Show me your fancy jockey box!

[homebrewbeliever]

I'm building a 3-tap jockey box for my wedding and I'm looking for some inspiration on how to make it look nice! I've included pics below of how it looks so far, but as you can see, it is just a plain blue cooler... If anyone has built a nice looking jockey box out of a cooler, could you post pics here to help inspire me (and others who are looking to do the same in the future)?

 

[Jacinthebox]

Here is mine...not too fancy but functional

2 taps, 7 pass block.

Pics below

 

[njenabnit]

links are broken to your images. I'm interested in this thread very much! I am thinking about building one with some extra copper coil that I have around. I was thinking of making two smaller coils that feed in from the back of the cooler at the bottom and server out of the top of the cooler in the front, then loading the coils up with ice. I'm interested to see how everybody else does it though.

 

[Jacinthebox]

lets try this

 

[homebrewbeliever]

lets try this

Nice!!! I love the black, its beautiful! I noticed you have jumpers on your cold plate... how many passes did you put each line through?

 

[Jacinthebox]

Nice!!! I love the black, its beautiful! I noticed you have jumpers on your cold plate... how many passes did you put each line through?

I'm starting with 4 passes tap #1 and 3 passes for tap #2

I've never used a cold plate before...so we will see how it goes...I'll test this weekend and report back

 

[Jacinthebox]

decal'd

 

[Supergrump]

I built a wooden chest for my cousin's wedding:

I designed it so the drip tray opens and closes as a drawer.

I used pink Styrofoam for insulation and sealed the entire inside with epoxy resin. I also built a false back so I could run the beer lines out the back or through the front if I'm serving bar-style. I used copper lines but I plan to upgrade to stainless coil or a chillplate if I ever end up using it again.

 

[Supergrump]

... also, a quick note to njenabnit, I found out the hard way that with copper coil (or stainless, I imagine), you should NOT have water in the lines before adding ice to the cooler. I flushed my lines with water just to check the temperature output of the taps and didn't purge them. Then, when it was time to serve I filled the box with ice and found the lines to be frozen. No beer could pass through. I had to pour warm water over the lines to get the beer to flow. Either prime the lines with beer or purge them with CO2, but not water. I had a stressful time getting the lines to flow properly with a lineup of thirsty wedding guests in front of me.

 

[CarolynSowell]

Here is mine...not too fancy but functional

2 taps, 7 pass block.

Pics below

Wow I like it

 

[homebrewbeliever]

I'm starting with 4 passes tap #1 and 3 passes for tap #2

I've never used a cold plate before...so we will see how it goes...I'll test this weekend and report back

Please let me know how it works out!!!

 

[homebrewbeliever]

I built a wooden chest for my cousin's wedding:

I designed it so the drip tray opens and closes as a drawer.

I used pink Styrofoam for insulation and sealed the entire inside with epoxy resin. I also built a false back so I could run the beer lines out the back or through the front if I'm serving bar-style. I used copper lines but I plan to upgrade to stainless coil or a chillplate if I ever end up using it again.

Wow, excellent job! That is beautiful!

 

[Yaason]

It's not a good idea to have beer run though copper. The low PH and CO2 will pull stuff out of the metal. Looks great though.

 

[Jacinthebox]

Please let me know how it works out!!!

will do.

I plan on pushing the beer at different pressures, due to the difference in line lenghts

 

[Jacinthebox]

tap #1 (4 passes) worked extremely well at about 25psi...we were using the 10 sec pour as a baseline.
tap #2 (3 passes) worked well at about 22-23 psi.

no excess foam....10 sec pour...ice cold (first pour was 10 min after putting ice in the cooler).

the test was done with 2 kegs at room temp (about 70f).

6 beer drinkers using this so the tap was being pulled often.

overall this box worked better than I ever expected...next test will be when it's 80f outside...but im confident that we will have no issues.

 

[homebrewbeliever]

tap #1 (4 passes) worked extremely well at about 25psi...we were using the 10 sec pour as a baseline.
tap #2 (3 passes) worked well at about 22-23 psi.

no excess foam....10 sec pour...ice cold (first pour was 10 min after putting ice in the cooler).

the test was done with 2 kegs at room temp (about 70f).

6 beer drinkers using this so the tap was being pulled often.

overall this box worked better than I ever expected...next test will be when it's 80f outside...but im confident that we will have no issues.

Amazing! That puts a lot of my anxieties at ease... today's brew day has had a lot of hangups so far, so this is just the kind of news I needed! Just to be sure that I am understanding what you're saying, when you say tap 1 had 4 passes and tap 2 had 3 passes, does that mean you used jumpers to pass each line through 4 and 3 times (respectively)? Also, were you having the water constantly draining off? And lastly, over how long were your pouring beers with your system?

 

[Jacinthebox]

you got it exactly. ..I didnt have the water running out at the time...I plan to let it drain in the future. ..I used two bags of ice. ..one under the plate one on top...24 hrs later I still had about one bags worth of ice left in the cooler

 

[Spellman]

I've had very good luck with just using double passes on my cold plate. I can get 75* down to about 38* with that.

 

[justtaint]

tap #1 (4 passes) worked extremely well at about 25psi...we were using the 10 sec pour as a baseline.
tap #2 (3 passes) worked well at about 22-23 psi.

no excess foam....10 sec pour...ice cold (first pour was 10 min after putting ice in the cooler).

the test was done with 2 kegs at room temp (about 70f).

6 beer drinkers using this so the tap was being pulled often.

overall this box worked better than I ever expected...next test will be when it's 80f outside...but im confident that we will have no issues.

Have you had an opportunity to see how it performs at 80F yet? I just built a 3 tap, 6 pass (doubled up the lines) for a party next weekend that starts at 2pm. Temps could be 90F (or 65F, who knows) and I'm really freaking out if I should buy some 5 gallon buckets and ice my kegs to pre-chill them. I can wait till the day of, but some feedback would ease my mind.

 

[Spellman]

You should be fine, maybe try setting the kegs in the shade to be safe. You could always get one of those big buckets with the rope handles and put some ice in there with the kegs if you are still worried. They are only like $10 and are quite useful around the brewery for other tasks.

 

[Jacinthebox]

im camping with it now...yesturday it was hot out...7 adults pulling beer all day and not a warm beer in the bunch.

 

[justtaint]

You should be fine, maybe try setting the kegs in the shade to be safe. You could always get one of those big buckets with the rope handles and put some ice in there with the kegs if you are still worried. They are only like $10 and are quite useful around the brewery for other tasks.

I'm going to buy three 5 gallon buckets just to be safe. At the very least they can hold the extra bags of ice and they'll do enough to cool down the cornies.

 

[Jacinthebox]

Jockey #1

finished Jockey #2

 

[Huaco]

Here's mine... I've got a link to the build thread in my sig-line.

 

[Michele Craft]

Can I revive this thread from way back as I'm thinking of building a jockey box. I won't have a good way to keep kegs chilled when in use so I thought I needed to go with coils but darn they're expensive. In reading this thread, can someone help me understand how you hook things up to have multiple passes through the plate? I plan on 2 taps on my box. Would a plate work if kegs could get pretty warm? When at home we could always set kegs in a big tub with handles but otherwise.... I just can't figure out how you hook up for multiple passes unless you get a plate with many more connections than needed and jumper things like that?