Should i go tower?

[drummerboyas157]

I just got a chest freezer for my keg and already built the ebay aquarium thermostat build. I want to turn it into a kegerator and am curious between towers and shanks. I heard somewhere towers require a little more setup something about cooling? But I am trying to avoid building a collar, my freezer fits my corny kegs fine. Any tips? I dont want to ruin the freezer. Why should I go one way or the other?

Also someday I want to get into all grain but I am starting to fly through kegs so i need to set up 2 or 3 first. If you have any great resources on all grain and how i need to prepare for that feel free to share

 

[thargrav]

To set-up a tower right you need a beer tower cooler. It's a small fan& hose assembly that blows cold air into your tower to keep your beer shank cold & beer faucet cool.

You don't need a beer tower cooler to install faucets into a freezer but you will need to remove the lid, build a collar, then re-attach the lid to the collar. And if you don't build the collar right the back section will twist out of position because of the weight X leverage from the lid. In other words, just a simple 2X4 frame with no additional support in the back will eventually come apart.

It's easier and cheaper and faster to install a beer tower and beer tower cooler.

 

[SharonaZamboni]

How many kegs will fit in your freezer? If you go with the tower, get one with enough faucets. I thought I could make do with a single faucet in my 2-keg kegerator, but it's really a pain with two different beers.

 

[drummerboyas157]

I think i can fit 4 maybe 5 but 4. I was thinking of just getting a 3 faucet tower, or maybe 2 and add another 2 later.

 

[E-Mursed]

Many people have used copper pipe to run their beer lines thru in the tower to conduct cooloing temperatures from their kegerator up through the tower.

This is my intent when I begin my kegerator/freezer build next week.

You just need a tall enough section of close to snug copper pipe to run most of the length of you tower and a couple inches into your kegerator. Copper is a great conductor and will keep the beer in your lines at a cool temperature.

I don't know this from experience yet - but there have been numerous threads about this with pictures to prove it's effectiveness. If you want to use a fan, by all means use a fan.

 

[thargrav]

A friend of mine tried the copper pipe deal - it didn't work even though he insisted that it worked great. I pulled the top off his tower & measured the temperature of his beer shanks and they were room temperature. Then I measured the temperature of the top of the copper pipe and it was the same room temperature. Then we opened the door and I measured the temperature of the copper pipe that stuck down inside the kegerator and it was 2 degrees warmer than the keg that was sitting next to the pipe. It seems that the copper pipe was doing a better job of conducting heat into the kegerator than the intended result, keeping the beer lines cold.

Then I installed one of our beer tower coolers and the temperature pulled right down.

 

[E-Mursed]

Nice sales pitch...

 

[thargrav]

It actually wasn't a sales pitch, but you can't beat a little forced air cooling.

Please let us all know how your copper pipe install goes & don't forget to include real data. My friend believed his was working just because he just knew it would - often our minds trick us this way.