5 tap outdoor kitchen setup

Hello,

I am pretty new to home brew but from day one I knew I wanted to keg and not bottle. I have 4 corny kegs with 4 sets of lines, a co2 tank and single regulator, manifold, and a sankey D tap.


I plan on building an outdoor kitchen counter in the next year and I thought that with a large enough chest freezer, I could build a nice tap setup.

My plan right now:

Set my future chest freezer behind my planned counter tap area. The patio is raised, so the freezer will be lower. Add an insulated band of foam between the lid and the chest. Run 2 insulated ducts up to a raised insulated backsplash that houses 5 taps. I will have a fan blowing air up one duct and return down the other. The beer lines would run up the return duct. The freezer will be in a decorative box with a hinged roof for access and screened vents.

I just bought a mcCann's E400397 carbonator pump. I plan on converting one of my corny kegs to a soda water keg and have one tap for soda water. Then buy syrup bottles. There was a nice setup by someone named Eric. My setup will be similar. Link is below.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f95/carbonator-installed-261089/index2.html#post3454433

I may make one tap for chilled water by running a water line coil through a sealed "trash can" of water (or glycol) in the freezer. I plan on plumbing a ball lock fitting to the water coil so I can swap the tap for beer later if I want. I can also flush my other lines if I want easily.

I plan on at least a dark and light beer on tap. The third beer tap would be probably a commercial keg.

My questions:

The setup will be in TX where it gets very hot and I am in a valley where there is condensing humidity. Does anyone see a problem with my setup for the freezer and carbonator pump being in a vented box outside? How would you do it? I am wondering if the heat from the freezer evaporator will be enough to drive the condensing humidity out. My concern is corrosion of the metal parts and damage to electrical parts.

Does the soda water need stainless shank and faucet? I read that copper lines are bad after carbonation...chromed shanks and faucets have brass in them which contain copper.

Any other recommendations?

Thanks in advance for any advice. I am still learning, so I appreciate any input and recommendations.

Ok, I just talked to a friend who is more of a beer fanatic and a skilled builder of just about anything, and he made the following suggestion. He suggested building a somewhat sealed box for the carbonator pump. Put desiccant packs in the box with the motor, the put the whole thing in a cooled area under the counter so that the air from the freezer would keep the assembly cool but the sealed box would prevent humidity from entering the motor. The desiccant packs would remove any humidity that made it in.

What do you think?

Be careful about the freezer you buy, most new freezers have the condenser coils in the sides, so you'll need a fair amount of free space around the freezer. If you can find one that has the coils on the back, that might be easier to work with.

Does the soda water need stainless shank and faucet? I

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Absolutely, YES. Unless you like flakes of chrome in your soda. I speak from experience.

Thanks for the heads up on co2 and chrome.

I just got my carbonator in. It was brand new from eBay.

I called mccanns tech support. They recommended against putting the pump outside in the heat and humidity. He thought the idea of the sealed box with desiccant would work.