Cooling Tower on Kegerator Question

[HopHog87]

Hey folks, after much good advice on my first post regarding my very first brew I am happy to report the beer turned out very well and I'm quite pleased. Now, not to get too far ahead of myself here but I've really been considering adding a tap tower to a home bar in my basement I'll be constructing over the next few months. The plan now is to keep it simple...single keg (all I can do considering how often I am gone and how it would be difficult to consume more than one keg in any reasonable amount of time) and a kegerator I convert probably from craigslist.

I have been trolling the forums and such regarding specifics on keg/draft tower setups and it seems the most important factor is keeping the beer and beer hose to tower cool all the way to the faucet or else problems ensue. So, without incurring the cost of a blower, could I place the kegerator under the bar top, and then just plumb a pvc pipe out the top of the kegerator which runs up to a homemade pvc tap tower? It could all even be the same length of pipe. Would that more that likely provide enough cooling throuhout the pipe up the tower? I'm only talking a couple feet of pipe, max (one foot to get to the bar top then maybe a 12" tower).

I'd like someone's input with experience in kegging and, preferably, draft towers. I've seen a lot of those kegerators (even commercially available) that are basically just a fridge on wheels with a tap tower mounted directly on top. That's what I'm planning for the most part. Will that work or is a blower strictly necessary? Any input would be appreciated and will help me make a decision if I want to undertake this project.

 

[JuanMoore]

It's not even so much the line as it is the shank and faucet that needs to be kept cool. It's also not a catastrophic issue if it's not kept cold. It will simply cause the first ~1/2 pint of every drinking session to be mostly foam, and then the cold beer will cool it down and it will pour nicely, until it has a chance to sit long enough to warm up again.

Even just a 12" tower will cause this problem without some sort of active cooling, so double that will be even worse. You can use a fan to blow cold air into the tower, or run lines through the tower and recirculate cold liquid through them, or just dump the first half pour of every drinking session.

The issue that will cause major problems is not having enough line resistance to balance the carbonation and beer temperature. Pretty much every line balancing calculator and equation you'll find will only work for beer temps under 38° and carbonation under 2.8 vol. Don't get tricked into believing that there's some magic "ideal" line length that will make a perfect pour, and anything else will cause issues. The only thing that causes issues is a line that's too short. Longer lines will only cause the pour to be a tiny bit slower, and if it really is too slow, it's very easy to trim a couple feet off.