Side by Side Fermenter/Keggerator

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cas3439

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2011
Messages
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Location
Pittsburgh
Doing a Side by Side build for a friend. The fridge is a Maytag. I made my own last year but didnt take any build pics, so I decided to follow this one. Today I installed the top and bottom fans to be used as a push pull system for cold air from the freezer portion. Normally I only use the top fan if lagering (heater if fermenting at warmer temps) but will use both to cold crash or just change temps faster.

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More of the bottom fan. They are 120v AC fans. I and using laundry duct louvers to help keep the 2 sides separate. The last pic is just a screw driver holding the louvers open.

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Here is the top fan being installed. It will be below the control housing on the fridge side. I mounted the fan in the wall here because I didnt want to take up room in the freezer side, plus I still have to add a piece of ductwork to pull the cold air from behind the rear wall (just like the original system did). The bottom fan just sticks into the refridge side and will be below the shelf, so I didnt care how far out it stuck.

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Finishing up the top fan. I had to build a spacer out of wood for the fan since it didnt sit entirely inside the wall.

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Here is the fan shroud I made out of some sheet metal. I had to cut a new hole in the false back wall to allow airflow to it. I put the old shroud back on after plugging it up with insulation. I figured I already lost that space to the new one so I putting it on wouldn't matter.

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Starting on the freezer side door. This refridge is better than my last since it has screws holding on the plastic. I had to cut the other one with a razor knife. I pulled the wire out of the door so I could cut the counduit shorter since I only needed the wires up top at the controller, then fished them back in. Next I cut a piece of 3/4 plywood to cover up the hole left by the water/ice dispenser.

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The freezer door continued. My buddy won't be putting taps thru the door right away, but I set it up for when he does by adding the 2x4 to the back of the door. The last pic is the board I will attach to the front of the door to cover up the water/ice dispenser hole and to drill thru for the tap(s).

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Here starts the Refridgerator side door. I decided to keep and use the egg storage compartment this time. I cut it off of the rest of the door to make it easy to put on and take off since all of the wiring will be behind it. The doors will have to be off when placing the finished product in his basement, so instead of taking the entire door apart I only have to take the top part off to disconnect the wiring.

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I put 3 switches inside the egg holder door to turn on and off the fans and heater. The wood on the back is just to add support since the plastic is pretty thin. On the bottom I cut a hole for a romex connector used for the wires coming from inside the refridge. The last picture is a shot of the wooden spacers I hade to make. The Love controllers are too deep without them.

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Go figure, I didn't take one!!! I picked it up from my buddy's house and had to take the doors off to get it out of the basement. I also left all of the shelves and drawers at his house. Since the first thing I would do would be to take the doors off... well you get the picture (no pun intended) Trust me when I tell you it was just a tall white rectangle with an ice/water dispenser on the outside with shelves and drawers inside. It was actually in very good shape. Sorry...
 
Nice job! I've been doing work on the outside of my side by side, purchased the ebay controller but have yet to find the time and/or nerve to start with cutting up the inside. I am planning to do a kegerator/fermentation chamber as well.
 
Thanks. Time is the big part. The wife sometimes complains about the time I spend in the garage! If you have everything you need, start cutting!
 
Back to the freezer door today. In goes the Love TSS2 Controller. Next I attached the wood to the front by going thru the back, then added the insulation.

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The sheet metal goes on next. I took the plastic out to make more room on the inside. I used the old plastic for a pattern and screw holes. Thats one side done! One more to go...

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Worked on the internal wiring today. This is the nice Wal-Mart 200 watt heater that works nicely and has a fan of its own. After looking at my wiring options I decided that I had the most room behind the false wall of the freezer side so I ran all of the wires there to splice together. I know it looks like a rats nest but when working with stranded wire it's tough. The original control housing went back in nicely and looks like you could adjust the temperature settings from there...

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It's ALIVE!! I was suprised how nice and clean the outside looks. The red displays look nice against the white. I left it running last night for a test run and everything seems to be going off without a hitch. I still have to add several clamps to the wiring harness going to the door and and mount the temperature probes on the doors. Then I move on to the shelving. The part that sucks is I have to take both doors back off to get it back into my buddy's basement. The freezer door is easy, as I used the old wiring going to the door, so I just hace to disconnect the connector, but the refridge side I have to take everything apart to take the door off. Maybe my next build I'll use some kind of connector to make things easier.

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Installed the shelves today. Tomorrow I will put the standard white wire shelves in top of these silver ones. The silver ones are for the strength, and the white ones have the wires close enough to place beer bottles on top of without falling over. The shelf with the fermenting bucket on it is just the original adjustable shelve with the glass taken off and silver (and eventually the white) wire shelf attached to it. That way the shelf can be moved if not fermenting and other glass adjustable shelves added for more beer storage. as it sits, 4 corny kegs will fit on the freezer side (CO2 would have to be in fridge side or outside), and 2 fermenting buckets on the right.

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This is exactly what I have been looking for, its a nice clean build. I just hope that I can find a cheap side by side to start this as my next project! I am very jealous
 
Thanks JWBC, finding a cheap fridge is key in keeping the cost down. I got the white shelves installed today. I just zip-tied them to the silver ones. I also mounted the freezer side probe holder. The white disc (just used a hole-saw on some of the plastic I took out of the fridge) just helps keep the probe in the middle of the container. I will fill each container with water when I'm done. I have read other posts about the probes not being water proof, but I haven't had any problems with my other build I built last year. I figure I'll just continue like this until I do have a problem, then I'll make some sort of thermo well.

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Thats it for the build. I didn't put any taps thru the door on this one, but I set it up for them. I just wanted to show you what it looks like. Here are some of pics of my first build with 2 taps. Thanks everyone for posting your build threads so we don't go in blind when we try to do our own!!

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well this throws a kink in my plans...... that thing is awesome. I was working on a chest freezer fermentation chamber / keggerator cabinet idea. My space is limited, so I don't have room for 2 large things. This seems far simpler.

I wonder if you could further divide the one side into two sections one for lager, one for ales?
 
Thanks Ceedubya. You probably could but it would take another controller I think, plus it would be a lot more work. If you get a big enough fridge (like my red & black one), you can just stick your bucket or carboy in the freezer side like I am doing now with a lager, leaving the fridge side for the higher temp ferments. Its a bit colder than I like the drinking temps out of the taps, but thats the price you sometimes pay for the home brew. :rockin:

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good idea. My lager brews are few and far between anyways. But with a unit like this, who know? I may do a lot more!

3 more questions:

1. Do you have a wire schematic?
2. will 4 kegs fit in the freezer side?
3. do you gain anything (room) by removing the fridge inside door and using metal too?

there is an appliance repair / recycle place down the road from me that always has a bunch of these units that people drop off. He fixes them up, or makes sure they are up to snuff and resells. I have bought several things from him at decent prices (and he gave me a free old 1960's all metal stand up freezer to use as a smoker). So, I'll be paying him a visit this week!

One of these wrapped in wood panels would be KILLER! :rockin:
 
Same here with the lager brews, I just happen to have one going at the moment. I would like to see one wrapped in wood and stained! To answer your questions:

1. See picture. This is basically what I did, but just understand that the 2 fridges I did where a little different in the wiring. One was a Maytag and the other a Kenmore. I do have another schematic so I know what wires I used to get from the freezer door to the main splice area.

2. Yes 4 kegs will fit in both of fridges. Remember the more cu ft of a fridge you get the more room. Keep in mind that if you want 4 in there you will have to move the CO2 into the fridge side or outside of the unit. Outside of the unit would be very simple running the air line where the water used to come into the ice maker.

3. Yes, on this fridge (Maytag), you would gain probably 4 more inches, I would have to measure the inside to see if you could get 2 carboys on the same shelf. That being said I wouldn't use the adjustable shelf (wouldnt trust it with 2) but would make a permenent shelf like the bottom one. I personally like having the shelf options on the fridge door to but beer, water or other crap on. If I need extra room (they stick farther into the fridge than just the plastic frame of the door), I just pull them out.

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Great looking build! I hope the recipient was pleased with it.

I'm curious about the shelves you installed. How did you get that L-shaped metal attached to the sides of the freezer and fridge? And what did you use as the shelving base? It looks like you added in some white closet type shelving to fill in the gaps so bottles of beer wouldn't fall over but I don't recognize the non-white shelves. Did they come from a lowes/home depot?

I've got a similar build started. Still in the beginning stages of gutting and cleaning. In its previous life it housed oats (or whatever it is that horses eat) in a barn so it's kinda gross. Is there a particular type of metal flashing to use on the freezer size door or will any type work?
 
Thanks aplus01. The aluminum L-shape I attached with 10-24 screws all the way thru the center and outside walls. I used 3 screws in each one and it ends up being pretty strong. The shelving base was purchased at Lowes. They have some black metal shelving that you can buy extra shelves for. They weren't very expensive, $5 each (tops) for the bigger ones on the fridge side. Yes the white shelves are the standard 20" pantry (closet) shelves. I cut them up with with an angle grinder using a cut-off wheel. The sheet metal is just standard flashing out of HD, they have different widths and colors available. Looking back, maybe I should have used white instead... Next time! Good luck on your project and we hope to see some photos!
 
This is so awesome! You did a great job with this. Thanks for posting such detailed photos as the build went along. Would you mind giving us a rough estimate of man hours this took as well as a ballpark cost (less fridge) for the build? You just changed my mind about wanting a chest freezer kegerator!
 
Here is the list you requested ibuhoosier. You could cut the cost down if you buy a couple of the Chinese controllers off of Ebay (and learn Celsius while you're at it!), and maybe get some smaller fans since those were the biggest expense. The rest of the stuff isn't really to expensive, it just starts to add up.

Just looking at the post, I started the build on the 25th of March and was done on the 2nd of April. So that was only 9 days from start to finish. I think I worked every one of those days except one. There were definitely a couple of 8+ hour days, but also some shorter days. I remember building the fan shroud on the freezer side took me about an hour and a half to make. When I thought about it like that, I just lost all motivation and quit for the day! The next day was one of those long ones.

The list doesn't cover any cost of the tap system itself, but I still think its worth the build when I look at the prices of kegerators out there and know that I can fit 4 corny kegs if I want PLUS have a fermenting chamber that can hold a couple of carboys!

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I realize this is an old thread, but just wanted to thank OP for all your work documenting the process. I have a similar fridge and followed this build VERY closely doing mine over the last couple weeks. It was most useful and the fridge is working great!
 
You are welcome. Glad it worked out for you! That's why we post, so others with the motivation can build their own. Congrats!
 
Fabulous job! Just curious why you chose Love controllers over STC-1000F controllers. Cost difference is pretty significant and both appear to have the same features. Relay amperage?
 
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