Where to start?

[Edvard_Grieg]

If all of this is in some giant FAQ/primer somewhere that I blindly missed I'm happy to 'RTFM' if someone can point me to it Right now I just don't know what I don't know, I'm happy to read guides if someone can point me in the right direction.

I'm completely new to the beverage distribution end of things and trying to quickly understand what's what. I'm remodeling our basement and putting in a wet bar and obviously some beverages on tap would be a plus! The space can accommodate either something in the counter (standard depth) or behind the wall as the bar will back to an under stairs storage area (easy to stash equipment back there).

I enjoy beer quite a bit, but I'm more for variety and not a frequent drinker, so much of what I drink is bombers, so the setup would likely be for a small keg of a sessionable beer or two, and then I'd want to do 1-2 more taps for seltzer water and/or soda...so likely 2-4 taps total with the seltzer/soda likely getting the most use.

I'm cost conscious, but this does not need to be a budget build either. If there are prebuilt systems that can do all this turnkey that might work well...I looked at NitroBrew as tossing a small keg of Velvet Yeti on nitro in the winter does sound great.

So some of my key questions...
what are pros/cons to undercounted vs behind wall?
What should I expect for maintenance?
What would I need to do to for seltzer/soda? What's involved in swapping this out? From my reading it looks like the water at least can be done in a keg or inline, what's the pro/con? How do you make the soda?
If I wanted to hire someone to do this, who would I look for (I'm guessing this is out of scope for most plumbers)
How long do the beer/water/soda last before skunking/going flat?
I'm sure cost varies, but any ballpark budget I should plan for?
What else should I be asking that I might not be?
What do you wish you knew that you didn't before diving into this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[metaltim]

So some of my key questions...
what are pros/cons to undercounter vs behind wall?
What should I expect for maintenance?
What would I need to do to for seltzer/soda? What's involved in swapping this out? From my reading it looks like the water at least can be done in a keg or inline, what's the pro/con? How do you make the soda?
If I wanted to hire someone to do this, who would I look for (I'm guessing this is out of scope for most plumbers)
How long do the beer/water/soda last before skunking/going flat?
I'm sure cost varies, but any ballpark budget I should plan for?
What else should I be asking that I might not be?
What do you wish you knew that you didn't before diving into this?

Thanks in advance!

I'd say your biggest con to behind the wall is cost. Are you going to enclose and refrigerate that space? That is a big project. For under the counter, just but one off the shelf.. a nice one from micromatic, or a cheap one off craigslist. Put a hole in counter top and voila. For maintenance, you basically just clean lines periodically. Lots of threads on that just search.
Cons of under counter are you are limited in qty of kegs. There are some 4 keg kegerators out there, not many, but that's your limit. It would also be more work changing out kegs (you might have to take several out in order to take out empty one and get a new one in)

Put seltzer/soda in a keg and it's no different than beer. Nothing needs to be done for that. Making soda has a section on this forum, I'd go read through that area.

Beer/water/soda doesn't go flat in a keg, unless you turn off the CO2 supply and release head pressure (or it's leaking out of keg). Regarding skunking; unless you are putting in a glass keg, I don't know how the liquid would be exposed to UV rays.
Ballpark is hard to define. There are kegerators that are $2000 and there are ones that are $300. Do you want 2 taps or 4? Enclosing and cooling a space under stairs could be several thousand dollars, whereas drilling a hole in counter top and hooking up a tower is an easy DIY project, or hire a handy man for $100. You need to narrow your scope to get any decent responses on cost.

FYI, seltzer and soda are highly carbonated compared to beer. You would not be able to have those two types of beverages on the same regulator. A secondary reg, or a second tank with primary reg would be required. This may involve cutting a new hole in kegerator, as most that I know of just have the one hole for a single hose.

 

[bleme]

Here is a great build for a through-the-wall system: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/through-the-wall-3-tap-hidden-keezer-build-done.421282/

I also keep a keg of seltzer water going. To make it I just put about a gallon of ice in the keg and fill it with filtered water. Hook it up to CO2 at 30psi and shake vigorously on its side for 5 minutes and put it in the kegerator. I have 2 CO2 tanks and 2 regulators. One stays at 12psi for finished beer. One stays at 30 psi for selzer water and speed-carbing beer.