Outdoor Beer Wall

[brettprevans]

you can buy a font/tower that is flooded to keep the beer in the lines/tower cold. alternative you can have it coming through the collar and that way you dont need to keep it cold.

 

[cubbie]

you can buy a font/tower that is flooded to keep the beer in the lines/tower cold. alternative you can have it coming through the collar and that way you dont need to keep it cold.

Cheers I think the tower would look neater, but I image I would then need another freezer for the flooded font and it would have to work pretty hard over the Perth summer.

 

[Sammus]

I had a 3 tap font. Chilling isn't really necessary. Originally I thought pumping cool water through the font made a big difference to initial little spurt of foam you get. When I moved and didnt bother setting up the pump to chill the font I realised it wasn't really very different at all.

Perhaps a different story when it's outside in the heat of summer.

Bear in mind you don't need the chilling pump running 24/7, you can just turn it on half an hour before you plan to pour a beer. Sure it's not always possible if you're a spontaneous drinker - but hey if your beers tend to be at certain points in the day (ie get home from work around the same time each day, dinner etc) then you could even have the pump set to a timer or something... Again not sure how well these ideas would work, just putting it out there. If you had some kind of shade over that corner it would further limit how hot the font got.

I used to keep just under 10L in a bucket circulating through the font in mine. Got it nice a cool for it a while, left on all day it wouldn't be that cool. Can always dump some ice in the bucket periodically if you plan to have it going for an event or something, or get a bigger freezer and have the bit above the hump dedicated to font cooling water, 20 or 30L or more would fit there and would have to be significantly better than what I had.

Another option is a temprite/icebank. you can run a few kegs through one of these, and even use a cooling line to water-chill the font. No icing up happening, but would keep it nice and cool. Icing up is just for looks and requires a dedicated glycol system, which is when you start talking $5k+ to set up just for an icy font. Get a temprite for about a grand of less that essentially an ice bank with heat exchange coils inside, and you could cool beer on the fly and cool your font too. Not sure how well it would work it just came to me then. Something like this - although I've it on good authority that the guy writing up that listing doesn't know diddley squat; and that unit will cool down some beer or water, but wont let you ice up your font.

edit:speln..and got carried away and added another couple para's

 

[Greg Lawrence]

:icon_offtopic: Once the beer wall is sorted out, you can start planning one of these...

 

[cubbie]

not for about 50 years I hope.

 

[floppinab]

Instead I think I will go with an under the counter freezer and a three tap tower. Just a question on the towers, do these have to be chilled? Particularly as it will be outside.

Edit: Spelling

If it's sitting outside in the heat with even say more than half a meter in lines to it you'll want it chilled in some way shape or form as that beer won't go well warming up to summer temps in your lines.

If you get a chillable font then you'll need to sort out the chill setup, either a dedicated cooling system for the chilling fluid (i.e. purpose built glycol chiller or say a seperate bar freezer for your chilling solution and a pump to circulate), best, or you could do as I do run your chilling fluid out of your freezer. You won't get the font right down in terms of temps (particularly if it outdoors in summer) but will be reasonably cool.

If you mount on the lid of your freezer, a few folks have mounted a fan in their freezer to blow cold air up the cavity in the font (via some sort of of pipe fed up the font). That has worked well I understand.
Do a search on those, you'll find plenty of examples on this and other forums.

Edit : yeah, Sammus beat me to it!!! :super:

 

[GMK]

Ok - here are some ideas - Move the shed up against the house wall and pizza oven - make it so that it is an odd shape and follows the house roof. Put the HWS in the shed in the traingle corner.
Add a lean too cover behind the pizza oven connected to the shed for storage of bikes.

This gives a bigger/better shed.
Now you have a min 1.8m square to play in to set up...a bbq, sink and external bar with font etc.
This is also a step closer to the proposed outdoor living area.
I would make this at least level with pizza oven if not come forward more towards the Ent Area.
You will need three walls back clothesline side and pizza oven side.and a gabled roof like a gazeebo.

get some cool room panels and try for 1.2m wide by 1.2m cnr cool room.

I have had ago with Paint - hope you get the idea....and this helps

 

[cubbie]

Ok - here are some ideas - Move the shed up against the house wall and pizza oven - make it so that it is an odd shape and follows the house roof. Put the HWS in the shed in the traingle corner.
Add a lean too cover behind the pizza oven connected to the shed for storage of bikes.

This gives a bigger/better shed.
Now you have a min 1.8m square to play in to set up...a bbq, sink and external bar with font etc.
This is also a step closer to the proposed outdoor living area.
I would make this at least level with pizza oven if not come forward more towards the Ent Area.
You will need three walls back clothesline side and pizza oven side.and a gabled roof like a gazeebo.

get some cool room panels and try for 1.2m wide by 1.2m cnr cool room.

I have had ago with Paint - hope you get the idea....and this helps

Cheers GMK they are some great ideas.

I wrote this (below) before I read your post, but now you have me thinking again.

--------------------------
I am no longer going with a "beer wall" but all this has got me thinking about how I can organise the space in my back yard to serve beer and to manage storage.
With a block the size of mine (215m2) storage space is a premium and this is a key driver in what I finally implement. Key to storage space is a place to store my Ag gear, fermenting fridge, garden tools and bikes. As I am currently doing some renovations which will be finished well with the rear of the house predominately glass, how it all comes together and looks is also very important and finally but not least important is how the beer serves. No point building something that looks great, maximises space but pours a hot beer.
Sorry I should add one more consideration and a very important one - Cost. Compared to the cost of the reno's it is not big numbers, but I am not into throwing money away.

Anyway my thoughts so far is to maintain the design of the back yard similar to how the current design is in the OP. From this design I would remove the BBQ and replace it with a keg setup (converted freezer or pre-built kegerator). I would look at pushing the sink and the keg further back towards the fence (however maintaining the shape). Behind the sink/keg system would be a planter box and fence height wall and behind that I would like to use the space used for storage and for my hot water system. I should have enough room to access it behind the pizza oven. In this storage space I could possible store my bikes/ag gear/fermenting fridge/ gardening tools (but obviously not all), I would need to make it partially covered. I would really like to significantly reduce the size of the shed to give the back yard more space (the house reno's are consuming some back yard). Preferably I would like a low shed at a similar height to the pizza oven.

So in terms of how I manage my brewing and serving I have been thinking about the following questions.

Can you fit a Coopers fermenter in a bar fridge (if not what type of fermenter - I have read Bunnings 23L, but is that all?). The bar fridge could easily fit in the storage area or possibly next to the sink and keg setup (i think there will be roughly 1.6m of bench space at the front).
I think I could carry a full fermenter behind the pizza oven, if not I could use a trolley.
If the fridge goes in the storage area it leaves me with space under the bench top at the front. In fact there is space under the planter box that I could utilise.

I have looked at the pre-built kegerator systems eg ebay

And that would quite comfortably fit in replace of the BBQ. The price for $500 also looks very good (included 2 tap tower font, and reg). What I don't know about these is how they compare to a custom built kegerator from a chest freezer. Particularly in terms of dimensions, efficiency, cost and features. What is the quality of these systems? I had a look at the freezer conversion that CM2 did and it cost a bit more, but obviously has more features (better quality parts???). Over all though if I scaled back CM2's to the size of the Kegerator I think it still comes up more expensive (CM2 that looks great by the way).
If I have a tower font I think I would go with a fan and tube or water pump to cool it. If I go with taps through a collar cooling is obviously is not required.
I noticed in CM2's conversion see here

he has non-return valves, excuse my ignorance but why are they required and can you fit them to an off the shelf kegerator?
Anyway they are my thoughts for now. I need to mark out the backyard to see if things will actually fit in a practical sense, but the weather is filthy in Perth at the minute so maybe on the weekend.
Thanks everyone on their thoughts so far, it has given me a lot to think about.
Oh and yes I want to stick to utilising just this corner of the yard.

 

[raven19]

"Can you fit a Coopers fermenter in a bar fridge (if not what type of fermenter - I have read Bunnings 23L, but is that all?). The bar fridge could easily fit in the storage area or possibly next to the sink and keg setup (i think there will be roughly 1.6m of bench space at the front).
I think I could carry a full fermenter behind the pizza oven, if not I could use a trolley."
Can you use a normal old fridge in the shed, and only turn on when you are fermenting?
It can also double as a soft drink / bottled beer store for parties, etc...?

"If the fridge goes in the storage area it leaves me with space under the bench top at the front. In fact there is space under the planter box that I could utilise."
I like your planter box idea. Keeps things cooler in summer with all the extra mass from the soil/concrete/brick structure, plus plants - nice and green -> very inviting in summer!

"he has non-return valves, excuse my ignorance but why are they required and can you fit them to an off the shelf kegerator?"
Cant access evilbay at work, but I suspect this is purely to ensure you dont fill your reg with beer if playing around with force carbonation. I have one on my system, its a cheap safeguard imo.

"Oh and yes I want to stick to utilising just this corner of the yard."
Fair enough too. Space is a premium always.
I like the idea of going a chest freezer with collar as you can get more kegs into that too than a small evilbay version I suspect.

Not sure I have seen you AG rig, but if it is still in its infancy, you could rig up a moveable trolley system too, that way it can be packed away neatly out of sight in the shed, or een under a tarp behind the pizza oven.

If you need any further info on engineering side of things feel free to PM me.

Liking the way this is coming together.... once its all done you wont want to leave!

 

[brettprevans]

most conversion was fairly cheap. the celli taps were expensive. you dont need to go to that expense.
you only need 1 non-return valve. its stops any beer goin back up the gas line into the gas regulator and breaking the reg. its a good peice of insurance.
also with a 2 taps font you only get 2 beers on tap without haveing to change the lines. my set up had 6. so it increased the costs as i then bought a gas manifold etc. if you were to have a chety conversion with 2 taps it comes out much cheaper than a font.

 

[raven19]

Bump - Any further progress on this one cubbie?

 

[cubbie]

Bump - Any further progress on this one cubbie?

Nope not much, I have been away the last few days and away again as of Friday for 10 days. I did measure out the space at home to picture a few things and I think I am over estimating the space I will have and the ease of getting behind the pizza oven etc.

Managed to get the CAD files from the Architect so will be able to map things out with a bit more precision. Going to see if my sports club Patron can help me out with some gear, they are hoteliers. This may provide the direction I go in.

Had a look at the Andale website and would love to get a Andale Kalgoorlie font, Kalgoorlie being where I was borne.

 

[GMK]

let em know if you wnat me to get a price on it...

 

[cubbie]

Well my reno plans got approved last night at council, so it is back to putting some effort into the design for my backyard/keg setup.

You can see my latest design below. The main issues I have to work through is the location of my hot water system and access to it ( I may look at moving from a storage unit to an instant system - provided I have adequate water pressure etc, something I need to have a chat with the builder about) and the storage of two bikes and my brewing equipment. Need to retain enough space to parallel park a car out the very back.

The option of going behind the pizza oven is out the window, I just don't think there is enough space. The position of the kegerator should limit the direct sunlight it gets. North on the image is almost in the direction of the block, so in summer the house should shade the keg setup. I would like a flooded font that I will just circulate with water or air from the kegerator, I will make a cover for the font.

I would like to use the small bar fridge as my fermenting fridge and also a drinks fridge when it is not full, otherwise I will keep my current fermenting fridge. Using a bar fridge instead of my current fridge will allow me to reduce the size of my shed which would be desirable.

I would like the smallest shed possible that can store my brewing equipment and bikes. I don't have a brew stand so perhaps I could make one that will assist in storage.

Questions. What size chest freezer would contain 3 x kegs, 1 x gas bottle and leave room for a container (bucket, jerry can, etc) to hold water for cooling font.
What size bar fridge can contain a fermentor.

I will try and get some dimensions to work out the height and width of the bench required to contain this. the Pizza oven is around 90cm high so something this high or a bit below would be good.

 

[raven19]

to reduce the size of my shed which would be desirable...

Questions. What size chest freezer would contain 3 x kegs, 1 x gas bottle and leave room for a container (bucket, jerry can, etc) to hold water for cooling font.
What size bar fridge can contain a fermentor.

I will try and get some dimensions to work out the height and width of the bench required to contain this. the Pizza oven is around 90cm high so something this high or a bit below would be good.

A bigger shed is always required!

Chest freezer size - will depend on if you use a collar or not, with no collar, the compressor hump greatly reduces number of kegs that can be fitted in. However in your this reduces the height so can fit easier under the bench, plus this leaves room for your water / recirc solution. Can you house the gas bottle under the sink, leaving room for a nextra conditioning keg in the kegorator?

Cornie size from memory around 200 mm dia x 650mm high - plus allow for fittings. The gas bottle will be of a similar or slightly smaller diameter, although with a reg, it may be higher.

Looks like its coming together nicely!

 

[MarkBastard]

I like your newest design.

If you need a BBQ you can get a smaller one that sits on top of the bench.

 

[Isuxius]

What size bar fridge can contain a fermentor.

I have a Kelvinator 140l Bar fridge that fit a Fermenter comfortably with the door shelves removed.

(Found a pic on the net)


You have to have the airlock at a certain position with the freezer being in the way but if you go with Gladwrap that wouldn't be an issue. Or if you have one without the dinky freezer.