Any thoughts on the best way to lift heavy kegs (~160 lbs.) into a chest freezer style keezer? Or horror stories? I'm stressing about it and I haven't even put a collar on it yet--and am thinking about either 6" or 8". Yikes!
If you have an unfinished garage then there are cheap hoist just like the ones shown at harbor freight in the post before me. If you put your chest freezer on wheels or on plywood with wheels you can make your self a ramp that will allow you to put the keg in by yourself by sliding it into place right out of your car -one end rests on your collar the other at the bottom of your freezer. You will probably want to pad the ends so that neither your collar or your freezer are damaged - a well mounted, sturdy collar is a must too. An alternative to this is pipe bent in the shape of an upside down "U" (with padded ends on the freezer side) that you roll the keg up and then down into the freezer - also do yourself a favor and have a solid way of keeping the lid propped up, turn off your gas, secure your faucets - so that you don't have other issues to mess (remember you will be alone) with while wrestling a 155 lb keg.
also do yourself a favor and have a solid way of keeping the lid propped up, turn off your gas, secure your faucets - so that you don't have other issues to mess (remember you will be alone) with while wrestling a 155 lb keg.
You mean like wearing my LifeAlert necklace:
"Help, I've been hit by a big can of beer and I can't get up!" (how many times I've said that...)
Ooh, I like the electric one. Then I could just roll the keezer underneath and let the keg down into it. It'd be about $110 for shipping + tax to get it to me (the 440 lb. electric hoist). Now to figure out the cheapest solution not prone to failure. Possibly even the hand levered hoist, though electric is so cool!
You might even consider layering some CDX plywood, or some other moisture friendly wood, over the bottom of the freezer to help distribute the weight more evenly.
I imagine the bottoms of those freezers weren't designed for a point load support of 160 pounds across a 19 inch circle. I could be wrong.
Also if you haven't bought your (faucets, hoses, regulator tank etc) yet - I recently bought a complete chest freezer coversion kit from KegCowboy.Com for a lot less than I could get the parts or kit anywhere else and noticed that there is an option for sanke kegs too. Here is the kit I got but I added 4 pepsi kegs for $90. You would of course choose Sanke. http://www.kegcowboy.com/digiSHOP/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=22
That is a good point about rolling but I usually have to let kegs sit over night to lessen the foam caused by the car ride (usually the guys loading it have sloshed it around so much that it doesn't really matter if I drive like I am in the General Lee on the way home) and it seems that this is adequate quiet time for the sediment to also settle down.
Getting 15-gal kegs into chest freezers
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