YES! Another Keezer w/ Draft Tower Build!

I didn't do the best job chronicling my efforts, however, I took some picture that someone else could follow. Thanks for all the help that others have provided their own workmanship and lessons learned.

This is a Frigidaire 7.2 Cu Ft. I picked up from Best Buy.

I'll be using an analog johnson control for the temperature which worked great 2 weeks ago.

I went to home depot and picked up 1x8's for the collar which will allow two cornies to fit on the shelf. This keezer is capable of holding 5 cornies if you want. I plan on keeping the CO2 tank outside the keezer, mounted on the side as soon as I figure out how I want to do that.

I found it was easy to remove the previous rubber gasket and then I secured it to the collar. The extra weight of the collar helps create a good seal.

I couldn't decide how I wanted to paint the keezer and decided to just use what I had on hand and that was some aluminum flashing! I will say this stuff isn't the easiest to use especially to make the corners and can easily dent. The pictures don't show the little dings here and there, but in my opinion it looks good and works.

Here is the lid attached to the collar. I wanted the collar to be attached to the hinges and used some screws from a tv mount kit that fit and had a square like nut to secure it to the hinges. It is very sturdy and very happy about it.



Close up of the lid attachment. The brackets surprisingly hold well even being only screwed into the flimsy plastic lid. Before I called it a night I took silicone caulk over all the edges to further help hold together and to seal up any holes coming in.



Freezer with lid:



It works!



Aluminum flashing collar!



Start of the tower:



I haven't decided yet how high the taps should be. I think I will position them around 10" above base of the fridge. What is the standard here? For the tower I plan to do cooling passively and I bought some soft copper tubing to fit the beer line and will run that up almost all the way to the shanks, and fill in the remaining space with spray foam. I plan on 4 taps. More pics to come!

Congratulations, looks like it will be a winner.

Hey are those white plastic barrels in the back of one of your pics used for fermentation? If so were did you,get them?

Nice!! I'm currently planning a keezer using the black Frigidaire 7.2. How comfortable of a fit are the 5 cornies?? Are you using ball locks??

LMGK said:

Congratulations, looks like it will be a winner.

Hey are those white plastic barrels in the back of one of your pics used for fermentation? If so were did you,get them?

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Apex Brew

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f41/giveaway-new-product-grain-storage-fermentors-288678/

I think it was like $25-28 shipped and they use to hold rice wine from china. He gives them a soak in some oxyclean to get rid of most of the smell. Mine had a slight smell still so I took some hot tap water with oxyclean and let them sit for 2 hours and that cleared it right up. They have a great two piece lid that provides a great seal. You can use it to ferment in, store grains, etc.

I may actually put one or two near my sink and save water from my counterflow chiller to clean things.

BigTerp said:

Nice!! I'm currently planning a keezer using the black Frigidaire 7.2. How comfortable of a fit are the 5 cornies?? Are you using ball locks??

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Yup, I use ball locks. IMO, 5 fit without much of an effort. Three scattered on the floor with two on the collar. Some people have mentioned having to extend the collar to fit two kegs there, but I didn't find that to be true. You offset them slightly on the collar and its not a problem.

A 15.5 G Sanke will also fit on the floor of the freezer, but it takes all the space.

Also note to anyone painting PVC. Even after a 24 hour dry period it seems really easy to leave finger prints on this. I'm going to take some clear coat spray to 'seal' the surface to see if this cures this issue.

One question: Where will you put the keezer so that you can open the lid to change kegs? The reason I did away with my tower was that it was a real PITA to pull away from the wall to open, even on casters.

It will be against a wall, but I didn't find it too much of a pain to move around with one of my buddies sitting in it to simulate weight. On average it's only going to have 4 cornies in it.

After playing around with that tower some more I think I need to scrap it. The paint I used is just terrible on that pvc, practically rubs off and scratches very easily. I need to research some alternatives. I was wanting to avoid going all out and building a box around it and a base, but almost looks like I have to do as I probably just need to build a coffin box.

Unless anyone can think of alternative ideas to a draft tower that I can use to match the aluminum flashing I used.

So I pretty much hate the pvc tower and how flimsy it is, etc. I went to a reclaimed construction materials store and found this:



It is just a steel box that is 12" wide by 10" high. I decided to use this for my 'coffin tower'

Sanded some rough spots and drilled holes:



Primed:



Sprayed:




Now the biggest problem I have is how do I complete the top of my keezer? I like the aluminum flashing on it and thought about maybe just covering the top with it, but its not really the most durable stuff. I could take some plywood I have and use it on the top, but then what do I do with the stain since I have a white keezer with stainless steel looking collar?

I insulated the keezer collar and actually didn't notice I left it plugged in while I left the lid on and it surprisingly didnt turn on that much. I'm guessing the cold air sits at the bottom of the keezer. I plan on putting in a computer fan into the freezer once all is set.

I used soft copper lines to help insulate the lines. The lines are bent slightly so they sit against the back wall. My keezer will fit 3 kegs on the floor in a staggered setup, which allows me to have the copper pipes take up a little space. It also makes it nice that I don't have to have all the tubing jumbled up. Here are some pictures:

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I need to reposition the copper tubes to go a little higher up so it cools better. I don't have a kegged batch to test foam issues yet. I used originally 10' of beer line for each one.