Draft Towers/Home Bars Opinons

Hello friends;

I am about to buy draft beer towers for my homebar. I bought a 7.0 CF freezer from Sams that will hold 4 cornies and a 5lb tank. It has been very nice to play with and I will build a collar for it this weekend.

I am going to build a "bar" around it. I am going to position this bar against a wall and then have a separate "bar" in front where you would sit and serve. The back bar will have the towers and drip trays on it so I will dispense from the back.

Right now I am imagining the "bar" to essentially be a wooden box that surrounds the chest freezer (much bigger than the freezer, of course) and for it it be about 5 feet long, 3 feet wide, and probably around 3.5 feet tall (whatever the dimensions of the freezer expanded). The back will be open and the front will have swinging doors so that I can pull the freezer in and out of the bar (I will put it on casters) for changing out the kegs and whatnot.

I have a few questions as I start to imagine this in my head:
1. Anyone built something like this and do you have pics?
2. Right now I am looking at 2 tap brass towers, is it worth it to get the higher quality (PVD?) types?
3. I have no plans for glycol or "air cooled" but I would be interested if these were easy things to set up. Once again I have no frame of reference here.
4. I am also looking at the DIY towers that people have made out of PVC pipe. They look great.

Alright, all opinions are welcome. Thanks.
JJ

Check out:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=31221

And BrewPastor's setup, which you'll find in here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=29053

and a bunch of other threads. Search for "chest freezer conversion"

Having seen this one first hand, I'd have to suggest the Brewpastor method of using a freezer for a bar.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=253384&postcount=10

The other option is to forgo the towers and build a wooden collar around the top of the freezer. Then have shanks installed in the wooden collar. Should be cheaper than buying a tower, and it's almost infinitely expandable.

http://www.mikeserve.com/HomeBrewing/chestfreezer.htm

Georgian Novice2 said:

3. I have no plans for glycol or "air cooled" but I would be interested if these were easy things to set up. Once again I have no frame of reference here.

Click to expand...

Air cooled is really simple. It's a matter of running a small computer fan inside the freezer which pumps (or sucks) air through hose, ending up in the tower. If you're going with the PVC method, you could quite easily build a 'pass through' tower, which look like these: http://acumetalfab.com/products3.html. Cooling that would be a breeze (no pun intended) since both ends could be open to the freezer unit, and a fan could be attached to one end, pusing air through.

Keeping your lines cool is important if you don't want to lose the first pull of every session's beer.... Warm beer will be all foamy, guaranteed.

Incidentally, I bought my computer fan from buyextras.com, this model: http://buyextras.com/suac1180fanw.html . I chose it because it was small (my kegerator is not large) and relatively quiet. Also, I needed something that ran on AC current. I'll keep you posted as to how well it works.

Thanks, Chris, just found the Mike's chest conversion page after the second hour of searching myself.

I think my biggest thing is that I definately want to mount the towers on top of a bar that is over the freezer to get that "bar" look rather than running them straight from the collar. However I now have 2 more concerns that I have come across while reading the forums (go figure, more concerns).

(1) I have only been using 1/4" lines, parts, connectors, etc. but it seems that I might need to investigate other sizes due to foaming and whatnot and

(2) I may have a "warm beer in line" issue. The length of hose from the freezer to the end of the tap might be 12" and without some type of cooling system that might be a pain.

The draft towers that I am looking at say "air cooled". Does that mean that it comes with a small fan or does it mean that the ambient temp of the room that it is in will be it's temp?
EDIT - EDIT (((I just saw the answer to "air cooled", thanks guys)))

Thanks and appreciate the links above to do more research.
JJ

Georgian Novice2 said:

(1) I have only been using 1/4" lines,

Click to expand...

Do yourself a longterm favor and swap out to 3/16 Hoses. About 5-6 foot each. You can easily balance the system if you want exact measurements but just drop the end of 3/16 into near boiling water for 30 sec, and that puppy will drop like a prom dress.

Drunkensatyr said:

Do yourself a longterm favor and swap out to 3/16 Hoses. About 5-6 foot each. You can easily balance the system if you want exact measurements but just drop the end of 3/16 into near boiling water for 30 sec, and that puppy will drop like a prom dress.

Click to expand...

Ok, now that is just damn funny. Alright, time to look into that size as well. Thanks for the suggestions.
JJ