What is the best way to insulate beer lines through a wall?

[Bo0sted2g]

I am planning on a little kegerator build. The mini fridge will hold 2, 5 gallon kegs. The space I have for the kegerator is in a hallway closet and have a nice spot to run the taps through the wall and flush mount the pouring station.

What is the best way to Insulate the beer lines so that the first pint isn't warm?

 

[mongoose33]

You need to do something like those with a Tower do--you create a chase or hollow area through which the lines run, and run cold air into that to keep the lines cold.

What you can try is to encapsulate the lines in pipe insulation which will, once they cool, keep them cool for a while. But unless you chill those lines from the kegerator to the faucets, until the beer chills the lines and the faucet, you're going to have foam.

Its not necessarily going to be warm--if you have 3/16" lines, there just isn't a lot of beer in there, and they'll chill fairly fast--but you will likely get a little foaminess in the first pour.

 

[IslandLizard]

Make sure when you drill holes through the refrigerator, you're well away from any of the coolant system pipes.

 

[Bo0sted2g]

You need to do something like those with a Tower do--you create a chase or hollow area through which the lines run, and run cold air into that to keep the lines cold.

What you can try is to encapsulate the lines in pipe insulation which will, once they cool, keep them cool for a while. But unless you chill those lines from the kegerator to the faucets, until the beer chills the lines and the faucet, you're going to have foam.

Its not necessarily going to be warm--if you have 3/16" lines, there just isn't a lot of beer in there, and they'll chill fairly fast--but you will likely get a little foaminess in the first pour.

If I ran PVC pipe out the top and then ran the lines through the pipe would the fridge cool the pipe aswell or would I need to rig up a little computer fan to push the air into the pipe?

 

[mongoose33]

If I ran PVC pipe out the top and then ran the lines through the pipe would the fridge cool the pipe aswell or would I need to rig up a little computer fan to push the air into the pipe?

You'll need to push air through it. The computer fan is a common method to do that. But think about how you'll do that. I think typically what people do is they'll run cold air in a tube up to the end of the run, and then let it flow back past the lines. You can't just point the fan to the bottom of the pipe, the air won't circulate. Something like flexible plastic conduit would work for that.

A PVC pipe isn't a bad idea, but you'll have to insulate it either on the inside or outside. Those towers you see generally have some sort of foam insulation inside against the metal. If you don't do this you'll get condensation on the pipe.

 

[IslandLizard]

If I ran PVC pipe out the top and then ran the lines through the pipe would the fridge cool the pipe aswell or would I need to rig up a little computer fan to push the air into the pipe?

Use a fan!
Insulate the pipe/duct and keep as short as possible. It would be best to have a return on longer ducts.