I have a family event coming up where I might need a jockey box with 4 taps. I found this cold plate and was wondering what people thought about it. I know its for soda but I think it should work fine for beer. My other question is if all the kegs are kept on ice so I even need a cold plate in the box or can I just coil up 25' of beer line? I am really just trying to avoid having to hand pump all the kegs.
Cold Plate Advice
- Thread starter EosTI
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
microbusbrewery
Senior Member
I essentially have the same one, and it works great for jockey box setups. I bought mine via ebay from a guy that was salvaging old restaurant equipment. They aren't always on there, but it's worth checking out ebay because occasionally you'll find screaming deals (mine was around $60 if I remember correctly). If you haven't already priced stuff out, be prepared for some sticker shock. The fittings can start to add up quickly. For mine, I got some great deals by taking my time and shopping around, but it still wasn't cheap.
I'd recommend pre-chilling the kegs and depending on conditions, you may or may not need to keep the kegs on ice. We've used mine to pour at a beer fest in Idaho where all the kegs are usually pre-chilled and kept on ice. This last year, we had one keg that came up late and wasn't pre-chilled. Temperature-wise it poured pretty well, but it was noticeably more foamy than the other beers that had been chilled overnight. Also last year I used it for an event at my wife's church. For that one, I pre-chilled but did not have the keg on ice. With only one beer on tap, it was almost too cold and I ended up removing some of the ice from the jockey box.
I set mine up so three taps to a double pass and one does a single pass. Usually we'll put a porter or stout on the single pass tap. I initially used 3/16" line on mine, but it had too much resistance and I ended up swapping out most of the lines for 1/4". If you're looking for ideas, here's a blog post about my build, http://www.microbusbrewery.org/2015/11/steel-belted-jockey-box-build.html
I'd recommend pre-chilling the kegs and depending on conditions, you may or may not need to keep the kegs on ice. We've used mine to pour at a beer fest in Idaho where all the kegs are usually pre-chilled and kept on ice. This last year, we had one keg that came up late and wasn't pre-chilled. Temperature-wise it poured pretty well, but it was noticeably more foamy than the other beers that had been chilled overnight. Also last year I used it for an event at my wife's church. For that one, I pre-chilled but did not have the keg on ice. With only one beer on tap, it was almost too cold and I ended up removing some of the ice from the jockey box.
I set mine up so three taps to a double pass and one does a single pass. Usually we'll put a porter or stout on the single pass tap. I initially used 3/16" line on mine, but it had too much resistance and I ended up swapping out most of the lines for 1/4". If you're looking for ideas, here's a blog post about my build, http://www.microbusbrewery.org/2015/11/steel-belted-jockey-box-build.html
Similar threads
