Kegerator cupboard conversion (completed) (almost!)

After bottling for a while, I was inspired by a couple of innovative people who had converted pre-loved furniture to create practical and aesthetic kegerators.

I did a lot of trawling and want to give special thanks to maverick9862, cimirie, notrealdan and Psych for their ideas and showing how you went about it.

I picked up a second hand cupboard, sanded it back and re-varnished it. The bottom half contains the fridge and gas bottle. I had to cut out the three drawers to gain the necessary height.



The (almost) finished item. Still need to attach the brass handles on the three bottom drawer fronts, and re-stain the two knobs on the small drawers on the right.

The taps are Perlicks. I set them into a cut off from a railway sleeper that I had in the garden. It came up well after a clean, vanish, then a clear varnish finisher. The tap handles are also made from branches that came from the garden. I treated them in the same way as the sleeper.

It’s not so clear in the photos, but the stones are actually polished and much darker. I picked them up from a local gardening shop. The two containers are old sake containers that I received from a friend.



The back of the tower (on its side.) The beer lines run through tight fitting copper piping. Though I don’t have a picture here, this runs down to the floor of the fridge chamber. The copper piping is surrounded by insulation foam from the point that it exits the fridge chamber, and this has all been slid (forced!) into plastic conduit. This works really effectively to keep the lines cold, and negates the need for a tower cooling fan. Thanks to all those who have posted their ideas about using copper piping for this.



Just to show that it works. You can see the thermostat (STC1000) behind the glass door on the right. (Thanks to homebeerbrewery for this wiring video: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30TvX1Zz1-Y[/ame]) This space is where the beer glasses rest when not in use. You can also see the fridge light that I retained, which comes on when the fridge compressor cycles on. I keep some brewing and cleaning equipment in the top compartment and the two small drawers on the right.

The wooden box sitting in front at the bottom left of the photo contains a small car battery. There is another box at the top left that houses a winch. These are attached to a frame that surrounds the chest freezer to the left of the kegerator that I use as a fermenting chamber. I set this up to help me get the carboys in and out (and now you know what my username means!)



The fridge chamber on the left of the kegerator is made from 5cm insulation foam board covered with thermo lining. The holes for the beer and gas tubes were sealed with expanding foam (terrible stuff to work with. Make sure you wear old clothes and wear gloves and protective glasses. That stuff is not designed to come off!)

The compressor is behind the gas bottle. Although it is not attached in this picture, there is a chain to secure the gas bottle to the frame of the cupboard. There is also a computer fan that kicks in whenever the compressor cycles on.



The three drawers are cut away on the inside to make gain the necessary height. The drawers and the base at the bottom seal the fridge door securely in place.

The thermo covering is stuck on with wood glue, but you can see that I used pin nails at the back (only) to hold it in place until the glue dried.

More to follow...

This is the back of the drawer fronts. The blue at the top are magnets to hold the top in place. These secure to matching magnets inside the top inside section of the frame.



There is a sliding clip on the left and right that slots into a corresponding slot in the frame. These hold the drawer fronts in place.

The bottom of the drawer front is actually the runner that holds the two sliding doors in place. Once the drawer fronts have been attached, the drawers can be simply put in and slide open and closed. When it is hot, I leave the right door open a it to allow better air circulation to cool the compressor.



The inside revealed. The cooling unit of the fridge is vertically flush with the back wall. You can see that the cooling pipe from the compressor into the fridge is covered with insulation foam.

The thermostat wire is in the glass bottle at the front.

You can just see the two strip magnets that the drawer fronts attach to inside the top of the frame, as well as the two slots in the walls into which the sliding clips go.



When dismantling the fridge, the cooling lines are easily exposed by pealing back the external metal cover. You have to be slow and careful when doing this though, because the lines are actually stuck to the inside of that covering with silver tape. By doing it this way, you don’t need to hack out all of the insulation foam to access the cooling lines.



However, the lines do disappear inside the insulation foam in places, and so you need to carefully cut away the foam to expose the lines. As other people have said, this stuff is totally static and just sticks to everything. NOT a job for indoors!!

still more to come

You can see how the cooling lines were stuck to the inside of the cover.



I used some sturdy wire frames to support the lines. Absolutely important to make sure they don’t kink or split. If there is even the slightest break, you will lose the gas and then will be time to go shopping again!

I used an empty beer bottle (even empty beer bottles are useful!) to support the lines when straightening them to fit into the kegerator. This was the most stressful part of the entire operation.



I covered the back (bottom section) with some trellis that I had left over in the garden. It allows for air circulation but protects the hot lines coming from the compressor.



The lines have been carefully bent and secured to the back of the kegerator onto some plastic coated wire shelving that I also had lying around. It is simply tied on securely with food ties to prevent any rattling. I will also cover this over to protect the lines from being bumped if I ever have to move the kegerator away from the wall.

I didn't bother cleaning the silver tape off the lines for the following three reasons (in reverse order of importance
1. they will be out of sight;
2. the tape helps dissipate heat;
3. I had a beer keged ready to go into the new system and I didn't want to wait!



The cupboard as I picked it up second hand.

Now this is cool
Brew on. David

Awesome job! I really like the idea of re-purposing something and of having a beer dispensing setup that you can have in your livingroom without people seeing just a fridge or a keezer or something. Looks good!

That is amazing! It looks like a lot of hard work and time/thought went into that. I decided not to pursue the cupboard fridge and just bought another fridge and put taps in it for now. Thanks or the great idea though!

Cheers!!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Beautiful.

Are the rocks tough to clean when beer drips on them?

Thanks for the comments. I was originally going to make a keezer from an old chest freezer, but when I came across the cupboard in a second hand furniture shop, well, there was no turning back. The size and structure were just perfect for the project.

It didn't take a huge amount of time - just spread out over a couple of months because I never really seemed to get time to focus on it.

Learning from other people who have already done this kind of thing was inspiring. Building it was fun. Sharing a drink from it with friends is excellent!

Peruvian802 said:

Beautiful.

Are the rocks tough to clean when beer drips on them?

Click to expand...

When I cleaned the lines the first time, I didn't realise that I had one of the taps on a bit. It was like white water rapids there for a couple of seconds. Fortunately it was only the stones in the front that got dirty, and I just put them in a kitchen sieve for a hot water wash.

I normally keep a faucet cover on the ends of the taps to catch drips since I don't have a drip tray. Apart from that first time, no problems. Just need to remember to make sure the taps are off properly! As you may know, Perlicks don't automatically spring back into place when turning them off.

Love this build and it's similar to something I started thinking about over the weekend. It's been a couple of months since you last posted, Is this thing efficient enough that you would consider wanting to build another one?

I'm just curious, now that a few months have gone by if you think you are wasting electricity cooling the chamber and would have just bought a commercial kegerator.

Thanks,

Mark

Nice build, where did you get the thermal foil liner from? And what kind of fridge did you use?