Just retrofit my Sanyo 4912 kegerator to use both beer gas and CO2

I'm itching to make an Irish stout, so I now own a nitro faucet and I added an external beer gas tank to my Sanyo 4912 kegerator a few minutes ago. The whole process took less than an hour.

I wanted to use an external tank so I can have a CO2 beer on tap as well as a nitro one at the same time. Setting up to use an external tank in addition to the internal CO2 tank is a snap and requires no modification of the fridge itself (excepting pulling out the rubber drain plug thing, which I did when I first modded the fridge).

Here's the 75/25 beer gas tank, a used repurposed 20 cu ft nitrogen tank I bought filled from Richmond Oxygen for $83+tax ($65 for the tank, $18 for the beer gas). They paint them black I suppose for easy recognition. The regulator will have a gauge cage on it as soon as I get it - the one I was sent was missing the bolts.


I used an inline QD on the hose so I can remove the excess hose and tank from the fridge if I need to move it. It was hard to push the hose through the drain hole, so that's also about as far as I wanted to yank it through the fridge.


The hose goes up through the drain hole, along with the temp controller probe wire and the blower cord that was already installed. The drain tray can be removed for installation - it just pulls off.


And finally, a view of where the hose comes out in the fridge (behind the CO2 tank, which is removed for this photo). I can keep it coiled on the shelf beside the internal CO2 tank until I need it.

Nice job. I have the same gauge. Man those are friggin high (gauge) readings though.

I ended up drilling holes in my 4912 cuz my 20#'r wouldn't fit inside.

Great job.

The tank has been sitting at around 72 degrees, and nitrogen exerts higher pressure than CO2 in a tank since it's stored in gaseous form. I'm not sure what a correct reading at that temp would be, but the gauge reads around 1900 PSI on the high side.

More nice work, Buford!

Does it matter how much length of gas hose you use from the regulator to the keg? If so, what would you recommend as a minimum length to get from the tank, down into the drain hole, and up into the keg disconnect?

Thanks.

The length of the gas line doesn't matter. I think I bought 6 or 7 feet of hose just to make sure I had enough, but some of that length is just looped around the regulator as can be seen in the first pic.

I just moved my tank outside of the 4912. At first is was a PITA trying to get hose through the hole, but then I had an enligtening moment. A bit of KY worked like a champ to pull about 5 feet of hose through there. I'm not sure if the warming KY helped to make the hose softer though

I'm a bit worried about blocking up the drain hole. I figured it shouldn't matter since the fridge won't be anywhere close to freezing. Currently it's set to 38F. We'll see what it's like in the summer time with the humidity though.

I managed to stuff both a 5# CO2 tank with dual regulator and a 5# beer gas tank with single regulator in my Sanyo at the same time. I can still fit two 5 gallon cornies so it's a breeze switch around multiple beers.

Wow, how did you fit all of that in there?

It took a little shifting, but everything fits in nicely now.







The 2.5 gallon corny is just there because I needed to empty it. A 5 gallon one will fit in it's place no problem.

Sluggo said:

It took a little shifting, but everything fits in nicely now.

The 2.5 gallon corny is just there because I needed to empty it. A 5 gallon one will fit in it's place no problem.

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Did you have to remove the shelves on the door to do this?

turtlehead said:

Did you have to remove the shelves on the door to do this?

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Yes I did.