Home Bar Kegerator

[airdog_47]

I currently purchased a home with a bar already built in. My wife is currently looking around for a free fridge dedicated entirely to beer. The plan is to place the fridge behind the bar in the storage room. Our idea is to place the fridge directly against the storage wall and run the lines into the bar. We measured out everything and it's a 5" wall. I'm undecided on how to approach this. Would running long enough shanks to go from the bar directly into the fridge the best idea or short shanks and running the lines out of the fridge and into shanks. The shanks I'm thinking we would need are going to be 10" to add a front piece of wood between wall and faucet and a piece inside the fridge for the nuts to bite down on, and leaving roughly an 1" off the wall. I truly won't order these till we have the fridge in place and drilled the holes through the wall to measure everything up. Also, debated on running a tower since it would be easy to run the line through. Since, 3 10" shanks cost about the same as a 3 faucet tower.I have all the parts for the kegerator now, minus the fridge, shanks and beer line.

Currently, I have a Co2 tank. Actually, three of them not sure which one will be used either the 20lb or a 10lb. More than likely the 20lb.
3 - Stainless steel Perlick Faucets.
2 - 3" shanks with 90 elbow. I don't know where these came from.
1 - Double Regulator
1 - Gas manifold 1 in 4 out
2 - Sankey couplers one with 1/4 connector
1 - Cheapo Faucet
1 - Single Regulator
Numerous ball Lock connectors.

The plan is to be setup for 1 commercial keg, with the 1/4MFL connector and 2 ball lock connectors for the three taps. This way I can run a commercial keg or easily switch to homebrew kegs. The gas will be setup so that 1 line to commercial keg and 3 lines to ball lock connectors.

Eventually, this bar will get a new counter but you can't fix everything in the first year of owning the home.

Oh, one more question. I just bought the wife a brand new dishwasher.. I have never had one the entire time I have been brewing which is going on 4 years now. Can I run all my dispensing parts through the sanitize cycle? and then Starsan them. They have been sitting in storage for almost 2 years now.

 

[djsethall]

I would by a holesaw sawt and run lines through somw insulated pvc pipe (3") and hook up a small squirrel fan to the refrigerated end. The fan will keep the beer cold in the line and you could just run 1/8 beer line to where your taps are.

 

[airdog_47]

I appreciate the idea. I have thought it over about running the beer line out the fridge and through an insulation. The squirrel fan I'm not much of a fan for. I want the least amount of maintenance on this thing, I know running fans and constructing the fan to blow cold air into the piping is more maintenance and fab then I want in this project. I'm not saying it wouldn't work or work better then my ideas. I just want no mechanical / additional electrical in the project.

 

[airdog_47]

My parents are bring me a bunch of old street signs from my hometown. I'm thinking of taking out all the old 70's looking mirror glass and hanging the street signs in there place. I still have not found a fridge yet. I have called on several of them but no replies.

 

[airdog_47]

Ok, so I finally go a fridge for this project.. I tried finding a free one. After, spending the last 3 months stalking the classified ads for free fridges, I finally gave in a bought one. I should have done it long before since I found it for only $25. I also ordered some parts to finish the project up. I order 20 ft of beer line for my three runs so they will be 6 ft each and a little change. A black flange for the taps since I only had 2 for some reason. The 12" drip tray with a drain. I thinking of tapping it into my bar sink for draining. I have some pics I will post in a sec.

 

[airdog_47]

So we made a small work bench in the storage room last weekend for those cold winter days we don't have to be in the non-heated garage. The refrigerator had to be placed on a sheet of plywood since the cooling coils are on the bottom of the fridge. I pulled the fan unit out and cleaned and oiled it since it was a bit loud to begin with. No holes have been drilled in it yet. The gas manifold has been installed to provide gas to one commercial keg and 3 home brew kegs. I choose to keep the door shelves in for soda, can/bottled beer and wine. The wife drinks wine. I purchased a pre-made placard from Hobby Lobby for the taps, since I do not own a router these are cheap too.. I still need to slightly sand and stain this. Those are my three perlick stainless steel taps.

 

[airdog_47]

So we removed all the 70's looking mirror glass and the ugly looking plywood that covered the bar. We are working on finishing the sheetrock and painting. We did receive all the parts to finish the kegerator last week. I took a pic of the drip tray, I was quite impressed for only a $30 drip tray. The bar top is going to covered with some nicer wood that is typically used for wood flooring. The wife found it marked down to only $20, so why not. We wanted to originally do a pour in top but it sounds like we are just going to polyurethane the crap out of it. We are getting pretty excited on this project. The bar use to be a 70's eye soar.[/ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH]

 

[airdog_47]

I know it's been a while since i updated this forum. So far the Bar is pretty much complete. Here are some pictures of what it currently looks like.