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| Kegerator Gallery |
Over the xmas holidays my wife and I visited a friend (Jessica) who has been brewing her own beer for years. She brews her beer into kegs, and always has a fresh and tasty brew on tap. When we got back to LA a few days later my wife said "Hey, why don't we brew our own beer?"... One month later I've got four 5-gallon kegs full (mostly) of four different beers, and have been working on giving them a properly-chilled home. Read on for the construction details of my kick-ass kegerator.
I figured if I was going to start brewing my own beer, I was definitely going to keg it (thanks for the inspiration Jessica!) Much easier and quicker than bottles, and you can drink it within two weeks of brewing! Not to mention, how damned cool is it to have fresh home-brewed beer ON TAP in your house??
It seemed that the solution most people chose was either a chest freezer or upright fridge or freezer. I thought a chest freezer with two double-faucet beer-towers from BeverageFactory.com on top would be nice, so I started looking.
After searching high and low for a chest-freezer that would suit my needs, it looked like I was going to have to spend at least $300 (new) just for the freezer. That was out of my budget for this project, so I started combing through craigslist . Lucky me, I found someone getting rid of an upright freezer in perfect condition for just $75 -- now we're talking!
The nice thing about using an upright freezer was that I could now put beer faucets right on the side of the thing, rather than using a faucet-tower (which would have been more expensive.)
As soon as I got it home I made sure the kegs would fit comfortably. There was room for two, but if I wanted to have four kegs on tap I would have to remove the built-in shelves. The shelves were molded into one piece of plastic which made up the inside of the door, and held the sealant trim in place.
I removed all the screws under the trim and got to work with my dremel. Ten minutes later I had removed all the shelves, just leaving the outer edge which the trim fit around. When it was all done, I was left with just the relatively ugly door insulation. It's sealed, so no need to worry about the insulation getting moisture in it.
The next step was to control the temperature. The freezer worked great, and kept the temperature at 0f, too cold for the beer! Lots of time spent with google and various home-brew forums led me to the only reasonable way to solve it - a temperature controller, sold by KegWorks.com. It works perfect, and keeps the fridge at 40f, just right for the beer.
Last thing to do is drill holes in the side of the fridge (for the beer faucets and air coupler), install the shanks, attach the faucets, and run the tubing to the keg-couplers! Finding the proper sized shanks for the beer was no problem. Unfortunately, I had a hard time finding the parts I needed for a co2 inlet. Since I wanted room for four kegs inside, there was not going to be enough room for the co2 bottle. I didn't want to just drill a hole and have a hose hanging out of the side or back of the fridge, I wanted to use a standard quick-disconnect air-fiiting. The guys at All Valley Hose & Industrial Supply helped me out with a brass coupler that was going to be close enough. This lets me easily disconnect the co2 bottle to take it in for refills, or to use elsewhere as needed. I think it also looks pretty nice, having a clean coupler on the side like that.
Big thanks to all the people who made this project possible:
- Tavern Service Inc., 18228 Parthenia St., Northridge CA (818-989-3171)
- M & M Tools, 7544 Balboa Blvd., Van Nuys CA (818-989-7514)
- All Valley Hose and Industrial Supply, 16735 Saticoy St., Van Nuys CA (818-989-7055)
- KegWorks.com
- BeverageFactory.com
