Jockey Box - What is better?

[oc eric]

What is better? A 50' stainless steel coil or a cold plate?

[maltbarley]

Stainless coil.

[BrewMasterBrad]

If you are building or buying a one or two tap box, coils are more efficient. We chose to use a cold plate for the club box since it would physically impossible to have six coils in one cooler.

[jward]

My 2 tap jockey box has a cold plate. You'll be able to test it out yourself. I read a web site that suggested cold plates work best with a block of ice and the drain open. Ice sucks up lots of heat when it melts. I don't think you can use an ice block with coils, but they work better with the drain closed and the coils submerged in the ice and water mix. I expect that both get the job done sufficiently well that other factors might help you make the choice better.

[gromitdj]

I've been told that you have to keep the kegs iced down with a plate chiller if your moving higher volumes. The two tap box that I rented from O' Shea's for my wedding had coils and it worked perfectly without icing down the kegs. Granted the keg's didn't see any extremely warm temps, but my Family and Friends can definitely move some beer volume.

[BrewMasterBrad]

Tyler has told me in the past that he prefers coils also when moving large volumes of beer. I have a two circuit cold plate in my jockey box and I have never had any problems, but I have never used it to serve at a festival where mass quantities are being poured in rapid succession (at the SCHF we pour alot of beer, but they are samples and not full pints).

Another thing to keep in mind is that you will probably need to bump up the psi on your CO2 when serving through a jockey box. The reason for this is because the beer has to travel through much longer lines then when serving from your home kegerator or picnic tap. If the psi is too low, you will get slow pours and foamy beer since the CO2 will start to come out of solution as it travels through the coils or cold plate. I have found that about 14psi works on my box.

[jward]

One should probably avoid letting the kegs get very warm. Warm liquids don't hold CO2 like cold liquids do. I would expect you'd be risking foamy or low CO2 beer even if the jockey box fully cooled the beer again. The CO2 might not reabsorb quickly. You could always try it.

[oc eric]

I finally bought a jockey/draft box for myself. I bought a 2 tap with 50' of stainless steel coils. I haven't used it yet.

I like them so much I bought some to sell at AHP. $274.95

Now I just need a mid-week BBQ to go to