Project or no?

Hi all,

I picked these up link and can't decide if I should tear them apart or no. They have an 8 circuit cold plate in em. If I take it the cold plate out I can find or build a cooler box around it. Should be about 22L x 18W max I think.

I've got the legs off and am at the point where anyting else I do will destroy them for further use. Link

So the question is... Are the cold plate connections too small to use for beer? Is the cold plate the same or different enough to not be worth it?

What do you guys think?

Here are some other pics just in case
Inside
Closeup of the connections

Great find. This will save you $100+ on a jocky box build.

Do it......Brew it.....

I did find out that cold plates for soda take a std 1/4 in adapter for the lines. 3/8 and 5/16 available. I plan on running a single keg through twice to make sure it gets cold enough.

Great find. As a brewer those cold plates are gold. I use them myself as a double pass to bring my beverages from in the 80's down to the 40's F. I do not use the SS cold chests just a small cooler filled with glycol and a system stripped from a water cooler. If you got these cheap take the plates and sell the cold chests.

You need to drink your beer fast though because it takes more pressure to force a double pass and will overcarb your beer with time.

Danaldor said:

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You need to drink your beer fast though because it takes more pressure to force a double pass and will overcarb your beer with time.

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+1 Cold plates are great for portable dispensing for a party but as Danaldor says the extra pressure necessary to push through that length of line makes it inappropriate for just keeping stuff on tap at home all the time.

If it were me I would go ahead and tear apart one and make a jockey box using a cooler. Personally I'd ice down the kegs also.

How are the cold plates attached to the stainless tubs?

One wonders if you could make a mash tun out of one and pump hot water through all the channels of the cold(hot) plate to maintain or raise the mash temp. Would require stirring the mash to get the heat uniform though, might not be worth it.

camiller said:

How are the cold plates attached to the stainless tubs?

One wonders if you could make a mash tun out of one and pump hot water through all the channels of the cold(hot) plate to maintain or raise the mash temp. Would require stirring the mash to get the heat uniform though, might not be worth it.

Click to expand...

On the bottom there is that white plate you see in the pics, then about a 1 inch peice of particle/plywood then apparently the plate. From the top, you can see the plate, and they are epoxied onto the shell.

Once I get the palte out, the shells will have a 12x18 rectangle missing where the center drain would go. Not sure if those will be useful, but I may try to replace that and make sinks out of em eventually.

Ok, I finished the first leg of the project. Getting the cold plate out. I setup a photo blog so you can all see how I did it, and the end result.

Blackrock Brew Blog

Nice job.