Beer Taps

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

Hey Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone knows much about beer taps? I have a beer gun for my home brew kegs, but i want to set up a keg fridge in the house like those fancy city folks. A beer gun is a bit trickey to do this with and is a bit high maintenance compared to a tap through the door of a fridge.

The propper beer taps that go through the door in a fridge are a bit expensive and id really want three or maybe even four of them. So i was thinking can i just use a stainless ball valve and maybe make a nozzle on on the lathe?

Hillbilly

[Strontium Dawg]

Check out keg king. He sells taps a lot cheaper than most places.

A plastic brumby faucet attached to a beer line actually pours a pretty bloody good beer too, and for about $5. You'll just have to open the door every time you want one. If you're going to get taps, make sure they are forward sealing type so they are easily sanitised.

[Sallubrious]

I reckon you could make your own, but I don't know if it would be worth the hassle.

If you do, it would have to be something that opens and shuts off quick or the beer would foam up. A ball valve could do the trick but most of them have a heavy feel to them (especially new ones) and you might get a few frothy glasses of beer until you get the hang of it.

I tend to agree with Glaukus, for the price you'd pay for one from keg king, it wouldn't be worth fucking around with a home made tap. Buy a few extras and if anything goes wrong you could just slap another one in.

[Strontium Dawg]

Yeah actually I didn't even think about the foaming part...maybe hillbilly drinks flat northern ales with little to no carbonation in which case a ball valve may work, kind of?

[ghosty]

too dear at keg king.. well, why dont you buy them off-shore? that way you will pay about 1/5th the price (actual retail). any food grade tap 316 stainless will work fine. it's beer man, it's not complex.

the amount of "foam" you get will depend on the pressures used, line thickness etc.

(looking at "keg king" i see many of theirs are chrome plated brass (contains lead) and if your like me, you have come to learn that chrome plating will NOT uniformly cover the inside of parts, under standard chrome plating methods) thus, any old bath taps will be the same (health wise) as many of the keg kings cheap (shit) taps. obviously mounting the tap through the fridge is a no brainer.

Edited February 15, 2016 by ghosty

[Sallubrious]

Yeah the pressures and line sizes are important, but if the valve opens or closes slowly you'll get a glass full of foam. You need something that snaps open and closed.

I lived in pubs for years and it's a common mistake for new bar maids to open or close the tap slowly and fuck it up. If you snap it open and closed you can pull a well gassed schooner with almost no head in one go ( not that most want that though )

& if you go into a UK pub and pull a beer with any more than a few mm of head, they'll blow it off and give it back to you and say " fill the fucking thing up "

[ghosty]

you can (but nobody does) do that here too. you have the right to refuse such a pour.

i found heaps of stainless fast open lever type beer taps for 10-20 bucks AU. they have short mounts but thats no problem is it.. just rivet a nice plate out from the fridge a bit to mount them onto and run you line through and into it. make a nice little hardwood shelf to sit ya beers on too while your at it. there is also many "sanitary parts" that you could use in addition. but, like any parts worth buying you wont find them in australia... trust me on this. i have been building world first tech for more than 27 years, and i can NEVER find a single bloody part here. EVER.

realy, any tap will do, it's just a matter of playing with pressures and learing how best to use "your system".

Edited February 15, 2016 by ghosty

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

i want to give it a go just for an experiment now.

Lets see what happens!

[ghosty]

i want to give it a go just for an experiment now.

Lets see what happens!

That's the spirit . If you get stuck on fittings to connect hoses etc. american ebay under "sanitary parts" should sort you out. that's my method of madness, lol.

Oh, dont know if you intend to take lines through the door, or the side of the fridge. I'd go through the side myself. Think, the side of a fridge is a blank canvass to your drink station.

[Sallubrious]

Does that work for the newer clean back fridges without an exposed condensor at the back Ghostly ?

I know the older ones with an exposed condensor coil at the back have no gas lines in the side lining, but I've never looked into the design of the newer models. If they do, I suppose it would be limited to one line on each side at the most.

[ghosty]

good question matey,

There are many types of fridges with all kinds of designs. mostly to provide the biggest internal space with the smallest external size. To achieve this, your dead-on, you will find a vast array of different ways folks have battled this issue. This leads to some interesting cooling system designs indeed to hide evap and condenser coils and lines all round the darn thing. they COULD be aluminium but more like they'd be copper coated steel so you could use stud finder etc.

There are 2 ways I'd approach such delema. this depends on your overall idea for the modification's your after.

1/ Drill hole into side while keeping it shallow. only let few mm of drill tip inside (insert drill into chuck far down or use cable tie etc.). Then pick into it / push through screwdriver etc. to see if you hit anything (generally, on a line or two goes through the side, no coils as such, inspect you fridge and see what you can tell).

Feel round in circle inside the wall of the fridge, scrapping away with screwdriver (or other pointy thing) to see if you have much room or any obstructions.. continue.

or

2/ The simple way if installing a shelf and splash-back board, mark a box the width of all your taps lines etc. and some 2 inch up and down more than you need for your hose / fitting access on the side where you want you shelf / taps to be (normally some 900 high) and cut into it carefully with a thin metal disk, removing the sheet metal. viewing you "sparks" as you cut in order to guage how deep you are and keep pace on your cutting to avoid going to deep.

then push into it in proposed tap locations, moving them if need be.

In the side, normally as said, should expect 2 lines but not always some there. once you are dealing with internal expanded foam, you can see better, and you covering over with a back-board. so, pick away

The lines inside should be very tough, you shouldnt easy break them, and they will be felt through a drill as the only other thing your drilling then, is soft foam.

The lines, i find are normally about middle of foam. Imagine how the fridge is set-up and injected with expanding foam, to keep wall thickness thin, and no lines rattling / wearing on the external or internal surfaces that would annoy purchasers, they would keep the lines as close to middle as practical / possible.

If you feel you might have coils in side, keep fridge on and fell for temp. or drill holes to explore inside here n there. as they'd be simple to close over neat if you find that rare occasion, you have removed wrong side lol.

The outside will not be much issue, the inside however will have to be sealed so keep you exploring, to the outside of fridge.

thats bout it i recon.

Edited February 15, 2016 by ghosty

[Sallubrious]

I'd guess the evap coil would be as close to the internal skin as possible for max cooling efficiency), so it's probably safe to drill the metal outer skin and then dig/ probe as you suggest until you reach the full depth of the insulation foam.

I think a lot of them have the evap in a semi enclosed top skin with slots/holes to let the cold air drop out, sometimes with a fan to circulate it.

So it would probably be fairly safe to plow in, it's just the off chance of hitting the feed and return lines to and from the evap, but I'd speculate most fridges would run them close to the back (unless the condensor or evaporator encompasses the sidewalls as well). I'd hate to see someone carelessly ruin a good fridge.

Maybe drilling closer to the front of the unit would be a safer bet if you were speculating where to drill the side of a clean back unit ?

Edited February 15, 2016 by Sallubrious

[ghosty]

I often see system lines (feed / return lines) running down on angle in side of clean back fridge's. I have seen condenser in side wall (in fact, i think my current fridge is that way too) but often hidden under / back. Newer defrost types can have loads more "shit" in them too, again, often in back.

It's one of those things, you have to just accept some risk. though not much as those lines are normally farkin tough! (well until the evap, so, say, one weaker line) don't know how you go so far as to drill into or cut it myself.

anyhow, end of the day, it's nothing that cant be welded and regassed if the fridge is high cost. just do it!

Edited February 15, 2016 by ghosty

[ghosty]

hmm, thinking.. you have power in the fridge, you want fast tap action, wonder about electronic tap? solenoid's anyone? I pour my beer with my foot operated electric tap, don't know about you.. oh, and why not.. add some lights too

Edited February 15, 2016 by ghosty

[El Presidente Hillbillios]

last time i found the cooling coil in a tuckerbox i converted to a kegorator all i did was give it a light mist and set it on as cold as it would g on a hot day. it condensated exactly where the lines were perfectly