Plate chiller for serving?

[staggerlee]

Heyo -

I've searched on the site and it seems that most if not all the discussion around plate chillers has been about using them during brewing for wort chilling. I recently bought a bunch of kegging equipment that includes a 5-channel plate chiller and a tiny little fridge that's been drilled out to accept hoses.

The way the guy who sold me the equipment explained it to me, the plate chiller sits in the icebox compartment of the fridge and the kegs are at room (in my case, cellar, about 58ºF) temperature. When serving, you pump through the chiller and voila! cold beer.

My question: I don't see this method advocated anywhere here. What would be the disadvantage to such a system? I guess when carbing I'd have to maintain a higher pressure than if the kegs were cold, but that seems a lot more doable to me than buying a whole new rig for a kegerator/keezer setup. Other than that I don't see any potential problems, but I'm a total noob. Can anyone enlighten me as to any roadblocks I might encounter with this setup?

 

[Skins_Brew]

I would think that the chiller is going to heat up pretty quickly to the temp of the beer unless there is some type of coolant running through it.

 

[brewt00l]

You've got a cold plate for serving carbonated beer which is different than a plate chiller used for chilling wort.

Search for "jocky box" or "cold plate"