My Kegerator - The Piano Bar!

soadtool said:

First off, yes, I saw the sticky titled "Show us your Kegerator" and I'm probably breaking some rules by putting this in its own thread but I'm way to proud of my accomplishment to have it lost in the bottom of a 5 year old thread. Second, this post is more of a thank you to everyone in this forum for guiding me to complete this project. Most people I ran this idea past told me I wouldn't finish. But with this community at my fingertips and sometimes searching through pages and pages of information, I was able to pull it off. SO THANK YOU ALL!!!

The idea for this keezer build came to me while I was trying to fall asleep one night last Fall. I had an old, out of tune piano taking up space in my house and I had the idea to use it for my recently acquired hobby of homebrewing. I did some googling and searching through this forum and couldn't find anyone that had done what I was about to do. While true that the final product is not exactly what I had in mind to begin with, it's pretty damn close.

So without further ado, I present, The Piano Bar:

I was pretty bad about taking progress pictures but here are a few more to show the ins and outs of the project:

All-in-all, i worked on the project for about 4 months on and off. The most difficult part was removing the guts of the piano and building the cold box (so much calculations!). The mini fridge used is the third I went through. The first I busted the freon line. The second didn't work when i finally got it disassembled. The third was the most complicated to disassemble but ultimately worked.

I'm happy to answer any questions related to this build. I'm even more happy to receive suggestions for improvements from all of you smart people.

Once again, THANK YOU HOMEBREWTALK.COM MEMBERS!!!

Click to expand...

Mic Carp said:

so i got this sucker home and have been deciding how to go about it. keep the strings? keys?

Click to expand...

SoulToast said:

The keybed is very likely in a one piece tray. Maybe two screws near the corners where the legs are. Undo those and it should be able to lift and slide out.

Be careful around the strings! Especially if they're original. It'll take awhile, but loosen the tension on every last one before you go messing with the frame.

Those things are under lethal tension. I apologize for the slightly patronizing tone there, but I've heard horror stories from piano tuners over the years.

Removing the string frame will gain you decent space and save a lot of weight.

Once that's taken care of, everything else should be pretty easy to deal with.


Might be kinda cool to fit the taps into the roll area so you can close the doors and go into stealth mode. .

Click to expand...