HomebrewandBeer.com forum

I am making a beer temp right from a stainless steel coil that i will put in an esky and cover with ice when dispensing beer. I was wondering what is the ideal length of the coil for chilling of kegs, I suppose it depends on the temperature of the beer in the keg, desired beer temp. etc...
I have seen one that fits inside a 20 litre bucket.

I have a heat exchanger that drops boiling to 70 deg F or 100 deg c to about 20 deg c) and it is 20 feet long with about 15 feet which actually does the cooling it is 1/2 inch ID. (Really, those are the real measurements on it)

Dogger

Is this for your HB kegs, or 'rented' ones? The rented should be shoved into a cool-room at least overnight before you collect them - if for your own kegs then do the same ........... and then a (say) 4 or 5 inch diameter, 18 to 24 inch coil will cope very well.
Make sure the esky seal is good, and REMEMBER a water/ice mix around the coil transfers the chill better than ice alone. For that reason 'a flat coil' is better than a circular one because if positioned within the lower (say) two inches of the esky then it is effected the most it can be.
Duh!! Hope this helps.

A mate and I mucked around with this conundrum before eventually deciding to make our own "magic box". We never had much luck with the flat panel type system so we went for the stainless coil. The coils were actually cut out of an old temprite (if you can find one, well worth it) and the box was made out of 80mm coolroom panel. An esky would be much easier.

Here are some pictures of it to give you an idea
http://www.daking-dom.com/pics/social/KegParty/index.html

Needless to say that it worked a treat. As rain mentioned, make a slurry of ice and water and enjoy a heap of cold beers.