Jockey Box?

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Gabe

It's a sickness!
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I want to build one. One that will last and looks good. Cold plate or SS tubing? Where for parts?
 
SS is IMO superior than a cold plate. Try the local salvage yards for SS tubing. Ya know I am not sure why we dont use copper... just a thought.

JJ
 
Gabe said:
Thought copper was bad after ferm?
maybe.... but for the contact time its going to have..... dont know. I like my SS twin it chills boiling hot water to cold constantly...$#!^ I just had an IDEA :off: use my Jocky box for a wort chiller Duh.... what was I thinking
JJ
 
I'd think the cold plate would be more durable, the 15 jocky boxen we have at the store all use cold plates. That said, if your going to be the only one using it you know you will take care of it. It's when you loan it to your black sheep brother-in-law for his nascar* party that it will get the most abuse.


* This statement is in no way to be regarded as a slam on Nascar.
 
That's what I was thinkin....I want somthing that I can sanitize , hookup and go. I wonder where I can find some 3/8 '' SS tubing?
 
slimer said:
It's really really really hard to clean out cold plates. I'm just sayin.

How is cleaning out the 18' of stainless tubing inside a cold plate harder than cleaning out any other stainless steel tubing? We run BLC in, let it sit overnight and run more through the next day followed by a water rinse.
 
Not talking about tubes within a cold plate. Many cold plates have hard edges and beer gets caught there. It just depends on the way they manufacture it..
 
I just built my first jockey box. I got a 5 Gallon round cooler from Home Depot for 20$. Got 50 ft of 1/4" copper from ebay for 30. I wrapped the copper around my corny keg. Bend the bottom end up. Got some 3/16 tubing and clamped it around it. I drilled holes near the top, on the side of the cooler, ran the lines through it and put some silicon around it to seal it. I got a 4$ picnic tap and hooked it up to one end. I then connected a ball lock out to the other side. So easy.

I did a test at trout camp last week. I had a keg of Bravian Weizen. I force carboed it, left it warm. I got one of those small pretzel rod containers and froze water to make a block of ice. This fit perfectly in the center. I then fill it up with cube ice, about 5 lbs, maybe less. After arriving, I let it settle for about an hour, unfrooze my lines(i ran cleaner through it and then added all the ice before my journey, this will freeze the lines, better to put a little beer in if you are traveling with the ice in it) Cranked the psi up to 15. And it worked fantasic. Left it out side for 3 days and the ice was still good. Beer was great to the last sip. I can post pics if you want.
 
milldoggy said:
I just built my first jockey box. I got a 5 Gallon round cooler from Home Depot for 20$. Got 50 ft of 1/4" copper from ebay for 30. I wrapped the copper around my corny keg. Bend the bottom end up. Got some 3/16 tubing and clamped it around it. I drilled holes near the top, on the side of the cooler, ran the lines through it and put some silicon around it to seal it. I got a 4$ picnic tap and hooked it up to one end. I then connected a ball lock out to the other side. So easy.

I did a test at trout camp last week. I had a keg of Bravian Weizen. I force carboed it, left it warm. I got one of those small pretzel rod containers and froze water to make a block of ice. This fit perfectly in the center. I then fill it up with cube ice, about 5 lbs, maybe less. After arriving, I let it settle for about an hour, unfrooze my lines(i ran cleaner through it and then added all the ice before my journey, this will freeze the lines, better to put a little beer in if you are traveling with the ice in it) Cranked the psi up to 15. And it worked fantasic. Left it out side for 3 days and the ice was still good. Beer was great to the last sip. I can post pics if you want.

no odd flavors from the copper?
 
Not that I could detect. This was my first beer through it, but I will definitly do more testing this summer :) I did not detect the copper flavor that a lot of people warned about.
 
Is the heat transfer too poor to just use extra beverage tubing?
 
milldoggy said:
I just built my first jockey box. I got a 5 Gallon round cooler from Home Depot for 20$. Got 50 ft of 1/4" copper from ebay for 30. I wrapped the copper around my corny keg. Bend the bottom end up. Got some 3/16 tubing and clamped it around it. I drilled holes near the top, on the side of the cooler, ran the lines through it and put some silicon around it to seal it. I got a 4$ picnic tap and hooked it up to one end. I then connected a ball lock out to the other side. So easy.

I did a test at trout camp last week. I had a keg of Bravian Weizen. I force carboed it, left it warm. I got one of those small pretzel rod containers and froze water to make a block of ice. This fit perfectly in the center. I then fill it up with cube ice, about 5 lbs, maybe less. After arriving, I let it settle for about an hour, unfrooze my lines(i ran cleaner through it and then added all the ice before my journey, this will freeze the lines, better to put a little beer in if you are traveling with the ice in it) Cranked the psi up to 15. And it worked fantasic. Left it out side for 3 days and the ice was still good. Beer was great to the last sip. I can post pics if you want.

Noob question here.. Id like to see some pics as well.. I dont understand how you got the water frozen.. what did you use to form it in, also will this only work with a ball lock, what about the other kind (sanke?, or those kind with a line in and line out). How did you unfreeze the lines, and how did tehy get frozen in the first place, how did you stop the beer from getting frozen in the cooler.. this sounds liek a great idea... will be interested in hearing about the copper wire
 
soo...where are these pics? I'm wanting to build one of these to accompany my first AG batch to a music festival June 14th...

Yes pictures please b/c I am going to need to be building one of these very soon as a kegging system is coming for my birthday (ie my next batch of beer...MY FIRST IPA!!!:rockin:) cheap and easy sounds like a good temporary solution until I put a keezer/kegerator and lagering fridge in the basement.

I told SWMBO that I was just going to run the lines from the basement (where the temp is always 55-60 degrees I live on bedrock:D) through the jockey to a tap in the kitchen on the backsplash above the sink...she said "no". She told me that was what my brewery/wet bar in the basement was going to be for:D SCHWEET!!:mug:

Also, I've never heard of this copper thing. Is it true? It doesn't impart any bad taste in drinking water, and it works very well to keep the drinking water clean b/c beasties can't grown on it. It has some kind of beastie inhibiting process (thus the reason hospitals are considering using it for high traffic surfaces like doornobs and elevator buttons)
 
Is the heat transfer too poor to just use extra beverage tubing?

Unfortunately, yes. You need metal. Beer line thick enough to handle the pressure has too thick a wall made of too poor a heat-transfer material to work at all.

Someone asked about plate vs. coil. I've used both, and currently own a 2-line SS coil box. I can't think of any reason to choose one over the other except expense and/or availability. Since the cold plates used in this application are tubing encased in cast aluminium (think Han Solo in carbonite), the concerns about nooks and crannies in which beasties can hide are groundless; there are no more hiding places than in a coil of SS tubing.

Cheers,

Bob
 
Easton? My genealogy runs through Easton. Word is they were PA Dutch but the only proof I have is the name...Myers.

So your suggestion would be SS coils? I've never heard this copper thing about picking up bad flavors before, but if it were true, wouldn't the contact with the beer be so brief that it wouldn't put any flavors in it? My tap water doesn't pick up any bad flavors from the copper tube...
 
I'd suggest a cold plate over SS coil. For one, aluminum cold plates are more efficient as aluminum is more conductive than stainless steel. And according to a pro brewer friend of mine, if you're serving through a copper or stainless coil you need to ice the kegs; if you're serving through a cold plate, you don't have to ice the kegs. I've served warm beer through mine (with a cold plate) with no foaming problems whatsoever.

The big drawback of cold plates is they can be HEAVY. :drunk:
 
Skrimpy - there's still bucketloads of Myers in the local phone book. You might still have relations round here. :D

Firebrewer - You're right: Aluminum is a better temperature conductor than stainless alone. BUT, since all the cold plates I've ever seen are, as I wrote above, stainless steel tubing encased in the aluminum block, the point is moot. Moreover, I've just as much anecdotal evidence to the same effect. My stainless-tubing cold plate doesn't require me to ice the kegs to prevent excess foam. I suspect your pro-brewer friend may be experiencing a pressure differential between cold and warm beer which gives him fits; it takes more top pressure to push warm beer than cold, because the warmer the fluid temperature, the more pressure is required to keep the CO2 in solution. It took me forever to figure that out in the days before HBT. (I was a pro-brewer, too! :) )

Cheers,

Bob
 
Not to revive a dead thread, but I am looking at making a jockey and Stainless tubing is off the charts expensive, and I have not aluminum experience, so looking into copper. I have never heard anything about the copper affecting the flavor, or why would we use the copper IC? Anyways, I don't have the 250 or 300 bucks to spend on a new jockey box. Home depot has 50' for $50 (coppertubingsales was $36, plus $15 shipping) So I could either make a one or two tap box for under $100 if I use copper.
 
I have never heard anything about the copper affecting the flavor, or why would we use the copper IC?

Because finished beer is more acidic than wort? I'm not a chemist, but there has to be a reason that professionally made units don't use copper.

I have both a ss coil jockey box and a cold plate jockey box. I really recommend the cold plate more.

I think that I paid between $60 and $70 for my 6-pass cold plate, which was used from ebay. I currently am only using 3 passes because I thought that I might have to double them up, but I've found that to be unnecessary. I could easily upgrade to a 6 tap box and the only additional cost would be for shanks, faucets, and hoses.

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