Help/input needed on my keg setup...

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IanIanBoBian

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Well i'm getting ready to get into kegging. I just had 15 gallons that were all ready to bottle around the same time, and I am running out of places to store all these bottles.

I want to have 2 or three taps in my kitchen. I have a laundry chute with a door in my kitchen, and I want to mount the taps on that door, and run the hoses down the chute into the basement where the fridge will be. That way I don't have to run hoses through the floor, and if I move I can just make a new laundry chute door.

I have a fridge that I can get for free; it's a full size fridge, with the freezer on top. Will this work? Can I run the hoses out of the side of the fridge? Will I have problems running the hoses up about 8 feet, from the basement to the first floor? Will I need refrigerated lines?

So with a setup like this, how much am I looking at spending on hoses, faucets, kegs and co2 tank, plus miscellaneous parts? If I need refrigerated lines, how much more will that cost? Any problems i'm overlooking? Thanks for the help!
 
There are a couple problems you may run into warm beer in the long un cooled lines and also if you use the laundry chute clothes getting caught on beer lines and pulling on them
 
That won't work, you'll be drinking FOAM + WARM beer. You will need to keep your beer lines cool. If you keep your lines cool, that'll work. Just figure out how you want to keep your lines cool.
 
well like i said, i figured i might need cooled lines. what is the best way to do this?
 
Somebody recently had something where they had a pump inside the fridge that pumped liquid in a larger tube that surrounded the beer lines..
 
i'm reading that 8 feet of hose only holds 2 ounces of liquid. so would i really need cooled lines, or could i just insulate them?
 
You would want cooled lines unless you're going to constantly use it atleast 4 times a day other wise your going to have a lot of odd flavors from the warm beer in the lines
 
I would use dryer vent tube(the metal kind) and wrap it in insulation, they sell it just for wrapping that type of vent pipe. Then you can run your lines all the way down to the fridge in that vent tubing. It wont be perfect, but it will be better than not cooling them at all. Also you can add a fan inside the fridge to blow cold air through the tube.
 
I was thinking about using an elbow shank, since the laundry chute isn't very deep. Would this work?
Keg Beer Elbow Shank Assembly
Then just the standard faucet.

I'm thinking about having just one tap to start out, then adding a couple more down the road. I can do this with one co2 tank, right?
 
PVC pipe with some foam pipe insulation around your lines inside it, should be fine...

Blower fan or glycol if that doesn't work, but with that as a base it would be easy to make future additional lines or modifications.

You can certainly do this with on CO2 tank; if you get a cheap manifold/distribution block/y adapter, you can have 2+ kegs hooked up easily, but they will all be the same pressure. If you want different serving pressures, you will need an additional regulator for each pressure (manifold so you could have say 3 at 10 PSI for serving, and one at 30 PSI for carbing as an example). Good luck and keep us posted (hopefully with pics)!
 
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