Easy Keg Coolers

[BlackDuck]

Since I volunteered to bring beer to my nephews graduation party in June, I wanted to have something to keep the kegs cold during the 3 hour ride and also have something to serve from too. I found keg coolers on HBT and decided to make two.

I'm almost done. Just need to fill the gap in the lids with spray foam and drill two holes to run the beer line through.




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[Beer-lord]

Great idea!

[Inkleg]

That's pretty cool.....see what I did there .

I'm guessing that the service line will be coiled up top and outside? Just thinking out loud because I might make something like this too. What if you mounted a tap to the cooler. Drill one small hole in the side to feed the serving line through, have about 10 feet of line coiled inside the cooler submerged in the ice and attached to a tap handle mounted to the side of the cooler.

[Inkleg]

What size coolers are those?

[ScrewyBrewer]

Wow, great idea! Now you've got me thinking on doing something just like that too, thanks for sharing. They look like 10 gallon coolers?

[Dawg LB Steve]

Seen something similar for 2.5 g kegs, they just use the ball lock/faucet assembly.

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[BlackDuck]

They are 10 gallon coolers. I am running the beer line back into the cooler through a hole in the back, wrapping it around the keg, then bringing it back through another hole at the front. This way, most of the serving line is inside the cooler and resting on top of the ice and staying cold. I will most likely add faucets to the at a later time.

The kids are hallow, so I used spray foam to fill the gaps and sealed it up with Gorilla tape. So the lid is now somewhat insulated too. Here are some more pictures.





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[Inkleg]

Gottcha. Nice work there! Linky to the HBT thread? Plus what about an Antler Brewing stencil to replace the Lowes logo.

[BlackDuck]

Here's the link:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=352550

And yes, it will be branded correctly, just have to get the stickers made on VistaPrint.


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[Dawg LB Steve]

Here is the link I was talking about for the ball lock faucet.
http://www.homebrewing.org/Keg-Faucet-A ... p_909.html

[BlackDuck]

That's a good idea Steve. Thanks for posting that. That's a new one for me. I wonder how much I would have to reduce the CO2 pressure. I currently run about 12 to 14 psi with a 10 foot beer line.

EDIT....I may have found the answer to that question. This was posted in the customer review section:

"I bought this for a big camping weekend with a lot of people because I thought it would be less messy and would make my portable keg cooler have a cleaner look. I read up on using this system, and asked around my homebrew club, everybody said you have to turn the pressure way down or you get all foam. I tried 5 psi and it was all foam, the only time I could get a decent pour was by turning the pressure down to 1-2 psi, which caused problems with the lid gasket sealing on my keg, so I lost a lot of Co2 messing with it. In the end, I purchased a shank to put in my cooler, and used the disconnect and the faucet for the shank, which worked perfectly. Working with AIH has been great, and the parts of this set up are great when they are stand alone parts. Somehow for this to work better, it needs more resistance to limit foam."

[alb]

Seen something similar for 2.5 g kegs, they just use the ball lock/faucet assembly.

I have a couple of those and they work great since the beer comes straight from the bottom of the keg via the dip tube. No over-foaming, no warm beer, no picnic faucet tubing to mess with.

[Inkleg]

I have a couple of those and they work great since the beer comes straight from the bottom of the keg via the dip tube. No over-foaming, no warm beer, no picnic faucet tubing to mess with.

What psi are you running when you use that tap alb?

[alb]

I have a couple of those and they work great since the beer comes straight from the bottom of the keg via the dip tube. No over-foaming, no warm beer, no picnic faucet tubing to mess with.

What psi are you running when you use that tap alb?

5-ish

[BlackDuck]

Here's the end result of this project in action. The setup worked almost perfectly. I say almost because I had a little foaming issue going on. After the keg sit for a while, the next pour was very foamy. Then the second pour after that was perfect.

After some discussion with others, we are thinking the beer lines were a little to warm. Even though they ran back into the cooler and around the keg, they were sitting in top of the ice layer inside. So next time, I'll submerge the lines in ice and see what happens.

As for the beer, it was very well received. The Czech Pils is
gone and about half of the Pale Ale is gone.



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