Jockey box. Why would I want one?

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Homercidal

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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.

Why would I want to build one?
 
I dunno; I don't need one.

By the time you have the stuff setup to run thru a jockey box, all you really need is to put the keg into ice making the jockey box needless.
 
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
 
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.
 
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
 
I wouldn't want one for the same reasons you bring up. But my friend had a grad party this past weekend and come by my house yesterday to check out my brew day. He had just picked up the jockey box from the party location, and pulled a few pints off for me from the back of his truck. I must say...pretty cool to have kegged beer in the back of the truck. I would most definitely build one if I did any one of these on a regular basis:

1. Camping trips
2. Tailgating
3. Big BBQ/Parties
4. Boating trips

Basically, if you find yourself with no electricity and lots of thirsty friends...you need a jockey box!
 
I guess there will never be a Homercidal Beer Festival.

:( probably not. At least until I make friends with enough people who can appreciate real beer.

I guess my dilemma is that I could more easily just put a keg on ice and serve with picnic tap. They just seem so cool.
 
+1 picnic tap and ice. you can turn the prssure down for dispensing, or use 5' 3/16 line, or use an epoxy stirrer in the dip tube for a shorter beer line, there are two threads about this. Jockey Box = PITA for me. I took mine apart to make an immersion chiller.
BTW different tubing has different resistance per ft. I can say it took like 30+ PSI to push beer through mine at a reasonable serving rate.
 
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