My Keezer thread (I finally have one!!)

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JoshuaWhite5522

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So after forever I finally have the chance to start my keezer. The best part is the wife said I can put it in the living room, provided that I make presentable.

Here it is, 7.1 cubic foot fridigare
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Marked everything out
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Tile is laid
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Top is cut out
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This is as far as I got before the wife and kid came home. Will continue the journey tomorrow
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Awesome, good luck! I have an old school double kegerator, but I just picked up some extra kegs, so now I'm looking to set up a keezer.

I saw a sweet one in a recent byo magazine that was black with a dark cherry stained wood collar. Keeping an eye on craigslist, but might just have to drop the $250 on a new one later this year, and gather my accessories in the meantime.

Look forward to seeing how your build goes! Have fun!
 
Thanks I'm hoping to get the the irish coffin built tomorrow as well as getting a first coat of stain on everything. The latter might not happen since I no skills as a wood worker, so it seems like everything is taking twice as long as it should.
 
So I made a little more progress today while the wife was at work. I didn't get as far as I would have liked since on her way out of the garage she smashed the passager mirror into the side of the garage door from. Anyway I did get a few things done

cut the holes to feed my lines through
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finished the coffin
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and did a quick test fit.
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thats about as far as I got, maybe if I'm nice I can sneak away from the wife and work on staining tonight.
 
a little more progress was made today.

laid the bar top onto the keezer
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filled around the pipes from the beer lines wiith expanding foam
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mounted to coffin
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and here is a shot of the inside of the coffin
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Well I fell short of my goal of finishing today. Still seems to be a lot of work left for me to do on this pig.

but i did get the coffin insulated
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and glued the skin around the keezer
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Hard to tell from the last Pic, but did you leave a gap for cooling between the plywood cladding around the freezer and the skin of the freezer? I believe (but could be wrong) that modern chest freezers shed waste heat via their outer shell. I'd hate for the compressor to burn out after doing all that work. Other than that little worry, it looks very good!

This thread mentions it on the first post.
 
no the plywood as right against the freezer, there has been serveral threads and argue both for and against. You can't see it but the back side is completely open, and I cut away the playwood around the vents for the compressor. That being said we will see how it all it plays out I guess
 
question: why is the tile not level with the bartop? planning on pouring expoy or something or am i just missing something obvious?
 
epoxy is an idea I might go with, or i might just leave it. To tell you the truth, my woodworking skills are not the greatest, so this was just the easier option for me. If I were to do it again i would just forget the tile all together.
 
That looks great!

So how many cornies can you fit? I always thought the 7.2 cubic freezer could fit numerous kegs. Are you wanting to leave room to condition others?

When I build mine I want as many taps as possible! :)
 
That looks great!

So how many cornies can you fit? I always thought the 7.2 cubic freezer could fit numerous kegs. Are you wanting to leave room to condition others?

When I build mine I want as many taps as possible! :)

I thought about adding more tap, if I had gone with a collar i could fit 6 in there, but I'd never have the times to fill them all. Plus this project was costly enough. without doubling the hardware cost
 
JoshuaWhite5522 said:
I thought about adding more tap, if I had gone with a collar i could fit 6 in there, but I'd never have the times to fill them all. Plus this project was costly enough. without doubling the hardware cost

I hear ya. I bought some hop rhizomes on a whim so it looks like my next project is going to be a trellis.

I'm considering just doing the collar with taps coming out of that. I really like the look of a tower though. Yours came out looking really good! Time to put it to work!
 
I really want to get some rhizomes and set up a trellis, but after devoting a week to the keezer, I'm sure the wife has built a list of jobs I'll have to do before I can get the next brew in.
 
OK Josh, here's what I'm thinking in regards to you coffin cooling issues. If the pictures on this thread still reflect your current setup, meaning nothing has been changed or added, then I have a few suggestions to prevent foaming issues (unless your foaming is due to overcarbing, etc., which is a seperate issue). The first is insulation.....if your insulation is still what is shown in the pics, then it's not nearly enough. I like the way you used expanding insulation around the PVC ports within the wood columns, but the coffin itself needs a lot more. The styrofoam insualtion sheets that you used are very low in R-value and it appears as though you used just one layer except for the corners (again, unless you have added more since the pics.).

I would replace the front piece of wood on your coffin and raise the level of the taps a couple of inches. I would then caulk the hell out of every wood joint in the corners. Then I would systematically fill the entire coffin cavity with closed cell polystyrine insualtion panels creating a channel for the air to flow up to the shanks and back down to the exhaust port. Of course you have to be creative in making an insulation access panel to get to your shanks. Raising the shanks a couple of insulations will ensure that there is adequate R-value in the floor of the coffin (cold air sinks). Coffins are much more efficient when there is a small column of airflow up into the coffin, across the shanks and back down to the exhaust port. The smaller the volume of space needed to keep cool, the better. You cannot insulate these things enough. In my experience, insulating the entire cavity of the coffin except for the intake port, the shank channel, and the exhaust port, is by far the most efficient. Also, you need to add weather stripping to your wood access panel on the back to prevent air leakage out. Again, a tight fitting insulation panel for access to the shanks is need beyond the wood access panel. I have pics if this doesn't make sense.

This moves onto my next point. How exactly is your fan set up? I read on NocturnalEMT's thread that you are using a computer fan. Are you using one or two? I'm not sure if a computer fan is going to move enough air volume or not, but I think that you have a better chance of success if you have one fan blowing into the coffin (intake) to bring cold air up out of the freezer and into the coffin and another to exhaust the warmed air back out of the coffin and back down into the freezer (exhaust). I used Inductor fans that are designed for HVAC systems as duct boosters. They move a ton of air and are not terribly expensive. Computer fans may work if you have an intake, an exhaust, and a smaller column of space to circulate through, and of course, you are well insulated in the coffin.

If you get a chance, post a few more pics. of your current setup, where your fan (or fans) is positioned, your back access panel to the coffin, etc. and we can go from there. I have reinsulated and tweeked my coffin a few different times and now have it working great. I have a TSS2 controller, so the fans for the coffin are controlled independent of the freezer compressor. They run off of a seperate temp. probe inside of my coffin. My coffin fans turn on for less than a minute, a couple of times per hour, which they are designed to handle. My compressor only runs for a few minutes every few hours. You mentioned that your compressor turns on for 10 minutes about once per hour. That's a little too frequent IMHO. I have some ideas for that as well, if you care to here them.

Your setup will be fine and functioning much better with a few tweeks! I'm happy to send you pics. and give you as much advice as I can, but I know how frustrating foaming issues can be and am happy to help you out if I can. Let me know.....Good luck! :mug:
 
Hop, Thanks a million for the advice. I am still going to redesign a few things, but I will definitely take what you said into consideration. I am going to use the pink foam for insulation in the new one, and will use multiple layers to make the smallest amount of airspace. This was my first major wood working project, and my joints are a bit ugly, I did caulk the seams of the joints, but am only using one fan the runs all the time. I currently have the probe for my controller just inside the keezer, I plan on putting it in liquid that should help with the amount of time it spends coming on.
 
Sorry to revive an old thread, but just thought I'd post a pic of the new kegerator. I finally lost the kegerator battle, and it moved out to the garage where it was repurposed as a frementation chamber. I converted a regular fridge into the kegerator.

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