5 Tap All White Keezer Build

So I got the 7.2cf GE freezer from home depot and I just got it mostly put together. I have to add a few more beer lines and she'll be all done. Everything is pretty much the same as everyone else's so I think I will just talk about the little tweeks I made. Anybody has any questions, feel free to ask.

Here's what it looks like on the outside :





My keezer is going in the garage so I didn't feel the need to make it all fancy and stuff, I just wanted it all white so it wouldn't look too bad.

First off I decided that I wanted to insulate the collar but didn't want to see the insulation. So I have a 1x12 with a 1/2" thick piece of blue insulation board which will we covered up on the inside by an 1/8" thick piece of birch plywood on the inside. On the top and bottom edges I have a small strip of poplar so the edges would look nice and provide a good seal.













I forgot to mention I put aluminum foil in the middle as well to help with the r-value based on a recommendation from someone on here. Also before I put the inside skin on, I added some blocking to add extra support for gauges I would be mounting on the inside.

How do you get 5 legs in your GE? I can only fit 4

I put one on the hump. That's why I went with a 1x12 collar.

I found i could only fit 5 kegs in my freezer so i needed 5 holes. I also bought a digital temp gauge to mount on the front along with a towel bar (thanks to great ideas i got here!) So here is the collar all drilled out.





First coat of white appliance paint after one coat of primer (overall about 3 or 4 coats of paint).




Installed all my perlicks.

BullGator said:

I put one on the hump. That's why I went with a 1x12 collar.

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I put one of my hump as well. Are the other four tight in the bottom?

I have ball lock kegs and it was a tight squeeze but 4 fit without major pushing.

Just hooked up the first 3 kegs plus 1 sparkling water keg as a piece offer for the wife.





So I have 3 single gauges coming off my tank. The reg on the tank I set at 30psi. The first 2 gauges are also set at 30psi. I have the first 2 at this pressure because I have had great success with quasi-force kegging at 30psi for 2 days then down to 10psi to finish it out and for serving. The last gauge is hooked to a 4 port manifold so I can have multiple kegs at serving pressure.

Here's the final product (minus one keg...but don't worry, got 1 aging and 2 batches fermenting):

Comments?

Very Slick looking like the White scheme.

clean, good looking build... well done

Subscribe. Craigslisted the same fridge for $40 a few weeks back and finished my Omron PID temp controller and now it's on to building the collar and distribution manifold.

BullGator said:

I found i could only fit 5 kegs in my freezer so i needed 5 holes. I also bought a digital temp gauge to mount on the front along with a towel bar (thanks to great ideas i got here!) So here is the collar all drilled out.

Click to expand...

Can you post some pics of the interior of the collar with the temp. gauge mounted? I'm really interested to see how you did yours in more detail. Also, is it just a digi temp gauge or a full PID with control of the fridge?
Thanks

looks good. how did you mount the drip tray?

fc36 said:

Can you post some pics of the interior of the collar with the temp. gauge mounted? I'm really interested to see how you did yours in more detail. Also, is it just a digi temp gauge or a full PID with control of the fridge?
Thanks

Click to expand...

I just cut out a rectangle large enough to barely fit the lcd in. The lcd has a little lip on it that is larger than the rear body so I had a little room for error. I then used white spray foam to insulate behind.

Now the temp gauge isn't really as effective as I thought. When building my keezer, I didn't think there would be that much of a temperature differential between the top and the bottom. I read about people building fans for the inside and I was planning on doing that, but I didn't think it would be that bad. In order to measure the temp towards the top, I just wrapped the cord with the sensor around my shanks. I had planned on eventually doing something else with the sensor but as you can see in the pic, it's still like that today. I don't really have a problem with the temp of the beer or cycling of the keezer so I kind of stopped worrying about it. It's really easy to install the sensor and looks cool so I am glad I did it (and sensor was only like $20).

To make it more effective, I think I could somehow attach the sensor to my jar of water I use to regulate the digital temperature controller. I don't think the small lcd display controllers temp probe is water proof so I couldn't put it in the water. Leaving it hang lower didn't seem like a good idea as well because it would be touching the walls or floor and read colder than the ambient.

I don't know. Let me know what you think. Any ideas would be appreciated.

NCGrayson said:

looks good. how did you mount the drip tray?

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I got the idea on here to use those really strong magnets. So I bought a long drip try and bolted on some L brackets. I have the magnets which attached the drip tray to the freezer.

Sounded good right? Here's the problem. The magnets aren't strong enough to hold the weight of the tray and say...a glass of beer your friend pours and for some reason decides to rest on the tray. Or especially the weight of a freshly filled growler where your friend rested on the tray which then collapsed to make a huge mess...two different times.

So now I have kegs under there in case anyone puts anything on there (or in the case of my retard friend, forgets my little design flaw).

I could add more supports, but those little magnets are expensive. You could get tjem for like $25 but it still wouldn't hold a growler.

NCGrayson said:

looks good. how did you mount the drip tray?

Click to expand...

I have a very similar build. I attached the drip tray using 2 L-brackets attached to the Keezer with 3M OUTDOOR two-sided tape. Has been fine for nearly a year now...

free2scour said:

I have a very similar build. I attached the drip tray using 2 L-brackets attached to the Keezer with 3M OUTDOOR two-sided tape. Has been fine for nearly a year now...

Click to expand...

So your tray supports a full beer? What about a full growler?

BullGator said:

I just cut out a rectangle large enough to barely fit the lcd in. The lcd has a little lip on it that is larger than the rear body so I had a little room for error. I then used white spray foam to insulate behind.

Now the temp gauge isn't really as effective as I thought. When building my keezer, I didn't think there would be that much of a temperature differential between the top and the bottom. I read about people building fans for the inside and I was planning on doing that, but I didn't think it would be that bad. In order to measure the temp towards the top, I just wrapped the cord with the sensor around my shanks. I had planned on eventually doing something else with the sensor but as you can see in the pic, it's still like that today. I don't really have a problem with the temp of the beer or cycling of the keezer so I kind of stopped worrying about it. It's really easy to install the sensor and looks cool so I am glad I did it (and sensor was only like $20).

To make it more effective, I think I could somehow attach the sensor to my jar of water I use to regulate the digital temperature controller. I don't think the small lcd display controllers temp probe is water proof so I couldn't put it in the water. Leaving it hang lower didn't seem like a good idea as well because it would be touching the walls or floor and read colder than the ambient.

I don't know. Let me know what you think. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

I didn't realize that it was just a simple temp gauge. I thought it was a whole 1/16 DIN PID controller that was poking right through the collar. I was thinking of putting a PID through the collar and then wiring the SSR controlled outlet to the back of the collar and then plug in the fridge to that. Or even building my PID into a small project box and building that into the collar and then insulate it. Thoughts?

Looks great. Not to pick on spelling, but I found it actually pretty funny that you gave your wife a "piece offering" not a "peace offering".

BullGator said:

So your tray supports a full beer? What about a full growler?

Click to expand...

First and foremost, Your build looks great!

For the drip tray I decided to use heavy duty Velcro and can confirm that it easily supports several full beers with no challenge.

I just did a quick test with a full growler (just water in there for the test), and the drip tray was able to handle the load. The 3M tape is likely a better choice, but I've had no problems thus far.

77punx said:

Looks great. Not to pick on spelling, but I found it actually pretty funny that you gave your wife a "piece offering" not a "peace offering".

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I actually gave her both.....

fc36 said:

I didn't realize that it was just a simple temp gauge. I thought it was a whole 1/16 DIN PID controller that was poking right through the collar. I was thinking of putting a PID through the collar and then wiring the SSR controlled outlet to the back of the collar and then plug in the fridge to that. Or even building my PID into a small project box and building that into the collar and then insulate it. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

I have not looked into those items enough to be able to provide you any useful points. I've seen those PID devices but they look pretty long which would be hard to put in the face (may be one of the reasons you are still kicking it around). If so, then I can think of 2 options. One, just make your keezer only open with the whole coffin. So it can stick out however far and not get in your way. Two, if you want to double hinge, then make the collar similar to mine, but attach the freezer lid to a shorter second collar where all you have is the PID installed. It would be like taking my collar and making a cut around 1.5 to 2" from the top and putting the top hinges there.

The thing is having more stuff in your way when you open the top will be annoying. I really like having 2 hinges because I'm always opening it to tinker with gauges and beer lines. But having a shorter, second collar for just the PID wouldn't be too bad.

If none of those work, how about installing it vertically at the end of the collar?