Inline Beer Chillers

[Andyd]

Hi everyone... first post, here goes (and yep - I've been searching...)

I've been wondering whether to put in the effort to excavate an area under the house as a home for a 320 Lt chest freezer, or should I try to store everything at room temp and then cool the product inline as I dispense it.

The problems that come to mind are:

1) How long can you store a good homebrew at room temp (actually cooler in most circumstances) in a SS keg purged with C02?

2) I've seen flash chillers on the web for around a grand, which seems slightly excessive (maybe I'm understating that ). Has anyone played with building one from old fridge parts?

I know keeping the kegs in a fridge doesn't consume much in the way of energy once it's at temp, but the real concern for me here is space.

Regards,

Andy

 

[Wortgames]

Hi Andyd - abandon hope now ye have entered here...



Flash chilling is possible but less than ideal IMO. It can be hard to get the carbonation right and you have a higher risk of spoilage. It also means using a temprite or similar, which as you've found is a pricey option.

You don't need a big chest freezer (unless you plan to run more than say 6 lines). If you only want to chill a couple of kegs at a time a small chest freezer will do the trick. If you are really lucky you might be able to find a small under-counter fridge with no freezer compartment which will hold 2 kegs nicely. I have a 250L chest freezer which is only 55x92x86cmH, and it will squeeze 5 kegs and a shorty.

I think we have a couple of temprite users here though who may be able to shed more light.

 

[FNQ Bunyip]

Hi andyd, I use a temprite/mirical box type set up with warm 50lt kegs this works for me but is not allways perfect.... As wortgames says balancing carbonation levels can be a problem. I bulk prime at a slightly lower level than bottleing & try to keep the despencing pressure up so as not to loose to much co2 from the beer . if despencing at a low pressure the co2 seems to come out of the beer quiker giving a slightly flat end result.

Cheers fnqbunyip

 

[Fingerlickin_B]

I too have a magic box, but this is only used for BBQs and sessions at other people's houses...would be a total PITA keeping up the ice level, etc if I used it every day

My 2c would be that a fridge/freezer is by far your best/cheapest option. Like mentioned above, a small one won't take up too much space (not knowing how much space you really have).

Your idea of putting it under the house sounds great, provided you can get at it easily.

PZ.