Am building a new bar in my house. Still working on the design of the overall bar, but am of course focused on the most important part. Started pricing out some kegerators with more capacity and OMG, they are expensive. Not ruling them out, but want to see if I can’t come up with something a bit more economical yet still be stylish.
My dream would have been to have a 4-6 tap tower coming out of the bartop, but I can’t seem to think of a way to do that without running lines an extended length, which would necessitate using glycol to keep the beer cold, and then you start having to adjust CO2 due to longer resistance, etc. Just seems like a whole host of problems that KISS would prevent.
Do people install Towers on top of chest Freezers? I could see building collar and then putting a nice topper on the freezer with a T-tower on top, but then again, how would you open the top to be able to switch out kegs?
I could always resort to running taps out the front of the collar, but that wasn’t the look I was hoping for – but if that’s the best bet, so be it.
How long is this bar? How about hinging the bar top somehow? Bring the beer lines out of the side of the chest freezer collar and up to a tap tower that is not on the hinged part of the bar top.
that is a GREAT idea. i’ll need to figure that out but it is possible - the bar will be in a corner - so L shaped. was planning on the freezer going along one wall, and then building a bar front to form the longer part of the L.
What’s on the other side of the wall? If it is a store room you can put the freezer in that room and then pipe into the bar through the wall. A fan to recirculate the air in the freezer might keep your lines cool enough.
If it’s an outside “never mind”. :D Then hinging the bar top might be your best option.
A few other convoluted ideas come to mind but I wouldn’t do any of them myself so I won’t toss them out.
FWIW, I have seven taps on a tower on my chest freezer. I used long machine screws to hold it to the lid; I think maybe I epoxied it for safety but it’s been so long I don’t really remember. As it happened the spacing for the tower was the same as an 80mm PC fan so two of the bolts are also holding that in place.
thanks for the replies. I think I am going to go the chest freezer route, building a collar and routing some insulated PVC (4-6"?) out the collar and then angle and into the bottom of the bar for a draft tower. Draft lines will run through that to the tower through the bartop. it will be a short run - about 18" out and less than a foot up. I think with a blower fan/hose it will be workable.
I think the big job is going to be building some type of façade to conceal the chest freezer, which my SO said is her only request. And so the project begins…
