The Man Cave is pretty much complete! w/pics

So here it is, my Man Cave. I love to check out other peoples setups and get ideas and such, so I thought I'd put some pics up for others to do the same.

A brief history, I do remodeling, and finished off the basement about 2 years ago. I had a kegerator previously, but knew nothing of homebrew. I built the bar with plans to have guiness, bass, boulevard wheat, & miller lite on tap, and custom built the bar to accomodate the taps and have a keezer underneath. Funds & time ran short, so this area has just been a second kitchen/wet bar ever since.

At Christmas, a buddy received a LHBS gift card, so he brewed a batch in January. He turned me on to it, and it got the ball rolling again, but with new plans. The plan now was to have 6 beers on tap, plus 3 primary and 3 secondary fermenters to keep things flowing.

Here's the fermentation area. Unplanned at the time of construction, but was pretty happy when it fit 6 carboys perfectly. Three 6.5G in back, three 5G in front. The way it's setup, I can roll the keezer forward, rack the secondaries straight down into the kegs, then rack the primaries forward into the secondaries, and then it's time to brew 3 more!



The keezer holds six 5G cornies & two 5lb co2 tanks (only one co2 tank hooked up at the time). It runs 3 kegs per tank with shutoffs & tees setup to run all six kegs from either tank, or a third outside tank should both run out. I also used a ranco digital temp controller, seen mounted to on the left side of the keezer.







There are 2" pvc lines that run up through the keezer lid to the coffin I built. It is actually 1.5" sch40 with 2" sch80 pipe used to make sleeves so I can slide them up and roll the keezer forward. I planned to put quick disconnects on the lines here, but after my order arrived I realized I had only ordered the female ends. Duh. There is enough excess line that I can still roll it forward without a problem. The left is with the sleeve slid up, the right is with it closed.

Sorry, not the best pic.


These lines run up to the taps, which I built from red oak and gave 5 coats of high gloss polyurethane. Try to ignore the burn marks on the wood.
That's what happens when you loan your mitre saw out and it comes back with missing teeth (never again). None can be seen with the lid on though, so it's all good. The inside is lined with 1/4" thick moisture barrier styrofoam (typically used behing vinyl siding and has moisture barrier front and back)



Inside I used two 50mm 12v DC computer CPU cooling fans and made a plate from a scrap piece of aluminum to mount them to. They are powered by a 9v DC power supply (old cordless phone adapter) This flows the air up/down the lines from the keezer to keep the beer cold up to the taps.

At this point only 3 lines are connected.





Here's a shot of the coffin. Again, not the best pic, but hey, this was all taken with a cell phone.



And this is the entire setup from behind the bar.




And that's it. Sorry for the extremely long post. Hopefully it helps get someone else moving on their project. When time permits, I'll put together a page with more detailed information on my site.

Cheers!

HAHA! I get to be the first one to tell ya that your man cave is frigin sweet!





Eric.

Yup. Just plain awesome.:rockin:

Even though I hate Budweiser I must admit the Bud Man cartoon is pretty cool. As well as the rest of the setup.

Very nice.
Any problems with pulling out the chest to change out kegs?

Very nice.....

Awesome! Consider me very jealous.

Just think, you could have had Miller Lite pouring out of that instead of homebrew...

nice work. Just put something over the carboys to keep the light off of them.

looks good. where did you get those drip mats? not that i love sauza, but i'd like to find one or two for my keezah.

Awesome set up!

What are you using for fermentation temp control, or is your basement always 62F?

Nicely done!

Very clean! I would love to see how that nook fits in with the rest of the room.

Also, I know I'm overly paranoid about UV light and my carboys, but don't you think you should have the window above your carboys blocked off?

Wow, thanks for all the compliments!

Kauai_Kahuna, pulling the keezer forward is actually pretty simple. I mounted rollers from an old fridge on the bottom (not the simplest task to install them, but it worked out well and with a low profile) For now I just slide up the sleeves I made, and roll it forward. There is plenty of slack in the lines, and for the time being I just slide it back down into the keezer as I roll it back. It rolls pretty smoothly, but the real test will be when the other 4 kegs are full. I think it will be fine though, since it does roll smoothly now, but I may have to mount a handle on the front to make it easier. I ordered some polysulfonate quick disconnects to install at the point where the sleeves are, thinking they were complete disconnects, but when they arrived they were only the female ends. They will be installed soon though.

And thanks for the tip about covering the carboys and/or window. Any constructive criticism or tips on improvements would be great. I hadn't worried too much about it, because it's a small basement window, and I keep the blinds turned up all the time to block direct rays. In the pics it looks much brighter than it really is because there are 6 flood lights in this area, but they don't emit UV rays. If you look at the window to the left of the Bud Man sign, you can get a better idea of the amount of light coming from the windows.

drat, I'll add some pics of the rest of the Man Cave soon. The rest of the bar area is basically a full kitchen minus a stove (didn't think I'd need one down here, but now that I homebrew I wish I had installed one ) To the other side of the bar is a 100" screen that drops down with an HD projector and 5.1 HD surround sound. Games on the PS3 are freaking sweet! :rockin: There is also a full bath.

It was a lot of work, that took me a while to do, and I had to sell my baby (a solar yellow 2000 jeep wrangler, 6" lift, 37" boggers, winch, 1 ton drivetrain, etc...) to do it. It was the only brand new vehicle I have ever owned, and I did the entire build up myself. Sickening to think of the money put into it on top of the $22,500 price tag, and I sold it for $10k with only 33k miles on it at 8 years old. It was a toy that time just didn't allow me to use anymore, and after setting so long that the battery had to be replaced twice, I finally gave in and sold rather than watch it rot away in the driveway.

But now I have new toys!

android said:

looks good. where did you get those drip mats? not that i love sauza, but i'd like to find one or two for my keezah.

Click to expand...

I really couldn't tell you where they can be bought. My wife worked at a restaurant, and came home with them some time ago. I am going to put in a stainless drip tray with a drain though, so when that day comes I'll pm you for your address and they're yours.

Awesome!!!!

Hang Glider said:

Awesome set up!

What are you using for fermentation temp control, or is your basement always 62F?

Click to expand...

Man, I must be blind cause I missed this question too. Right now I don't have any temp control. It stays right around 63-65F down here, so I've not yet had to worry about it.

Awesome Man Cave!! I will sit here, look at these pics, and dream about the day when SWMBO will finally let me build a man cave like this!!

One hell of a man cave! Want to come install one of these at my place...theres a free beer in it for you!!!

I'd be glad to as soon as you move to the KC area , cause the only time you'll find me in Atlanta is during a layover on the way to Florida! Oh, and you'd have to remove the letter "a" from your last sentence.

great setup, what else is down there?

Cool, thanks for posting.

That's what I'd be with 5 taps goin. Beautiful man cave build dude!

Personally I see many things wrong with your setup. First and most important of all is that IT'S NOT MINE! Second is that IT'S NOT MINE!

Guess nothing else matters except GREAT JOB - LOOKS GREAT

Salute!

That is awesome! Great job.

I am in the process of designing my draft box as well and had a couple questions:

1. What are the dimensions of your draft box? Looks like a perfect size.
2. Where do you find 1/4" thick moisture barrier styrofoam? I went to Lowes to pick some up today and the kid I asked looked at me like I was from another planet. Is this something to be picked up at any hardware store?
3. Did you use waterproof insulating tape?

humann_brewing said:

great setup, what else is down there?

Click to expand...

Dead Bodies....

But honestly man I like the setup... My only suggestion would be up the anti and find a way to get more primaries in there!!! MUHAHAHAAH

NEEED MOOOORE HOMEBREWWWWW!!

jmkratt said:

That is awesome! Great job.

I am in the process of designing my draft box as well and had a couple questions:

1. What are the dimensions of your draft box? Looks like a perfect size.

Click to expand...

The box is 18"W x 3.5"H x 5.5"D. I used 1x4 oak for the sides & 1x6 for the top/bottom.

One thing that I would change if doing it over is either the placement of the holes in the bottom for the beer lines, or making it a bit deeper (front to back) so the lines were able to run straight down, instead of having them run to the other side.

The original plan was to have the 2 fans side by side, but because I didn't have my shanks/tailpieces at the time, or accurate dimesnions for them, I ended up having to put one on top of the other and run the beer lines across to the other side since they couldn't make the turn to go down. I think I would have gotten better airflow with my original plan.

Right now, with the keezer kept at 35*, the box will stay about 50* with an ambient temp of 70-75. There is more that I plan to do to help get this temp down, such as adding a fan inside the keezer to circulate that air, insulate the lines running down to the keezer that house the beer lines, and getting a better seal on the lid of the draft box.

jmkratt said:

2. Where do you find 1/4" thick moisture barrier styrofoam? I went to Lowes to pick some up today and the kid I asked looked at me like I was from another planet. Is this something to be picked up at any hardware store?

Click to expand...

What I have was used behind vinyl siding as extra insulation/moisture barrier. What I have came from a commercial supplier, but you should be able to find something suitable at Lowes/HD. Regular 1/4" styrofoam should work fine.

I have access to a lot of it, so if you really want the same stuff, just PM me and I'll send you some for the cost of shipping. I do a lot of shipping, so I'm not worried about the cost of packing materials, just shipping cost.

jmkratt said:

3. Did you use waterproof insulating tape?

Click to expand...

I didn't use any waterproof insulating tape. I simply siliconed the pieces of styrofoam directly to the wood. I plan to use some type of flexible insulated duct work, or something similar, to insulate the lines running down to the keezer.

surreal_trip said:

Dead Bodies....

But honestly man I like the setup... My only suggestion would be up the anti and find a way to get more primaries in there!!! MUHAHAHAAH

NEEED MOOOORE HOMEBREWWWWW!!

Click to expand...

I actually took the advice others gave me in this post and turned the fridge to the right of those carboys into a fermentation chamber. I can only fit 4 carboys in it though, so I let them go through active fermentation, then move them up there, for now. It did make a huge difference in the taste of my beer, especially once summer hit and things warmed up. No more fruity flavors in my beer with a temp controlled fermentation chamber!

As I plan for my switch to AG, and am looking at going bigger (doing 15G batches), I'm realizing I need a large area for both fermentation and keeping kegs/bottles chilled for immediate use. At this point, it's looking like my side of the garage is most likely going to become a walk in cooler & fermentation chamber. :rockin:

And I had to move the dead hookers to the attic, the smell was beginning to rise up into the rest of the house. :cross:

Right on man, I appreciate all the feedback, that is extremely helpful! Thanks for the offer on the styrofoam, I am going to stop by a couple shops this week and sounds like I should be able to find something similar, but I appreciate it!

Looks good man. My boys birthday party is this Sunday, and then my bar build finally begins .

How is the draft box lid secured, or is it?