Keezer with Tower mounted on top, ?

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agentEhrman

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Can I make my keezer with a tower installed in the top through the door? I would like to do this, but it seems like every picture and tutorial i find involves making a "collar."

I would prefer to keep this easy, and have the look of the tall tower without building the top up with wood or anything else. Most of the "collar" style keezers I have found here have the tap handles on the front. I think I will like the height much better if I install a tower on the top of the door. This also makes the drip try pretty much no effort.

I'm trying to make sure that there isn't a specific reason why nobody else is building theirs this way. As far as other plans, I am just going to purchase the johnson controls thermostat override here -->http://www.kegkits.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=CONT , and hopefully use existing air and tubing from my current picnic tap setup. I am trying to find a black chest freezer big enough to hold 3 cornies plus gas, but I may settle for white to keep the cost down.

Can an expert either confirm or deny my idea to drill through the top/door and install a 3 faucet tower?
 
I guess that one obvious disadvantage would be that I couldn't get the door opened up all the way if it was pushed back against a wall... :/
 
is the beer going to pour warm through the tower? I mean, is there enough in the lines to effect the temp enough to notice in a full beer?
 
Plenty of people have put towers or coffin boxes on top of their keezers. If you look through the "show us your kegerator" thread you'll find plenty of examples.

You can either put the keezer on casters or orient it like GlenF did to be able to open it easily. I made a pass through tower for the top of my keezer, but I also made a tall collar. One of the reasons you see so many collars is that it allows kegs to be placed on the compressor hump, increasing the capacity. Without the collar my freezer could only hold 2 corny kegs, but with the collar it holds 4.
 
is the beer going to pour warm through the tower? I mean, is there enough in the lines to effect the temp enough to notice in a full beer?

If you don't do something the cool the tower the first pour of the day will be foamy. A muffin fan to circulate air or some copper pipe are fairly simple and easy ways to keep the tower cool.
 
As you can see in the thread I linked, I put a copper pipe into the tower. It pulls the cold air up into the insulated tower. I have few problems with excessive foaming or warm beers.

DSC_0132.jpg
 
If you don't do something the cool the tower the first pour of the day will be foamy. A muffin fan to circulate air or some copper pipe are fairly simple and easy ways to keep the tower cool.

I may get this thing built correctly the first time with advice like that, thanks!
:rockin:
 
As you can see in the thread I linked, I put a copper pipe into the tower. It pulls the cold air up into the insulated tower. I have few problems with excessive foaming or warm beers.

DSC_0132.jpg

The towers I'm looking at are 3'' in diameter, would 2.5" copper tubing fit inside, and allow all lines to pass through?
 
I build a tower style keezer because of my preference for the look. I wish I hadn't, as it is a total pain in the ass compared to my buddies through collar keezer. Yes, it looks nicer. But, it is tall, harder to clean or fix/replace lines, nearly impossible with my method to keep the lines cold in the tower, etc. If I were to do it over, I'd go through the collar and call it a day.

5031880390_4038197cbf_z.jpg
 
I build a tower style keezer because of my preference for the look. I wish I hadn't, as it is a total pain in the ass compared to my buddies through collar keezer. Yes, it looks nicer. But, it is tall, harder to clean or fix/replace lines, nearly impossible with my method to keep the lines cold in the tower, etc. If I were to do it over, I'd go through the collar and call it a day.

I also have a pass through tower. I cool the tower with a small muffin, and it works great. It is a pain to install and replace the lines, but I only had to install them once, and then replace them with a different type of line once. And I don't plan on replacing the lines I have now for many many years. Cleaning the lines shouldn't be any different.
 
I used to have a small dorm fridge with a tower and 1/2" copper for each line cooled it down enough with no foaming.

However when I built a larger one I had to modify things to make it more efficient so I would not have to use a fan. My preliminary temps seem to be better than using fans.
 
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