The Magic Kegger

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

david_42

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2005
Messages
25,581
Reaction score
195
Location
Oak Grove
Something we all need, a one cornie kegger with four taps (upgradeable to six)! The old kegger was dying, so I purchased a 5 cu ft freezer and built a collar. At the same time, I wasn't really happy with the condensation problem in the conditioning cabinet. The Magic Kegger is the result. I opted for rotating the freezer a quarter turn and putting the taps on the side. This lets me load and unload without lifting over the taps & maybe banging them. The indentation in the collar is in the latex spray foam and conforms to the lid. Latex foam is flexible, even when cured.

2113-img_1344.jpg


The conditioning cabinet is connected via three ports: an intake, an outlet and a hose access. You can see the snoots, fans and regulators. The temperature controller (not visible) was rewired to a power bar. Both the freezer and the power supply for the fans are plugged in. This restricts fan operation to those times when the kegger proper needs cooling. I may change that, depending on how the temperatures look. I have a min-max digital thermometer in each unit.

2113-img_1343.jpg


I'm waiting for the cabinet to cool down before connecting the other lines. The kegger has room for three cornies, so I'll be able to lager in it. Right now, there's just the soda water and some grain. I'm hoping for 50F in the cabinet. If necessary, I have an old A/C thermometer that can handle the fan current.

I am experimenting with the location of the controller's probe. Conventional wisdom says to put it in some water to reduce cycling. So far, it looks like I get better stability (within 2F measured by the min-max) by pinning it between the wall and the CO2 tank. Trying it the standard way, the temperature was under-shooting by 4-5F. I'm trying to maintain 35F (offset 2F) right now and I was getting sub-freezing temperatures. Probably due to the extra refrigerant in the lines when the compressor shut off. It doesn't seem to run much either way, so we'll see how it goes.
 
That is awesome. What temps are you maintaining between the two?

I just bought a chest freezer and am going to do the same thing but connect it to a old dorm fridge to maintain fermentation temps.

Do you think it needs the in and the out hose? I was just going to do one with a fan.
That looks like dryer vent hose. Does that work well? I was considering that but wasnt sure how much temp loss would happen there.
 
They are 3" vent hose. I'll wrap them with insulation if necessary.

The in/out are needed, otherwise you would be constantly cooling hot air from the room & expelling cool air into the room. This would also result in massive condensation problems.

The plan is 33F in the kegger and 50F in the cabinet. I turned this on Sunday, so I won't know much more for 3-4 days.
 
That's a lot of work for a system that could have been acheived with a single huge chest freezer and no construction. You have a ability to maintain two distinct temperatures but was it worth all that work? Even picking up two different chest freezers on Craiglist would work.
 
I built the conditioning cabinet last year and the kegger this year. Adding the snoots and fans for the cabinet wasn't much additional effort. Plus, I already have a food freezer in the room, so it was getting crowded.
 
So does it work? I'm thinking about decommissioning my keg fridge almost before I get it set up (It was a Craigslist "score" that runs almost continuously, and the compressor is damn hot to the touch.) It sits right next to our secondary freezer in the basement, so I could conceivably do something just like this...
 
I'd be interested in seeing more on how you built the collar for the keezer. It looks like one of those 5 cf. Holiday freezers (I just got one) and am using picnic taps for now but would like to build a collar like yours and set up taps.
 
It works extremely well, although I'm still looking for the last CO2 leak. I've got three taps at 50F and the soda water at 34F. I'm using the extra space in the kegger for grain storage as I have mice & woodrats all over the place. I'll put some more pictures of the collar construction in my gallery.
 
Back
Top