"Jockey box" beer cooler

[UpTheToon]

Has anyone tried to build something along these lines?

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Joc ... /?ALLSTEPS

I have a spare cool box, I was thinking it would be good if I could take a keg to the odd event.

I've fallen at the first hurdle of finding an affordable stainless coil. Copper piping is cheaper but not recommended to be in contact with beer. I don't suppose just running beer line though would be very efficient.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[woblylegs]

i think running beer line through would work. be well worth a try anyway.

[UpTheToon]

i think running beer line through would work. be well worth a try anyway.

The plastic will insulate rather than conduct the heat away from the beer like metal would though? At first I thought it would be worth a try but there must be a reason for the shiney coils they are using... maybe.

[woblylegs]

the stainless coil would be better for sure but plenty ice in and i think the plastic beer line would still do a good enough job. would be cheap enough to find out as beer line dont cost that much realy.
also id just use water filled pet bottles froze. then you can just re- freeze them and reuse. save you on icecubes

[steambrew]

A most interesting subject with food for Thought for us all

[UpTheToon]

the stainless coil would be better for sure but plenty ice in and i think the plastic beer line would still do a good enough job. would be cheap enough to find out as beer line dont cost that much realy.
also id just use water filled pet bottles froze. then you can just re- freeze them and reuse. save you on icecubes

Good idea. I'll see if I can gather the other parts over the next couple of months and give it a go

[Fingar]

So I'm thinking of building a jockey box to serve cool beer in the summer months, especially when outside. There are a couple of YouTube vids out there and this great Instructable:

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Joc ... tapcooler/ as mentioned earlier in this thread.

All feedback from the Instructable says 'don't use copper, use stainless'. Is this necessarily true? As UpTheToon says, 'it is expensive', unless someone knows of a cheap source.

Has anybody used a coil of beer line?

Cheers... Fingar

[JamesF]

Beer line would reduce the cooling effect compared with copper, but as it's more flexible and easier to work with you can probably put a greater length of tube in the box to make up for that. You could perhaps even have some perforated plastic "trays" to sit in the bottom of the box with the beer line tied to them running back and forth. It may even be possible to split the incoming line into multiple smaller diameter cooling loops before joining them back together to go into the tap thus improving the cooling further.

James