New toy: single hitter beer dispenser

I haven't seen any other of these so I thought I'd post.

I picked this up from a fellow home brewer getting out of the game. It was given to him / or he found it. When plugged in, it ran constantly and turned the water bath into a slushy so I wired in an adjustable thermostat. I cleaned up the outside and painted it with chalkboard paint to class up the operation a bit.

From what I can tell there this about 50 feet of 1/4 inch stainless steel in 2 gallons of water. I set the thermostat to 1.5c. My thermo runs the compressor until it gets to .5, then won't kick on until the temperature has drifted to 2.5c. It takes about 1 minute per degree Celsius to chill. After I added some insulation, I only lose 1c every 2 hours! So the compressor only kicks on about once every two hours

I added 10ft of 3/16 bev tubing from my room temperature keg to get to the unit. It's been pouring well, albiet slowly, with this setup. I've upped it to 25 psi to see how that looks. I'd like to carbonate a saison but fear it might be too much psi for the tubing. I figure a longer tube would remedy the situation. I'll report back.

 

that is pretty sweet.

 

Seems to me you just posted that to make us jealous
Well, it worked
Congrats on a great score and seems like you made some very good mods!

 

Has anyone else seen this style machine stateside? I see plenty of soda dispensers made into beer dispensers but nothing like this. I feel like the only time I see them they are in a restaurant dispensing Asahi. This unit in particular has Korean made circuitry some I'm guessing it's Korean (and I got it here).

 

I like that set up. I am looking to do something similar with a 1.7 cu foot fridge and a cold plate.

 

Hmm... Could this work for chilling a glycol loop for use with an immersion coil for temp-controlled fermentation?


Adam

 

Yes I believe this is very similar to a Japanese-style beer dispenser: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/entries/japanese-beer-server-dispenser.html

EDIT: should have read your post more carefully. You've already noticed that it's similar to Japanese dispensers. Carry on..

 

The only draw back to these is warmer weather months. Your beer will not stay as fresh since it isn't refrigerated. Of course, if you're clearing a keg every couple of weeks or less, shouldn't be a problem (except for your liver and your sobriety).