Hand-Crafted Tap Handles

A couple of months ago, one of the members of our homebrewing club offered to help anyone who was interested make their own tap handles. Eric had just gotten a small lathe for his wood-working shop. The type of lathe he purchased was most often used to make fancy wooden pens or small ornamental dowels, but Eric figured it could also make great tap handles. He wanted to get a feel for what the lathe could do, so he wanted some "guinea pigs" to try different techniques out. I immediately volunteered, as anything we could come up with would be better than the small plastic handles I was currently using.

On three nights over the span of a couple of months, I met Eric in his shop and we created three completely different handles. Eric let me select pieces of wood to use from his furniture-making scrap pile, which had a lot of off-cuts. I selected three different woods, so that I could get significant variation in the tap handle appearance (from left to right, in the picture, we have maple, cherry, and walnut wood). We drew some inspiration for the tap handle shapes from on-line pictures, but most of it came spontaneously as we worked with the wood. I was able to help do some of the less detailed work, but Eric usually had to step in at the end with his more delicate touch.

Thanks for your help, Eric. I had fun making them and I think they look great.

Kegerator Conversion Complete

I have finished converting my kegerator so that it can use three taps. When I first bought the kegerator, I was amazed to discover that the refrigerator portion could accommodate three 5-gallon corny kegs. However, the draft tower only had one tap on it, which prohibited me from taking full advantage of the keg space. I thought of several different ideas on how to get more taps on the tower, but each idea had problems. The biggest problem is that the tower column is only 2.5" in diameter, which means that the faucet shanks would run into each other if they were anywhere near one another. Add this to the fact that if I drilled additional holes much lower on the tower, I would no longer be able to fit a pint glass under the new faucets.

In the end, I decided on adding additional space at the top of the tower. Here is how it worked:

• I saw a cool looking old champagne bucket that had wooden handles and a neat two color metal finish. I found it at a garage sale for $6.00


• I drilled a 2.5-inch diameter hole through the bottom of the bucket and its insulation so that it could slide over the draft tower pipe.


• I drilled three 1-inch diameter holes through the front of the bucket in a triangle shape, to fit the three shanks and faucet adapters.


• I mounted brackets to the bottom of the bucket and angled the brackets up through notches in the bottom bucket hole and attached them to the draft tower. They were spaced so that the bucket slid over the original draft tower hole to make the entire piece look seamless.


• The top of the brackets were mounted to the draft tower at the top, using bolts, nuts, and washers, so I did not have to drill a hole in the tower pipe. This would allow me to disassemble the bucket contraption and the original tower would still function (not that I plan on doing this).


• I put all the fittings together and poured a pint. This, actually, was after much adjustment and grumbling on my part, and at least one puddle of beer on the floor.
  

Here you can see my "frankenstein" of draft towers (yes, that is the blade of a sword on the wall . . . don't ask, it is a long story). I think it looks pretty nice and I can say I made it myself. It certainly cost less than a new three tap draft tower would have cost, which is around $300. I probably spent about $150, but that is because I bought two expensive forward-sealing taps. The actual parts, with normal taps, would have been less than $100. Cheers.

I NEVER Want to See a Bottle Again!

I did a marathon bottling session today. That was for three batches - pilsner, dunkleweizen, and blackberry mead - which took six hours. I removed labels from about 70 bottles then sanitized and filled 144 of them. I had delayed bottling the batches for a number of reasons and this was the first chance I got.

I really understand why so many homebrewers want to keg. Why spend six hours cleaning and filling bottles when you can do it in 30 minutes and not even have to wait the two weeks for bottle conditioning. The cost is a bit of an issue (probably at least $150 for the keg, fittings, and the CO2 tank) and then I need to fit it in a refrigerator.

But, it might be looking into though, especially after today . . .