Kegging Setups

[Wilkensone]

Hoping someone might be able to help me out. I picked up a 2nd hand kegerator and need to remove the top of the font to replace the beerlines. The top of the font is pretty stuck (looks like sitting outside a bit), any advice on how to get it off without breaking it?

Thanks

 

[breakbeer]

WD40 & gentle tapping with a screwdriver

 

[lilstevie]

Oops! Mispost

 

[lilstevie]

Inside the Keg Fridge.
At the moment there are 2 x 18 litre and 1 x 20 litre.
Dual regulator so two gas lines.
One line has a splitter so I can pour from two kegs at once while the third keg is gassing on the other line.
I also have a 45 litre keg. When the 45 litre keg is in the fridge I can only fit one other (either an 18 litre or a 20 litre) keg in as well.
The crown lager stubbies in the door are actually liquid yeast strains that I've cultured up and split into stubbies, ready for starters to be made in the future.

Cheers,
Doc

Like the stickers lol! I'm setting up a beer fridge soon. Did you drill through the side of the fridge for the gas lines?

 

[Liam_snorkel]

I'm not sure if Doc visits here any more (that post was 11 years ago), but I'd guess he did drill through the side for the gas lines. I did with mine. If you are unsure if there are cooling lines in the fridge wall, use a block of wood as a guide and drill just into the outer steel layer, then fish around with a piece of wire to hunt for cooling lines.

 

[lilstevie]

I'm not sure if Doc visits here any more (that post was 11 years ago), but I'd guess he did drill through the side for the gas lines. I did with mine. If you are unsure if there are cooling lines in the fridge wall, use a block of wood as a guide and drill just into the outer steel layer, then fish around with a piece of wire to hunt for cooling lines.

Chers Liam lol! i didnt check the dates it was quite a while ago! The reason i asked was im setting up my first keg fridge soon and was wondering if i drilled the fridge in the side do you lose much cold air? I wanted to put a font on the top too, but read somewhere you have to run cold air through the font to keep it cold?

 

[MastersBrewery]

My taps go through the side of my fridge, but as pointed out EXTREAM care should be taken, it you so much as knick a coolant line you've killed the fridge, and it has happened to many before. The best trick I've seen to avoid this is to use a soldering iron from the inside of the fridge to make the initial hole, so you can search out carefully with a screw driver for coolant lines, if the area is clear then drill from the outside.

Hope this helps

MB

 

[shaunous]

If your chasing Doc, his a frequent tweeter, so maybe head on over to Twitter.

 

[sponge]

I'm sure I have seen this answered somewhere on here (or possibly another forum) but haven't been able to find the post..

I'm in the process of upgrading my bar and looking to remove a small section of the seal on the rear side of a chesty and run the beer lines (insulated with air conditioning insulation) and gas lines through there and out of the wall of an upright piano that I am currently gutting (feck those iron frames inside are heavy and difficult to remove whilst keeping the rest of the piano in tact).. This 6-tap piano bar will be used to serve homebrew at our wedding in October and then bought with us to our next house as our current apartment isn't big enough for a bar of this size. (I've just got a 2 tap fridge setup at the moment). Removing the iron frame is to make this much more easily transportable and will enable me to slide the chesty into the space where the frame was.

So I was hoping to avoid building a collar and whatnot as the chesty I have is tall enough to accommodate the kegs without any mods. Has anyone had any success with this as I just want to make sure that I will not lose too much cold air where the beer lines will be.

I will be posting pics of the build once I have finished removing this stupid iron frame and started sanding/drilling/varnishing the rest of the piano.

 

[mb-squared]

I'd like to see a pic of that! Can't help you out with your seal question, though. I just built a collar for mine and then put the original lid/seals back on.

 

[sponge]

There shall be plenty of pics for the build and will probably start a new thread for it once I've done a bit more as I'm still disassembling, but for now I'm just hoping (and 95% sure) that someone out there has already done something similar, whether it be to go through a wall of their house or to a font.

Come to think of it, I think the post I'm thinking of had the lines going to a font away from the chesty.

Oh I don't know.. but if anyone has any experience nonetheless, I'm all ears.

 

[stakka82]

Someone had an awesome set-up where they had a glycol cooled font built into their kitchen bench, coming up from below the kitchen.

Might have been Don Bourke.

 

[sponge]

I've seen a couple of real nice setups like that, but is a little harder to cool by just having taps coming through the piano. I'll probably have to get rid of the first bit of warm beer that sits in the line but the distance from the rear of the freezer to the position of the taps will be fairly minimal so I'm not too worried about that.

I was thinking of running them through some PVC pipe or something along with the insulation around the lines to minimise these losses and help keep the lines as cool as possible.

 

[phoenixdigital]

I was thinking of running them through some PVC pipe or something along with the insulation around the lines to minimise these losses and help keep the lines as cool as possible.

You might want to look at something like this or build something similar.
http://digitalhomebrew.com/font-snake

I have severe foaming issues with my keezer which has a 3 tap font coming out from the lid.
* Perlick flow control taps
* 1.5m beer lines
* no more than 10 PSI
* note a friend with just picnic taps in his keezer and the exact same beer has no issues.


Beers only pour well during a massive session with lots of people using the taps regularly.

I initially 3D printed a funnel which I could screw a PC fan onto then piped the cool air up into the font from inside the keezer. The fan didnt really have enough grunt as I wanted and was a bit fiddly when I opened the lid.


A PVC pipe with insulation and maybe a fan blowing cold air into a second tube up to your taps. The return air will go back through the main PVC pipe to the keezer. That should cool down lines and taps.

I have ordered a font-snake and hopefully it can sort things out.

 

[sponge]

It sounds like I may end up needing to build a collar to house a decent fan and have two parallel bits of piping (one for the cool air, the other for the beer lines) going into the perpendicular bit of pipe which would house the rear of the taps.

I might see how it goes without it but I was worried that I may get foaming issues due to the warm lines.. Time shall tell I guess.

 

[phoenixdigital]

It sounds like I may end up needing to build a collar to house a decent fan and have two parallel bits of piping (one for the cool air, the other for the beer lines) going into the perpendicular bit of pipe which would house the rear of the taps.

I might see how it goes without it but I was worried that I may get foaming issues due to the warm lines.. Time shall tell I guess.

That would do the trick I reckon and keep things nice and cool at the tap end with cool air returning down the beer line pipe cooling down the beer lines. If you do setup something like this try to have the switch to turn off the fan in an easily accessible spot so you can turn it off when you know you wont be using it.

See how it goes without though you might be lucky.

 

[J.T]

Here's a pic of mine.

520L upside down frost free fridge. Fits six kegs, external gas bottle, plenty of freezer space!

 

[Pogierob]

Just made mine this week.

 

[Thefatdoghead]

Setting up my new Keezer. Thanks Pete!

 

[Liam_snorkel]

That is one very tidy setup.

I'd be interested to see these sexy looking rototaps in action, has anyone found a vid of them in use (or could take one)?