Cold plate mounted in fridge?!?

Had the crazy idea today of mounting a coldplate exchanger in the back of my fridge and running a couple of tap lines from outside in and putting a perlick or two on the side of the fridge. Has anybody tried this and what were your results? Seems like it would save on running another fridge as a keggorator... Let me know. Thanks.

Brilliant! I have a 7 pass plate kicking around. And some spare taps. This would get some odd questions from fellow homebrewers for sure. How do you have 11 taps on your fridge?

I'm going to flush this idea out some more... BUT the wife does leave for a conference next week so maybe I'll surprise her with a little modification...

Sounds like a great idea. I just wonder if heat exchange is significantly different for cold air vs. water.

John

Even if the plate needs to be in water to maintain temp, it shouldn't take up more than a corny keg worth of space. I can see this working to run warm ale kegged beer through a lager temp fridge, and getting proper temp ale.

I think you would need to do multiple passes to get it down to serving temperature. I put a cold plate in a cooler with 20Lb of ice. A single pass dropped it from ~70F to ~40-45F.

I've been using a similar setup for over a year, works great. I have a 7 pass chiller with 3 taps. I do run the first two lines through the chiller twice, to be honest I can't tell the difference in temp to the third line that only passes once.

So the keg stays at room temp? You must need a crazy high CO2 pressure to maintain carbonation level, no?

No, about 10 pounds, room temp this time of year is about 65 I'd guess. Basement room in St Paul Mn, so it's never all that warm. I'm not all that picky about carb levels.

Jem said:

No, about 10 pounds, room temp this time of year is about 65 I'd guess. Basement room in St Paul Mn, so it's never all that warm. I'm not all that picky about carb levels.

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Are you carbing the beer cold, then removing it from the fridge to serve?

Yes force carbing cold, so the pressure theoretically is just to push it.

I knew there where other geniuses that had gone this road... Looks great Jem. I just tapped my first keg Wednesday... Lots of foam but fairly flat. Still tasted nice but I think I need to tweek my process. Initially hit it with 30lbs, 3 times. Left in basement at ~60*F for three weeks and put 12lbs to it when dispensing. I only have a 2ft sampling spigot and the keg is sitting in a bucket of ice. Any idea what went astray?

You probably need to add a longer line. I did 6'.

Thanks. I thought of this yesterday while trying to figure out a tap thru the wall setup. I want to put a cold plate into a mini fridge and serve from kegs at basement temps. I knew someone had to have tried this before. I was thinking of putting the cold plate into a bath of some type. It looks like yours is just setting in the fridge. Have you had issues with warm beer when serving a lot of beer atone time? say, for a party?