summer/winter or day/night).

So whilst I'm not trying to crush your dream, bearing in mind that i'm still plugging away at achieving the same dream, please be advised that a large bucket of glycol solution in a freezer with a pump will probably not be sufficient equipment. If you (or anyone else) find by some chance that this does work, please let me know so as i might discovery what i'm doing wrong.

Tom

Greetings All

I know this has been along time between posts .. however I was going to 'flood' my font using copper coil, gycol and an aquarium pump. The question is do the pump still work below zero degrees .... the manunfacturers of the hagen pumps say that they cannot work in freezing conditions. I am not chasing a 'frozen font look' but find the optimum cooling to reduce beer wastage and reduce risk of infection in the lines in the font

Thoughts?????

Cheers Jason

 

[Tony]

I invested extra cash when i built my kegorator on a 3 tap flooded font. I put a 20 liter resivoir in the freezer besides the kegs and a mag drive pump.

It works great, no ice but that wasnt the idea. I just wanted to keep the font cool and it worked great.

But..........................

the compressor runs non stop trying to keep that 20kg heat sink on top of the freezer cold! The sides of the freezer get red hot and id hate to see my power bill if i ran it all the time.

So i switched it all off and have never used the flooded feature.

I have no problems with it either.


First pour of the day i just dump 50 ml of beer in an old mug beside the freezer and off it goes..... no problems!

My advice would be... dont bother flooding it.

cheers

 

[STEVENALI]

Heres a picky of my font,yes it aint nescesary but we love it ,it.s an old washtank with glycol in driven by a 16 dollar pond pump, up pipes in the fridge to pick up the beer lines out the other side and into the font wrapped up in anything to keep it cold I have had it for 6 years and its still runs fine,freezes the beer now n then but it just takes a line rinse to run again,the secret to get the glycol to freezing temp like that is easy just tell me how to get my temp controls an ect 30
and a keg king and the secret is yours,oh sod it all you need to do is make a sound connection between your tank wall and the freezer wall or floor if you cant make a sound fit then pour water in and freeze the tank to the freezer so the glycol is in full contact,its as simple as that hope this helps any one want to get one of my temp controls going, I weld stainless ali and copper to ss