When it's not convenient to mount a tower directly to the keezer or collar mount the taps as many people do, this usually means a long "trunk" line is used to transport the beer from keg to tap.
This presents a new problem however, because these long lengths of tubing must be cooled or you risk a warm first pint of beer. There are a few different ways to accomplish this and we like what stan b has done in his article below.
Spoiler alert...he calls the little guy R2-GlyCool which should make any self respecting patron of the Star Wars Cantina happy.
"Greetings all. I wanted to share my success (and prior failures) with glycol cooling of my tap lines.
First, a little background: My keezer is in the basement, and taps are on the first floor, almost directly above the keezer. The total run of insulated trunk line is about 10 feet. I've got five 5/16" product lines (two currently used) and two glycol 1/2" lines (supply and return). Everything in the trunk line is wrapped together with packaging tape. The insulation is 1/2" thick pipe insulation from McMaster. The tap box is insulated with 1/2" pink foam insulation. To cool the tap box I've simply got a loop of the 1/2" glycol line running around inside the box. I've already got plans to rebuild the tap box (just not happy with version 1), and when I do, I'm going to borrow some design ideas from Micro Matic's Kool-Rite design. (Google their site if you need more info on that)."
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This presents a new problem however, because these long lengths of tubing must be cooled or you risk a warm first pint of beer. There are a few different ways to accomplish this and we like what stan b has done in his article below.
Spoiler alert...he calls the little guy R2-GlyCool which should make any self respecting patron of the Star Wars Cantina happy.
"Greetings all. I wanted to share my success (and prior failures) with glycol cooling of my tap lines.
First, a little background: My keezer is in the basement, and taps are on the first floor, almost directly above the keezer. The total run of insulated trunk line is about 10 feet. I've got five 5/16" product lines (two currently used) and two glycol 1/2" lines (supply and return). Everything in the trunk line is wrapped together with packaging tape. The insulation is 1/2" thick pipe insulation from McMaster. The tap box is insulated with 1/2" pink foam insulation. To cool the tap box I've simply got a loop of the 1/2" glycol line running around inside the box. I've already got plans to rebuild the tap box (just not happy with version 1), and when I do, I'm going to borrow some design ideas from Micro Matic's Kool-Rite design. (Google their site if you need more info on that)."
[Read More]