My through wall kegerator.

I haven't posted on here in a long while but I just got back into homebrewing after closing on our house this last fall. I decided it was time to get rid of my old kegerator:



It had 12 years on it in my possession and god only knows how many before that. It was a sad day to see it go but it needed to be put out of it's misery. Seals were shot, it accumulated condensation like crazy an it was loud as hell not to mention really inefficient.

So I decided to build a new one.

My living room backs right up to the furnace room downstairs. We already have the tv on the wall an spend a ton of time down there, I figured beer would be the next logical step.

Here's what I decided on:

I picked up a 9 cubic foot freezer from lowes and started with a 2x6 collar.



I then added the 1x8 on the outside to keep it from moving around too much.



after putting the lid back on:



I turned my attention to the taps.



I drilled my holes and put it on the wall for a test fit.



On the other side of the wall, inside the furnace room we were met with this:



The previous owners had finished the back side of this wall with an old hollow core door so some work with a keyhole saw opened it up. You can also see that I hit a stud dead center on my leftmost hole, that worked out fine as I have one shank that is a little longer than the others.

So you'll notice now that the taps are quite a bit taller than what the collar would end up being and I'm not keen on leaving the lines exposed so I brainstormed and put together this:



And inside that box is foil and bubble wrap insulation:



I then put weather stripping on the back of the collar and pressure fitted it up to my cabinet.



I then used a 2.5" hole saw and cut through both the collar and the cabinet box and ran my lines through that.



In this shot you can see that I ran my CO2 line in through the collar and also where I have the temp probe hanging.



Now in here you can see the lines hooked up, the box allows for the excess line to be coiled up for proper line balancing.



My only concern so far is keeping the box chilled, I think I'm going to run a small pc fan to move air from the freezer up into the box to keep the lines cold. As it stands now, pouring a beer seems to keep things cooled off adequately and I haven't had any foaming issues. I am however getting some nasty vinyl flavors in the first oz or so out of the tap, I hope that goes away.

Here is a final shot of the taps on the wall after the plate was stained. I need to figure out a drip tray but a towel has worked fine so far.



Thanks for looking!

Not sure what we are supposed to be seeing

Yeah, my image posting failed, apparently dropbox links won't embed. I'll get it fixed, standby.

Update:

Fixed it.

Pics look great! I may be getting a house soon and looking to do the exact same thing!

How is the foam? Lines stay cool enough? Looks like a very clean and tasteful build!

Taps through the living room wall? I gotta ask: are you married?

Anyway...Hopefully you have enough area where your insulated box meets the collar to add another hole. Then you could indeed force cool air from the keezer through that hole and have it return through the gaps in the hole you have your beer lines running through...

Cheers!

I see a lot of foamy first pours.

Very cool though. I think my wife would die laughing if I tried that. I did mention bringing a tap or two into the kitchen wall and she thought I was kidding.

passedpawn said:

I see a lot of foamy first pours.

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Might not be a problem. The geometry isn't a whole lot different than what I have running up through my keezer lid to a six faucet t-tower, which is insulated and air-cooled. With ten foot 3/16" ID beer lines I have no problems with first pours, even during our summer "dog days".

Very cool though. I think my wife would die laughing if I tried that. I did mention bringing a tap or two into the kitchen wall and she thought I was kidding.

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My wife is the most indulgent spouse one could hope for, but even she has limits. And she'd definitely come out swinging on this one

Cheers!

No, I'm not married yet but my girlfriend and I bought the house together and she is 100% on board with all this. She helped a ton with it which is pretty awesome.

As far as the foam goes, I've had no issues yet but we'll see how it goes during warmer weather. I plan to put a fan in there to chill the box, I don't foresee ito being a problem.

Nice job! That looks almost like what I am currently working on. My wife actually suggested that we just put the taps through the wall in our kitchen. How awesome is that?

I think having a fan in there to circulate some cold air around would work fine for your situation. I'm going from the garage into the house with my setup so I'm going to have a bigger issue with temp control of the lines. I'm planning on using 2 small PC fans in a push/pull setup to push air through the PVC pipe that the beer lines will run in and then pull cold air out of the box in the wall. I am going to line the entire cavity with 2" polyiso insulation and tape all the seams to create a small but airtight box inside the wall to prevent moisture from migrating into the rest of the wall and causing mold issues.

Looks like you did a nice job with yours.

Keep an eye on any condensation. You don't want a mold problem in your walls.

Aweomse project. Looks really nice.

That's really good advice about the mold, hopefully I have it covered. I've made what basically amounts to an insulated airtight insert that kind of pockets into the cavity I cut out. I've taped all the seams on the outside as well as the inside so I don't think it'll be an issue. Also, we live in Cheyenne which is at 6,000 ft and really dry so any moisture is evaporated really quick.

Glad you guys like the project, I have 3 cornies of homebrew and a sanke of PBR (backup beer) in it right now. It's nice to have beer on tap again.

BeerPirate said:

That's really good advice about the mold, hopefully I have it covered. I've made what basically amounts to an insulated airtight insert that kind of pockets into the cavity I cut out. I've taped all the seams on the outside as well as the inside so I don't think it'll be an issue. Also, we live in Cheyenne which is at 6,000 ft and really dry so any moisture is evaporated really quick.

Glad you guys like the project, I have 3 cornies of homebrew and a sanke of PBR (backup beer) in it right now. It's nice to have beer on tap again.

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Good job on taping up all the seams. That will definitely help prevent mold growth within your walls. Plus your super dry climate will help. I live in rainy Oregon so nothing every dries. Its pretty annoying when you do dishes or clean brewing equipment and it takes 2 days for the water droplets to evaporate. That reflectix bubble wrap insulation doesn't really have much insulative value, so if you can add some rigid foam insulation to your box, that will help prevent condensation from forming even more.

passedpawn said:

I see a lot of foamy first pours.

Click to expand...

Well I thought I had this beat but @passedpawn was right, I am certainly getting a little foam on my first pours, it's not getting cold enough in the box on it's own as it is set up now.

So the next step is to hook up the fan. I have a low profile pc fan and plan on making a small duct that goes up the side of the inside wall of the kegerator so it pulls the coldest air from the bottom of the freezer. I'll run that up into the box and have it blow directly on the shanks and line. The returning cold air should then cycle back into the kegerator through the hole the lines are ran through.

My question is, how do I power the fan? I know it's low voltage dc (don't have my multimeter right now) so I'll have to find a low voltage supply in the kegerator itself (possible the amber power-on light?). The problem with this would be that it would only run when the temp controller is sending juice to the freezer, probably not ideal. The other option would be to find an old wallwart plug and wire it into that, that would keep the juice to it on and I wouldn't have to go fishing around in my freezer.

I'll update with pics as I get to work on it.

BeerPirate said:

[...]The other option would be to find an old wallwart plug and wire it into that, that would keep the juice to it on and I wouldn't have to go fishing around in my freezer.[...]

Click to expand...

That's the solution. I do exactly that to power the fans that stir my keezer and cool my t-tower...

Cheers!