Beer Tap Spacing

I am getting close to finishing my keezer but I have a few questions I havent been able to find the answer to.

I will have 4 taps. How far apart do I put them? And how far above the drip tray?

 

You can put them pretty close together. How often will you pour two beers at the same time in side by side taps huh?

I have mine spaced as this. 10cms from the centre of each shank to the next. Thats just fine for me and they are still not cramped together or spread out.

But its up to you how far the gap is and how you want it to look. Personally I don't like the look of it when they are put with huge gaps in between. It also means any drip tray has to be larger than what is needed adding cost to your project. Four taps at my spacing gives you a chance to put a 40cm or so size drip tray under all four taps.

Also I have less chance of banging my taps putting my kegs in the freezer as they don't take up the entire front of the collar.

As far as height, put the biggest glass you will pour into under the tap with enough of a gap and a bit more. The bottom of your glass can be the height of the tray but again there is no real rule. The larger the fall the more splashing I would assume.

 

Jaja is right about spacing them close so as to save on the drip tray. Drip trays can get expensive depending on what kind you get, so you don't want to need a bigger one unecessarily.

FWIW, the the taps on mine are 3 inches apart, as in the center of each shank is spaced 3 inches from the next one. That spacing will look like this:



Note that this drip tray is 19 inches wide.

 

So it looks like 3 to 4 inches apart would be about right. Thanks for the replies.

 

Gonna bump this thread because I'm in the same boat.

I'm getting close to drilling, and since I'm going to have 12 taps, I want to get them as close together as possible to save on the cost of drip trays.

Has anybody done them as close as 2" from center to center?

 

I know Yuri was planning on some really tight spacing for his build:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/yuris-keezer-design-127726/

You might want to bump that and see how it ended up.

 

My design is still just a design. I'll likely wind up getting shanks just like the ones pictured above, which cannot be spaced less then 2.5" apart.

 

I went with 4 inch spacing since I had plenty of room. They do look a bit far apart though, 3 inches would have been plenty.
2 inches would work fine I'm sure. I have seen some bars that have lots of taps put them very close together. At 2 inches apart it would be hard to fill 2 beers at the same time from adjacent taps but in a home setting that wont be much of a problem

 

Do you mean the Perlicks? That's what I'm going with, so if you know for certain 2" won't work that will save me some time.

That looks beautiful Amiaji. What color stain is that?

 

The faucets are Perlicks, but the shanks are pretty generic. Micromatic has them for sale.

 

I spaced mine 3" on center, since one of the drip trays I'm considering has holes for the shanks drilled on 3" centers.

So far: (The collar's just sitting on top of the freezer in the pic... Still waiting on a few pieces of hardware.)

 

My flanges run 2 1/4", plus you need to leave room to use the faucet wrench. I wouldn't go under 2 1/2".

 

I just took the overall width of my tap box and figured out even spacing between my 3 taps. Then just eyeballed the height. If doing it again, I would take my tallest beer glass and set height off that. A pint glass works great, but the big 23oz bar style ones, are too tall to not have to tilt.