For an upcoming event I need to bring a 5 gallon keg of homebrew. Since I do not own a jockey box I decided to see about building something. I've seen coolers with kegs inserted through the lid and that seemed like a decent device, except the top of the keg, and the serving line were above the ice water level, meaning that any lull in serving would create a warm spot and probably foam.
my solution would be to turn the keg upside down so the serving line and fittings were submerged in the ice water. The only part not cold would be the bottom of the keg, far away from the serving portion of the beer.
I happened to stop at a Lowes for some stuff and picked up a 10 Gallon Drink Cooler for about $50. More than I wanted to pay, but I think I can make this into a multitasker device, so that would make the thing well worth the money.
I first removed the posts from the keg and swapped the Long and Short dip tubes. The short tube should be at the bottom when the keg is flipped upside down, and the long tube would then be above the top of the beer.
Then I reassembled and filled the keg with water.
I removed the spigot on the cooler and matched the hole to the shank on my kegerator. ALMOST fits! I didn't force it, but I did grab a dremel and using a coarse sanding attachment, I carefully took just a tiny bit of plastic off to enlarge the hole. The shank fit easily.
I rigged the shank to sit as close to the inside wall of the cooler as possible and used the shank nut to tighten it down. When in actual use, there should be a rubber washer between the tailpiece nut and the cooler wall to keep ice water from dripping out.
I wrapped the keg in serving line and attached the gas gun. I flipped the keg upside down and placed it so that a piece of 2x4 on the bottom of the cooler held the keg up by the keg handles. This is to keep the QDs from bearing the weight of the keg and breaking.
The test was positive, as the water served just fine from the faucet. It came out a bit fast, but for the test I didn't have an actual regulator connected. I might even use a bit longer serving line for the event to help prevent foaming.
The test proved positive, so I'll be hopefully using actual beer for a test with ice water and extended periods between pours this weekend. I haven't actually modified the cooler, so if anything doesn't work I can always take the cooler back to the store!
The second nice thing about this, besides not having to purchase a Cold Plate AND a Cooler to put it in, is that I can also use this cooler as a mash tun if I wanted, or as a drink cooler (by using a custom fitting piece of foam for a lid when serving beer, I can keep the original lid for the other uses.)
Once I get set up for the beer test run I'll take pictures and report on how it goes. I'm sure someone has already tried this. I've seen upside down kegs at the NHC last year, which gave me promise that this could actually work. I haven't had a need to try it until now.
my solution would be to turn the keg upside down so the serving line and fittings were submerged in the ice water. The only part not cold would be the bottom of the keg, far away from the serving portion of the beer.
I happened to stop at a Lowes for some stuff and picked up a 10 Gallon Drink Cooler for about $50. More than I wanted to pay, but I think I can make this into a multitasker device, so that would make the thing well worth the money.
I first removed the posts from the keg and swapped the Long and Short dip tubes. The short tube should be at the bottom when the keg is flipped upside down, and the long tube would then be above the top of the beer.
Then I reassembled and filled the keg with water.
I removed the spigot on the cooler and matched the hole to the shank on my kegerator. ALMOST fits! I didn't force it, but I did grab a dremel and using a coarse sanding attachment, I carefully took just a tiny bit of plastic off to enlarge the hole. The shank fit easily.
I rigged the shank to sit as close to the inside wall of the cooler as possible and used the shank nut to tighten it down. When in actual use, there should be a rubber washer between the tailpiece nut and the cooler wall to keep ice water from dripping out.
I wrapped the keg in serving line and attached the gas gun. I flipped the keg upside down and placed it so that a piece of 2x4 on the bottom of the cooler held the keg up by the keg handles. This is to keep the QDs from bearing the weight of the keg and breaking.
The test was positive, as the water served just fine from the faucet. It came out a bit fast, but for the test I didn't have an actual regulator connected. I might even use a bit longer serving line for the event to help prevent foaming.
The test proved positive, so I'll be hopefully using actual beer for a test with ice water and extended periods between pours this weekend. I haven't actually modified the cooler, so if anything doesn't work I can always take the cooler back to the store!
The second nice thing about this, besides not having to purchase a Cold Plate AND a Cooler to put it in, is that I can also use this cooler as a mash tun if I wanted, or as a drink cooler (by using a custom fitting piece of foam for a lid when serving beer, I can keep the original lid for the other uses.)
Once I get set up for the beer test run I'll take pictures and report on how it goes. I'm sure someone has already tried this. I've seen upside down kegs at the NHC last year, which gave me promise that this could actually work. I haven't had a need to try it until now.