minifridge / jokey box

[Mrott]

So I've been on the hunt for a nice chest freezer for a while now to convert to a keezer with the goal of being able to have 4 sankey sixtels on tap. For another project I'm looking into building a jockey box as well...portable beer and all...

So I was thinking about both of them last night as I got another frozen glass out of the freezer compartment of my mini fridge and another bottle from the normal section. Drank about half the beer enjoying how nice and frosted my glass was and I had an epiphany...

Why couldn't I just sit the kegs next to my mini fridge, then route the lines into my freezer compartment. Then just do it like a jockey box and pack in as many feet of tubing as I could while then routing it to a 4 tap tower on top? (or maybe a coffin style tower) The freezer is roughly .5 cu ft with the bottom plate being the chiller (rather than lines in the sides/top). The minifridge stays plenty cold with the thermostat only half way up, and if there's 4 lines in there as long as there's not a heavy draw on all 4 taps concurrently they should help to keep each other cold.

Has anyone tried something like this or have any ideas/thoughts on the potential success of it?

 

[Atl300zx]

it would need to flow through a coil in ice water for that to work. Also i dont think 0.5CF is enough space for the amount of ice water and tubing youll need.

 

[fall-line]

I had the same thought earlier this year as I was preparing to build both a kegerator (in a mini fridge) and a jockey box. I did a little more research on the physics of the heat exchange, and read several threads on this forum that convinced me that it just wouldn't work. In order for the cold plate or coils to exchange enough energy to cool your beer, you need to have them totally surrounded by a substance that is able to efficiently absorb heat. Ice or icewater work well as you know, since the frozen ice can absorb the heat provided by the beer lines well (and consequently melt), but cold air around the cold plate (even if part of the plate or coil is contacting the cooling element) just wont do the trick.

I'm not saying it is impossible, but I don't think it is worth the effort or expense to try. Especially considering there are many other benefits to keeping your kegs cool (more efficient absorption of co2, better preservation, etc)

Whatever you decide to do, have fun with the process! I really enjoyed building both my kegerator and my jockey box, and have been glad to be able to get a fair bit of use out of them both this summer.

 

[kpr121]

I don't see why this wouldnt work if properly designed. How about if you used a rubbermaid container filled with glycol (or even saltwater) to get the temps below freezing? Not sure if that fridge would be able to get down that far but it could. Even if it didnt you could possibly have enough thermal mass to dissipate the heat. One issue would be the layer of temperature differential directly outside of the surface area of the chiller, similar to what we experience when chilling wort. You would probably want to come up with someway to stir or agitate the chilling fluid. Maybe a very small submersible pump.

Like you said the other problem that you would run into is with heavy use, but if you know theres gonna be a lot of tapping, buy a bag of ice and dump it in the container, then its working just like a jockey box.

If you were planning on building both, it might be beneficial to purchase as much stainless steel coil as you can (maybe 100 ft?), and add fittings to both the fridge and jockeybox to make them easily interchangeable. When would you be using both at the same time?

 

[Mrott]

Ok so that more or less summed it up pretty well and echoed some of my thoughts that in theory the general concept could work if properly modified, but due to the thermal properties of air vs water it more than likely just wouldn't be practical.

Glycol just really isn't realistic due to cost. The whole goal is to just do it cheaper and more efficiently.

Though this just ends one theory to make room for another.

 

[kpr121]

How about saltwater?

Chill plate with a small submersible pump that recirculates the saltwater. One chill plate per tap. It could work?

Edit, I guess saltwater and steel dont go to well together longterm eh?

 

[Mrott]

Well the goal was to simply use the natural abilities of the freezer to cool the beer rather than having an additional chiller. Otherwise I am no better off than just getting the chest freezer and converting it.

 

[kpr121]

Well the goal was to simply use the natural abilities of the freezer to cool the beer rather than having an additional chiller. Otherwise I am no better off than just getting the chest freezer and converting it.

I get that, its probably your best idea.

I just get happy when someone decides to take on one of these 'it seems like it would work but noone knows for sure until its been tried' projects.

Sorry for trying to turn your simple idea into a monsterous ordeal! Carry on

 

[BeerMe21]

The problem with using the freezer compartment is that it will freeze the beer in the lines if you do not flush them within a certain amount of time. I believe that you can do this and with about the same simplicity that you originally suggested.

In order to cool the beer quickly you are going to need liquid to liquid heat transfer (as kpr121 suggested). Secondly, you don't want the cooling liquid below 30*F unless you want to empty the beer from the lines after each use. Sooo, if you kept a decent amount of water in the fridge (in a spare 20qt kettle for instance) and set your fridge to about 32*F, it will cool that water down to 32*F. Stick you draft coil in the water and there you have it, a mini-fridge jockey box!

Some factors to consider:
- Amount of water: The more water you can keep in the container the more beer you can cool.
- Length of draft coil: Ideally the length of draft coil immersed in the water would hold 12-16oz of beer. This way your first beer will be the same temp as the water, and it will give your second beer the time it needs to cool down completely (probably only a couple minutes).
- Material of bucket/water container: Ideally this should be aluminum because it will make the fridge's job of cooling the water easier. If you use plastic it shouldn't be that big of a deal because most likely there will be at least 16-20hr gap in drinking sessions (I'm assuming ;-) ) So the fridge will have plenty of time to cool the water.

- You can store a couple ice cube trays or ice packs in the freezer to toss in the water if it gets warm.


I hope I didn't make this sound more complicated than it is, I really believe that this can be done rather cheaply and simply.

 

[kpr121]

Ahhhh, duh the beer will freeze if you go much lower than 32, so saltwater or glycol wouldnt really work well. Im sure you can get down to 28-29 if you want to due to the alcohol content in the beer.

 

[Mrott]

well part of the problem was that it was based on air transfer rather than water because I still wanted to keep the refrigerator portion of the mini-fridge as a functional fridge for bottles and such.

So losing 1/4 - 1/3 of the fridge (or more) for a large tub of water isn't practical either, though it plays into the idea of using a small chest freezer to cool more kegs than you could otherwise fit in the chest freezer itself if you kezeer-ized it.

 

[kpr121]

well part of the problem was that it was based on air transfer rather than water because I still wanted to keep the refrigerator portion of the mini-fridge as a functional fridge for bottles and such.

So losing 1/4 - 1/3 of the fridge (or more) for a large tub of water isn't practical either, though it plays into the idea of using a small chest freezer to cool more kegs than you could otherwise fit in the chest freezer itself if you kezeer-ized it.

Now I like the way youre thinking. I see a monster 20 tap keezer build thread coming! Hey if it's watertight you could just fill the bottom 1/4 with water and run all your lines through that. BWAHAHAHAWBA ITS ALIVE!!!

 

[masterchief1112]

heres a thought i have a mini fridge that has separate doors for fridge and freezer. ive been considering knocking out the divider between the freezer and the fridge. only thing stopping me is i cant tell if there are cooling coils between the two sections. knock that out and your entire fridge is the same temp. a little extra space and you could fit the corny in there. just a thought dunno if your fridge is the same.

 

[Mrott]

Now I like the way youre thinking. I see a monster 20 tap keezer build thread coming! Hey if it's watertight you could just fill the bottom 1/4 with water and run all your lines through that. BWAHAHAHAWBA ITS ALIVE!!!

Theoretically, it sounds much more feasible. Besides, a little plastic, glue and duct tape and you can make almost anything water tight. Then you just need a sh*t ton of piping for lines to really give it the opportunity to get cold and a whole bunch of taps...but I suppose the theory would be solid. Just have to deal with poorer CO2 absorption and beer stored at warmer temps and such, but that's no different from my original scheme.

heres a thought i have a mini fridge that has separate doors for fridge and freezer. ive been considering knocking out the divider between the freezer and the fridge. only thing stopping me is i cant tell if there are cooling coils between the two sections. knock that out and your entire fridge is the same temp. a little extra space and you could fit the corny in there. just a thought dunno if your fridge is the same.

Unfortunately my mini fridge isn't that high tech. Just the standard one door with a little plastic flap for a freezer divider.

 

[socalboomer]

the divider on my mini-fridge IS the cooling plate - the cooling lines are embedded into the plastic divider piece. . .