Draft Tower or Collar?

I have a Frigidaire 7.2 that I just built a collar for and will be mounting that to the hinges that were on the lid and securing the top to the collar.

I'm currently debating building a DIY tower versus just putting the faucet in the collar like so many have done. What are people's feelings on the two? My biggest thing against the collar is that I don't like how low it seems to be. You practically have to bend over to pour a beer.

I found a thread a while back where a guy said all the negatives of it. Like moving it away from the wall everytime you want to open it (would have to do that anyway with the way I want the collar setup). Hard to clean the lines. Not sure I agree because seems like I could just have a keg full of some sort of oxy clean and run it through the lines to clean them.

For the tower I was going to encase the beer lines in soft copper up the tower with insulation.

I'm currently debating the same issue - and believe I'm going to do both. I am thinking building a collar to give more room in the freezer and to run the lines out without cutting holes in the metal freezer. Then I want to build a coffin on top with 4 taps. I'm trying to figure out how to keep the lines (or coffin) cold and circulating cold air with 120mm computer fans.

Mine is setup with a tower on top and I have no issues cleaning lines. What is a problem is the lines in the tower get warm when they sit so you can have some foaming issues. One way around this, which I hope to do soon, is repurpose and old computer fan to constantly blow cold air up in to the tower.

That said, whenever I build my next one I think I'm going to skip the tower and just put the taps in the collar. I think towers look all spiffy, but I think the taps in the collar is more practical.

I perfer thru the collar, but it's all personal perferance

Personal for sure. I love towers.

I prefer collar because:

-lighter lid to lift when opening and closing for keg removal
-if you ever want to just use the freezer as a freezer the lid will have no holes in it
-cheaper than buying towers

but its all personal preferance.

doublesimcoe said:

I prefer collar because:

-lighter lid to lift when opening and closing for keg removal
-if you ever want to just use the freezer as a freezer the lid will have no holes in it
-cheaper than buying towers

but its all personal preferance.

Click to expand...

Collars are not necessarily cheaper than towers...If you're building a collar then you have to buy the wood, method of binding it, stain or paint, insulation, and any other odds and ends to put it together.

All the parts you buy: Faucets, shanks, beer lines, disconnects, are all used regardless of setup. So when you look at the price you are really just paying about $30 for the tower shell and mounting hardware. Depending on what you have laying around, $30 is about what you will pay for the collar if you have to buy everything to make it.

A buddy of mine built a collar while I got a two faucet tower and built another two faucet tower. We both have 4 taps and the cost was actually about $10 cheaper for me.

I have seen many collar designed freezers that I thought looked cool as hell. But simply put, I prefer the tower because I don't like pouring at crotch level. Plus towers are not as likely to be bumped and accidentally opened.I do have to pull the freezer away from the wall to open it, but that's not really a headache or difficult.

I think towers look way cooler and are easier to pour given the height, but I think collars are more practical if using a chest freezer. With the collar design, you don't have to drill through your lid, and you don't need to find a way to cool the lines at the tower. With your 7ft chest freezer, I honestly think it would be much more cheaper to expand to more taps in the future using a collar.

I'll be honest, originally I bought a tower to install in the my chest freezer , but after more research, I decided to chuck that idea and stick to the collar. It's simply more practica, unless you're using a mini dorm fridge.