I am intrigued by the thought of a jockey box. Problem is, I don't really take my beer to parties or gatherings. At least not yet. Most of the people I know don't really drink much. As a result, I find it difficult to justify the building of a jockey box for my own use. Generally I could more easily fill a couple of growlers, or a couple of 6ers to take with me.
Problem is, I don't really take my beer to parties or gatherings.
Then you don't need one. I assume you already have a kegerator since you said you could just fill a few bottles or growlers. A jockey box is basically a portable kegerator that doesn't need electricity to cool
Jockey Box / Wort cooler combo. QD fittings top and bottom of the coil inside a 5 gal gott so you can put on either a faucet or hose and now you have a dual purpose gadget. You need one because you don't have one yet.
-OCD
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Due to recent economic crisis, stock market crash, budget cuts, and the rising cost of everything including taxes: "The Light at the End of The Tunnel" has been turned off.
Jockey boxes have a small ID so it would be slow for wort chilling, in fact it takes a lot of co2 to push beer through at any reasonable rate.
WRT the CO2 it's normally only a few times a year that your using it (usually parties, or other large gatherings). I don't think it's really a big deal for the convenience. As a gravity flow wort cooler, how slow is slow? I calculated a third of a gallon per minute flow for a 20 foot long quarter inch pipe. I think that's pretty reasonable to wait 15-20 minutes for pitching temps.
Also when you get a 2 in 1 tool / gadget you can't always expect optimum performance.
-OCD
__________________
Due to recent economic crisis, stock market crash, budget cuts, and the rising cost of everything including taxes: "The Light at the End of The Tunnel" has been turned off.