Newbie Here - Bar and Wall Draft Question

Thanks for stopping by.

It looks like you have thought this out and the planning is underway. My advice follows.

Install a 3 faucet wall mounted rail, like this-

just, you know, 3 faucets. This is a real PITA to mount to a wall, as it is heavy and also a lever that wants to detach from the wall when you pull a pint. It will not attach to drywall or Durorock. 3/4" plywood, at a minimum. You do want the air to return to the cooler. This helps a lot.

You will want this tower to be for air, not glycol. Unless you install a glycol system, which is an order of magnitude more complex, but we can do that too.

Another option is this, cheaper and includes the drip tray. And it still needs the air to be ducted and returned.

Drip tray - you need to drain that. Plan for the plumbing. The tail piece beneath the tray sticks out, so if it is not on a bar it will show. And you can not drain directly into your household sewer without a P trap or an air gap. This part is significantly more involved than you think it is.

You will want to install a more robust fan than the one in the BM23.

4" Grow Fan, with variable speed control. 4" is the smallest you can get, but use some Fernco reducers to get the fan wedged into your 2" or 3" duct. Fairly cheap. Don't push maximum cfm, too much pressure usually. Just enough to get good flow. Otherwise you can blow out every small gap.

Insulate the crap out of the duct, and seal everything with silver tape. It must be 100% air tight. Even still it will sweat a bit.

Still with me?

Good. Because you now need some 1/4" or 5/16" s/s splicers, that is 1/4" or 5/16" to 3/16" choker. The 1/4" or 5/16" is Barrier Tubing, because the choker you get in the tower (usually 5' of 2.2 to 3.0 psi resistance) is likely not enough to make it all the way into the kegerator. And the Barrier is needed to bridge the gap. This should be Barrier, not PVC, but PVC is not a crime either. If it's not brand name and NSF, then yeah that is a beer crime and that's on you.

Do something like this... installed in a door way at a client with next to zero floor space. We did not do the funky art work.



The kegerator is turned around so the door is behind the faucets.

That's it for now.
If you have additional questions, let us know.

Cheers

 

You're welcome.

CFM of the BM23? No idea. My guess is not much, maybe 20 cfm. Just a guess. In any event it is just barely enough for a short tower.

The 3/16" line is choker, so you want that to be used as resistance. 15' is way too much, as it will be something like 30 psi to 45 psi of resistance. And that is never ever going to work with a keg that has 12 psi of applied gas pressure. More on that later...

So if you need say, 15 psi of resistance, you get it from the choker, mostly. Ok, that could be 5 feet of 3/16" choker (if it is 3 psi per foot) but because your design may be more than 5 feet from keg to faucet (and you do need some slack in the kegerator) you will be using Barrier from coupler to choker, because Barrier is the opposite of choker and provides arounds 0.2 psi per foot of resistance. A few feet is essentially meaningless here. 5/16" or 1/4" works well. The less diameter the better as there is less beer in a smaller ID tube, and less beer means less beer to keep cold.

For the fan, you want it to be one continuous loop. Out to the wall, into the tower, back out from the tower and into the fridge. Any spot where there is beer in a tube should be the same temperature as the keg, as best as possible.

This is an involved system design, but not terribly complicated. If you can wrap your head around the requirements it is actually quite a simple solution.

Please feel free to ask any questions. Personally, we like to help folks who have thought out some of the design elements instead of throwing it against the wall to see what sticks. Looks like you are on your way.

Oh, also, double your budget. Then tell your S.O. the budget. Then throw it out the window and add $500.

Cheers

Edit;
I should add that your proposed design, you know, it ill get beer in a glass. It will produce a shit ton of foam too. But if you don't mind a massive glass of foam and dumping money down the drain every time, literally, then that is also a solution.
Honestly, not everything needs to be a NASA design.

 

Sorry, missed some questions...

Bevlex is great.
Kuriyama is great.
EJ Beverage is great.
Just buy it from a known vendor and don't buy generic no name shit. Do not buy Watts from HD or Lowes. Unless you want your beer to possibly taste like burnt rubber. Get NSF 51, get name brand, get bulk.

We recommend buying choker in bulk, since it is much cheaper this way, and you will eventually replace it. A box of 100' is $50, more or less. Or pay a few dollars a foot. Go figure.
Cheers