Taps in the Kitchen!?

[DrYeast]

My wife casually let slip that she wouldn't mind having taps in the kitchen (versus a kegerator in the kitchen) as long as it looked classy. Ok, I got her drunk, but it's a verbal contract.

I'm considering the expense/work of running lines from a kegerator in the basement up to the kitchen (longer lines, insulated or cooled beer lines, etc.). I'm not shy about doing it myself, I own the place, but I'm stuck on the plan. It's an old house, short basement (7 ft ceiling), skinny, low R-value plaster walls, etc.

Has anyone successfully done this? Anyone have any good ideas? Am I getting in over my head? Should I just keep the taps in the basement? I need some intel.

[ajdelange]

The easy part is dealing with the vertical rise. Assuming that you will put the taps as high above the kitchen floor as you currently have them above the basement floor you have an additional 7 feet of rise which means that keg pressure will have to be 3.5 psig higher to maintain the same rate of flow (assuming the same diameter tubing is used). The hard part is keeping the lines and tapping cabinet cold. The neatest (and most expensive) way to do this is with refrigerated beverage tubing sold for this purpose. It consists of an insulated bundle of beverage tubes with 2 additional refrigeration lines. Cold glycol from a refrigeration unit travels up one of these, loops through the cabinet/tower (thus cooling its interior) and returns to the chiller. More awkward but less expensive systems use coaxial air ducts and a blower in the cold storage area (usually a walk in cooler but I suppose a chest freezer could be modified to include one). The beer lines run up the center tube along with cold air forced into it by the blower. The cold air reaches the cabinet and circulates through it before returning to the cooler via the outer duct. The outer duct needs to be insulated. The disadvantage here, relative to the glycol systems, is that the outer duct has to be about 6" in diameter and thus requires a large hole in the cooler and in the floor as compared to about a 1-1/2 - 2" hole (guessing here) for the glycol bundle.

Go to a website where they sell draft equipment (Rapids, Micromatic) to get an idea what this gear looks like and what it costs. You may be able to kluge something up that works in basically the same way but at much lower cost.

[DrYeast]

yeah, the up and down is definitely the easiest part. I saw the air duct-cold box solution, and it looked like overthinking the solution. The glycol thing could work (bucket of glycol in fridge, pump and insulation) as long as I got a decent pump that could handle the head pressure. I'll think on it, if I come up with anything innovative, I'll post plans and pics.

[captain carrot]

A guy I know put a matching narrow base cabinet and top on the end of his existing cabinetry so he wouldn't have to modify what was already there. He ran the tap lines through a vacuum cleaner type hose from the temp controlled freezer in the basement to protect from light. He had a four tap tower on the countertop. He had some foaming issues so the glycol sounds like a good idea. A lot better than running down to the basement for a beer every time. Some us could use the exercise though.

[bcmaui]

Wonderful idea - I'm gonna get my wife drunk and ask that question as well.

What is a basement?

[tiny]

Wonderful idea - I'm gonna get my wife drunk and ask that question as well.

What is a basement?

Obviously you've never been to the midwest bcmaui.
The basement is a magical place to have parties, have a storage system, get laid, and hide from bad weather.