shroomzofdoom
Well-Known Member
I am seeing a lot more coffin keezer designs on here recently. Thanks to innovative designs from many great HBT contributors more people are opting for the coffin box design versus the more common ‘through-collar’ design. A coffin keezer means more materials and more work time. For some this a small price to pay for a cleaner looking design.
This thread is not about kegerators, this thread is not about towers; this thread is about coffin style keezers.
I do welcome debate in this thread and hope it will serve to educate others. If you have any good ideas about how you solved the problem, please share. But let’s keep it specific to COFFIN COOLING as I feel that quite often, COFFIN COOLING comes up as a topic and people post solutions to TOWER COOLING. To paraphrase Don Rumsfeld; these solutions are ‘notably unhelpful’ to the coffin keezer crowd. I’ve taken all these detours and I want to prevent others from making the same costly mistakes.
The 10 degree differential hypothesis
I have conducted a number of tests with numerous different methods, probes, temperatures, and carbonation levels and found that first pour beer line foaming issues seemed to be resolved when there is no greater than a 10 degree differential between the coffin and the beer temp and also provided that you are already dealing with a balanced system. Though some CO2 will come out of solution with even a 10 degree differential, the impact is much less than if the differential is 20 degrees. If your beer is holding at 38; your beer line should be around 48 degrees; lower temps are even better. This is clearly subject to debate and I welcome input on this.
Following instructions online, I salvaged some PC fans and tried a few things. I even built one of those DIY tupperware container/PC fans setups. When that failed I tried the copper solution. While great ideas for tower cooling---again, these fell short when it came to cooling my coffin. I wish I had never tried them.
The only way I could keep from having foaming issues on the first pour was to back the pressure down to below 7-8. I am now able to run 11-12, fill a glass in a few seconds and the first and second pour are always the same.
My biggest mistake was basing my whole system around a very inefficient recycled PC fan, and a series of design errors based on that one single, underpowered component. When I asked someone for advice I was told ‘you don’t need much power in the fan that only a bit of air movement is needed’. When was ‘more power’ ever not needed in this hobby?!?! More on this later…
The first thing you should consider is the cost/complexity. Do I really want/need a coffin? Am I a good carpenter? Do I have the right tools? Am I able to do some minor wiring?
I am not an expert, but I did learn a lot at my own expense. I just hope this will benefit others going forward and that this will demystify coffin designs a bit.
So, let's get started...
This thread is not about kegerators, this thread is not about towers; this thread is about coffin style keezers.
I do welcome debate in this thread and hope it will serve to educate others. If you have any good ideas about how you solved the problem, please share. But let’s keep it specific to COFFIN COOLING as I feel that quite often, COFFIN COOLING comes up as a topic and people post solutions to TOWER COOLING. To paraphrase Don Rumsfeld; these solutions are ‘notably unhelpful’ to the coffin keezer crowd. I’ve taken all these detours and I want to prevent others from making the same costly mistakes.
The 10 degree differential hypothesis
I have conducted a number of tests with numerous different methods, probes, temperatures, and carbonation levels and found that first pour beer line foaming issues seemed to be resolved when there is no greater than a 10 degree differential between the coffin and the beer temp and also provided that you are already dealing with a balanced system. Though some CO2 will come out of solution with even a 10 degree differential, the impact is much less than if the differential is 20 degrees. If your beer is holding at 38; your beer line should be around 48 degrees; lower temps are even better. This is clearly subject to debate and I welcome input on this.
Following instructions online, I salvaged some PC fans and tried a few things. I even built one of those DIY tupperware container/PC fans setups. When that failed I tried the copper solution. While great ideas for tower cooling---again, these fell short when it came to cooling my coffin. I wish I had never tried them.
The only way I could keep from having foaming issues on the first pour was to back the pressure down to below 7-8. I am now able to run 11-12, fill a glass in a few seconds and the first and second pour are always the same.
My biggest mistake was basing my whole system around a very inefficient recycled PC fan, and a series of design errors based on that one single, underpowered component. When I asked someone for advice I was told ‘you don’t need much power in the fan that only a bit of air movement is needed’. When was ‘more power’ ever not needed in this hobby?!?! More on this later…
The first thing you should consider is the cost/complexity. Do I really want/need a coffin? Am I a good carpenter? Do I have the right tools? Am I able to do some minor wiring?
I am not an expert, but I did learn a lot at my own expense. I just hope this will benefit others going forward and that this will demystify coffin designs a bit.
So, let's get started...