b18turboef
Member
Hello everyone,
Just joined the forum and this is my first post. It'll be long and detailed, after reading a lot of threads they all had tons of questions and I figure it would be helpful to the average Joe to see everything laid out in detail. About two weeks ago I decided I wanted to make carbonated water at home (girlfriend mixes it with juice and the cheap part of me cant stand paying $1/liter for water). So I did some Googling, decided I'd get a CO2 tank and the Carbonator Cap and off I'd go. Then I thought I'd be the only one doing anything (shes not going to shake up a bottle) so I had to find a bigger solution. Stumbled upon this 'blog':
http://www.katheats.com/diy-sparkling-water
That got me to thinking about having a kegerator, so again back to Google as I wasn't going to pay $500 for a cheap setup from Home Depot/Lowes. I thought about using a freezer, didn't realize people already did. Read about the keezers and made up my mind pretty quick. I love lots of the builds, people do some really clever stuff. Most of my inspiration has come from the Black Sunshine thread on here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/black-sunhsine-my-keezer-build-lots-pics-221572/
That's a great build, very well laid out. What I keep asking myself is why everyone uses the lid of the freezer at all, in my personal opinion it takes the keezer back to looking like an appliance and kinda 'home made'. So I decided to do things a little different.
I got the same Sears Kenmore Black 8.8cf freezer. Black Friday/Cyber Monday had it marked down from $411 to $288, found a $35 off of $300 coupon online so I added some jumper cables to get to $301, coupon brought it to $265, Grandpa has the retired 10% off so out the door was just a shade under $260. Could have easily bought a smaller or cheaper freezer in white from Home Depot, Lowes, Kmart and more, but hell with taping a painting a freezer to save $50-75. You'll spend most of that in tape, paint and supplies. Then you'll hopefully have a finish close to that of one originally black. Personally white just doesn't do it for me.
Current link to freezer is: http://www.sears.com/kenmore-8.8-cu-ft-chest-freezer-1694/p-04616949000P
In case the link changes it is Sears Item Number: 04616949000P
Thanks to another forum member we can easily see what will fit, roughly 6 kegs depending on configuration:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/chest-freezer-specs-layouts-377518/index25.html#post5616149
Now my goal is to have 6 kegs. I'm not a home brewer, just a guy who likes beer. Eventually I hope that will change but for now I essentially only need the ball lock setup for the carbonated water. After quite a bit of research I ended up buying my 'kit' from KegConnection. I went with the largest kit they offer, the 4-tap commercial setup. Again lucky timing and I got it on their Black Friday/Cybeer Monday Sale. I upgraded everything to stainless, tailpieces, shanks, taps, Perlick 525ss Faucets etc. I added a second regulator to run the carbonated water at a different pressure. Also added a set of ball locks, an extra Perlick 525ss, shank, lines and converted ball lock keg to turn it into a 5 tap setup. I have nothing but praise for the people at KegConnection, they did a great job and got my order out the door same day. Everything arrived perfectly and I got a great deal on it all.
This is what I bought, upgraded the parts etc: http://www.kegconnection.com/4-faucet-fridge-commercial-kit/
Now onto the actual building of the keezer!
I personally wanted to have a collar that looked 'nice'. Part of that to me is to NOT have a lid consisting of the original freezer lid. I wanted my collar to overhang the edges of the freezer and look more "finished", not just a collar sitting on top of a freezer I guess? I've seen some like this, but figured I'd bring it all together for this thread. I made the 'inner' collar from 2x6, I measured the overall dimensions of the freezer with the lid removed and added roughly 1/8" in each direction. This extra space allowed the 'outer' collar to have a small gap so it wouldn't hit when opening and closing. The 'outer' collar is made of 1x8 pine, it will hang about 1.5" below the top of the freezer, you'll see shortly. I'm sure some may wonder if the hinges will be strong enough to hold the lid open etc, I doubt it as it is much heavier, however I honestly don't really care, as its not like you'll be opening your keezer all that often. If it truly concerns you, spend a dollar on a rod and have something that holds it open.
Here you can see the 2x6 pin nailed to the 1x8. Sorry for missing a bit but I had already used a finish nailer to attach them, then spaced my faucets 4" apart on center. Directly in the center of the 1x8. Drilled 1" holes using a drill press to make things easy.
Then you finish the collar, you can see it here, just a 2x6 that is JUST slightly bigger than the outside dimension of the freezer. Then miter cut the 1x8 (you don't have to, I just did it for looks), and nail the 1x8 to the outside. This should give a good general idea:
Now notice on the back I didn't use a 1x8, as the hinges will attach directly to the collar, and if there was a 1x8 it would be in the way/hit.
Along the bottom of the 1x8 I added some detail you can see here, you can also see how the 1x8 covers the outside, so you don't see where the collar meets the freezer:
Here you can see a better representation of the 'inner' collar being just slightly wider than the overall freezer dimension, then the 'outer' collar overhanging to give it a nice finished look. Additionally you can see where the hinges will attach to the 2x6 collar, exactly the same as they would have connected to the original lid (just using wood screws instead of sheet metal screws):
Now that my collar was roughly built I wanted to try something different I hadn't seen. Everyone seems to buy self adhesive weather stripping at Home Depot/Lowes and stick that to their collar. I've used that stuff enough times to know it is junk in my book, a couple weeks into anything and it gets flat, it is just foam. That and I'd have to buy it. So I thought about it a bit and it hit me, why not just use the original fridge seal? The collar is the same dimension so all I did was remove it from the lid which I won't be using anyways. You just pop out some plugs, then you can either use flat thumb tacks or a staple gun to attach it to your collar:
The collar is upside down here, you can see the seal attached:
When flipped back over and set on the freezer you get a seal just like the factory freezer lid (and did I mention free?):
Then I measured, drilled and jigsawed out the hole for my eBay temperature controller, actually bought from Amazon cheaper and faster: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008KVCPH2/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
Viewed from the back you can also see the two holes for power (more on that later):
Now that the hard work on the wood is done I moved onto the lid. Wanted something 'classy'. I chose a 1" solid pine wood top, pre-glued and available at Lowes. Was 24x48", had it cut down to roughly 24x44", this gave me a bit of overhang on all sides to look like a nice top:
With the cutting a drilling portion finished I puttied the nail holes and used my palm sander and hit everything with 80 grit paper. You could go finer if you wanted to but in the end it wont matter. I then used a pre-stain, you just wipe it on with a rag and wait about 10 minutes then comes the stain, I wanted dark wood so I used this:
After one coat this is what it looked like, and boy did that vein in the wood stand out!
Truly the pictures make it look better than it looked in person, it had some light spots so I waited an hour and did another coat:
I waited till the next evening to do the lacquer (could have done it after a couple hours, the stain just needs to be dry). Sprayed 3 coats, let it dry, sanded with 150 grit, 3 more coats. Then the next morning used some wax and 0000 steel wool and did a 'french polish'. Gives it a very nice smooth finish. iPhone pictures just don't do it justice, in person it is very nice.
Next up was the wiring. I bought a basic 15 foot 16 gauge extension cord from Home Depot, I decided to get one that has 3 female sockets so I can plug in more than one switched item if I decide to (price was the same either way). I'm going to explain this assuming you all have zero electrical experience at all, sorry in advance if this is boring and overdone, I realize most will have a general understanding and if I miss or incorrectly explain something please do let me know.
Here is the cord I bought, male side plugs into wall, female side is what your freezer will eventually plug into. I more or less cut the cord right in half, the male side is a bit longer but do whatever works for you.
Now you'll feed the ends through the holes previously drilled through the back of the collar, this picture shows only the female end fed through, and just looped up and sitting on top:
I then ran both wires through my junction box ($1 at Home Depot) along with the temperature probe. I'll later seal everything up to eliminate any condensation my dehumidifier may miss.
As for the wiring, I've tried to explain it as simple as possible. You'll need to understand a couple basic things. First, don't plug the cord into the wall while you are working on it, it will end badly.
The black wire is the "hot" wire, consider it the wire that actually has power and will run the device, or shock you if you aren't paying attention.
The white wire is the "neutral" wire.
The green wire is the "ground" wire. You will simply be wire nutting these two together, nothing more.
The black (hot) wire coming in from the male end (the wall) will be spliced so it can power two things at once. Cut some extra wire, wire nut the two pieces onto the one and inset one to power the temperature controller, the other feeds the "cooling" circuit.
The neutral (white) wire will again wire nut together just like the ground, but you'll add one extra piece to go to the other side of the power circuit on the controller. You can see in the picture.
The black (hot) wire going to the female end (where you'll plug in your freezer) will then hook up to the other side of the "cooling" circuit. When the temperature reaches "too warm" the circuit will close, sending power from the feed (the wall) to the female end (your freezer). Everything is wired up here, minus the hot wire going to the freezer. You can see where it will go indicated by the arrow.
In this picture the terminals on the left of the controller just power the controller (so you can see the display etc). The wires going to the right side are where it passes power through to the freezer when the contact closes. Again any questions just let me know.
Now that its all finished up, verify everything, make sure you triple check it. You don't want to go burning your house down. Here it is finished up on the front side:
On to the final stages!
Next I needed to 'finish it up'. So I covered the top of the collar with liquid nails construction adhesive in a nice bead all the way around, I then placed the top on and put a couple hundred pounds of weight on it. This stuff is incredibly strong, but just to be safe I used some L brackets with a couple screws to help hold it down. Once dry I flipped it over and went to work on the insulation. I could have easily bought pre-made foam board insulation but why spend the money of stuff I was about to throw away?? The freezer came in a huge box with a ton of foam board. Some of it thicker than others but it was more than enough to do a plenty good job insulating an area nobody will ever see. Basically just put it together piece by piece with some liquid nails holding it in. Once I was done I took an extra step and silicone caulked all the joints. All I can tell you is this lid is FAR more insulated than the original freezer lid, which uses a very cheap .75-1" piece of fiberglass.
You'll notice the electrical box on the left here being black rather than the blue one shown before. The blue one was a "shallow" box, and was just a bit too tight so I swapped it out for a standard depth box. Again made sure to seal it all up nice. I'll more than likely throw some insulation around the shanks shown here, but getting everything on nice and tight was far more of a priority.
Used about 10x more silicone than I needed to for sealing up the box. Note both 'incoming' and 'outgoing' power, and the sensor come from the same hole.
One of the things that had been bugging me over the last week while thinking about the build was how to attach the CO2 distribution manifold yet still be able to insulate the back of the collar. Clearly you cant snug a collar up to foam very well, it will just crush it. So the way I did it was to take a basic 'BIC' pen, pull the pen part out and cut the pen to the same depth as the foam. Pushed it through the foam so it hit the collar behind it and ran my screws through the inside of the pen. That way when it tightened up it put the pressure on the body of the pen as opposed to the foam. Didn't do much picture taking of the process but hopefully it is rather self explanatory?
Now that the top was all finished up I set it on the freezer, screwed the factory hinges into the collar with simple wood screws and plugged in the power. In this picture you can see the "male" end of the extension cord going off to the left and plugged into the wall, it then goes into the freezer, is hooked into the controller as shown above and the female side comes out below it from the controller. This dangles down to the hole in the back of the freezer. You then plug your freezer into it like normal, and turn the freezer to its coldest setting. The goal here is that anytime the controller sends power to the freezer it will turn on, if you hadn't set it to "super cold" there is a chance the freezer may not actually "turn on".
She is up and running now and seems to work well. Tonight I'll pick up a keg on the way home so I can actually cool the thing down and give it a shot. I'll get some interior pictures up too. If you guys have anything in specific you need more detail or better pictures just let me know. I know the build can seem daunting to most at first but it truly isn't all that hard. You just have to get yourself going!
Here she is!
Just joined the forum and this is my first post. It'll be long and detailed, after reading a lot of threads they all had tons of questions and I figure it would be helpful to the average Joe to see everything laid out in detail. About two weeks ago I decided I wanted to make carbonated water at home (girlfriend mixes it with juice and the cheap part of me cant stand paying $1/liter for water). So I did some Googling, decided I'd get a CO2 tank and the Carbonator Cap and off I'd go. Then I thought I'd be the only one doing anything (shes not going to shake up a bottle) so I had to find a bigger solution. Stumbled upon this 'blog':
http://www.katheats.com/diy-sparkling-water
That got me to thinking about having a kegerator, so again back to Google as I wasn't going to pay $500 for a cheap setup from Home Depot/Lowes. I thought about using a freezer, didn't realize people already did. Read about the keezers and made up my mind pretty quick. I love lots of the builds, people do some really clever stuff. Most of my inspiration has come from the Black Sunshine thread on here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/black-sunhsine-my-keezer-build-lots-pics-221572/
That's a great build, very well laid out. What I keep asking myself is why everyone uses the lid of the freezer at all, in my personal opinion it takes the keezer back to looking like an appliance and kinda 'home made'. So I decided to do things a little different.
I got the same Sears Kenmore Black 8.8cf freezer. Black Friday/Cyber Monday had it marked down from $411 to $288, found a $35 off of $300 coupon online so I added some jumper cables to get to $301, coupon brought it to $265, Grandpa has the retired 10% off so out the door was just a shade under $260. Could have easily bought a smaller or cheaper freezer in white from Home Depot, Lowes, Kmart and more, but hell with taping a painting a freezer to save $50-75. You'll spend most of that in tape, paint and supplies. Then you'll hopefully have a finish close to that of one originally black. Personally white just doesn't do it for me.
Current link to freezer is: http://www.sears.com/kenmore-8.8-cu-ft-chest-freezer-1694/p-04616949000P
In case the link changes it is Sears Item Number: 04616949000P
Thanks to another forum member we can easily see what will fit, roughly 6 kegs depending on configuration:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/chest-freezer-specs-layouts-377518/index25.html#post5616149
Now my goal is to have 6 kegs. I'm not a home brewer, just a guy who likes beer. Eventually I hope that will change but for now I essentially only need the ball lock setup for the carbonated water. After quite a bit of research I ended up buying my 'kit' from KegConnection. I went with the largest kit they offer, the 4-tap commercial setup. Again lucky timing and I got it on their Black Friday/Cybeer Monday Sale. I upgraded everything to stainless, tailpieces, shanks, taps, Perlick 525ss Faucets etc. I added a second regulator to run the carbonated water at a different pressure. Also added a set of ball locks, an extra Perlick 525ss, shank, lines and converted ball lock keg to turn it into a 5 tap setup. I have nothing but praise for the people at KegConnection, they did a great job and got my order out the door same day. Everything arrived perfectly and I got a great deal on it all.
This is what I bought, upgraded the parts etc: http://www.kegconnection.com/4-faucet-fridge-commercial-kit/
Now onto the actual building of the keezer!
I personally wanted to have a collar that looked 'nice'. Part of that to me is to NOT have a lid consisting of the original freezer lid. I wanted my collar to overhang the edges of the freezer and look more "finished", not just a collar sitting on top of a freezer I guess? I've seen some like this, but figured I'd bring it all together for this thread. I made the 'inner' collar from 2x6, I measured the overall dimensions of the freezer with the lid removed and added roughly 1/8" in each direction. This extra space allowed the 'outer' collar to have a small gap so it wouldn't hit when opening and closing. The 'outer' collar is made of 1x8 pine, it will hang about 1.5" below the top of the freezer, you'll see shortly. I'm sure some may wonder if the hinges will be strong enough to hold the lid open etc, I doubt it as it is much heavier, however I honestly don't really care, as its not like you'll be opening your keezer all that often. If it truly concerns you, spend a dollar on a rod and have something that holds it open.
Here you can see the 2x6 pin nailed to the 1x8. Sorry for missing a bit but I had already used a finish nailer to attach them, then spaced my faucets 4" apart on center. Directly in the center of the 1x8. Drilled 1" holes using a drill press to make things easy.
Then you finish the collar, you can see it here, just a 2x6 that is JUST slightly bigger than the outside dimension of the freezer. Then miter cut the 1x8 (you don't have to, I just did it for looks), and nail the 1x8 to the outside. This should give a good general idea:
Now notice on the back I didn't use a 1x8, as the hinges will attach directly to the collar, and if there was a 1x8 it would be in the way/hit.
Along the bottom of the 1x8 I added some detail you can see here, you can also see how the 1x8 covers the outside, so you don't see where the collar meets the freezer:
Here you can see a better representation of the 'inner' collar being just slightly wider than the overall freezer dimension, then the 'outer' collar overhanging to give it a nice finished look. Additionally you can see where the hinges will attach to the 2x6 collar, exactly the same as they would have connected to the original lid (just using wood screws instead of sheet metal screws):
Now that my collar was roughly built I wanted to try something different I hadn't seen. Everyone seems to buy self adhesive weather stripping at Home Depot/Lowes and stick that to their collar. I've used that stuff enough times to know it is junk in my book, a couple weeks into anything and it gets flat, it is just foam. That and I'd have to buy it. So I thought about it a bit and it hit me, why not just use the original fridge seal? The collar is the same dimension so all I did was remove it from the lid which I won't be using anyways. You just pop out some plugs, then you can either use flat thumb tacks or a staple gun to attach it to your collar:
The collar is upside down here, you can see the seal attached:
When flipped back over and set on the freezer you get a seal just like the factory freezer lid (and did I mention free?):
Then I measured, drilled and jigsawed out the hole for my eBay temperature controller, actually bought from Amazon cheaper and faster: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008KVCPH2/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
Viewed from the back you can also see the two holes for power (more on that later):
Now that the hard work on the wood is done I moved onto the lid. Wanted something 'classy'. I chose a 1" solid pine wood top, pre-glued and available at Lowes. Was 24x48", had it cut down to roughly 24x44", this gave me a bit of overhang on all sides to look like a nice top:
With the cutting a drilling portion finished I puttied the nail holes and used my palm sander and hit everything with 80 grit paper. You could go finer if you wanted to but in the end it wont matter. I then used a pre-stain, you just wipe it on with a rag and wait about 10 minutes then comes the stain, I wanted dark wood so I used this:
After one coat this is what it looked like, and boy did that vein in the wood stand out!
Truly the pictures make it look better than it looked in person, it had some light spots so I waited an hour and did another coat:
I waited till the next evening to do the lacquer (could have done it after a couple hours, the stain just needs to be dry). Sprayed 3 coats, let it dry, sanded with 150 grit, 3 more coats. Then the next morning used some wax and 0000 steel wool and did a 'french polish'. Gives it a very nice smooth finish. iPhone pictures just don't do it justice, in person it is very nice.
Next up was the wiring. I bought a basic 15 foot 16 gauge extension cord from Home Depot, I decided to get one that has 3 female sockets so I can plug in more than one switched item if I decide to (price was the same either way). I'm going to explain this assuming you all have zero electrical experience at all, sorry in advance if this is boring and overdone, I realize most will have a general understanding and if I miss or incorrectly explain something please do let me know.
Here is the cord I bought, male side plugs into wall, female side is what your freezer will eventually plug into. I more or less cut the cord right in half, the male side is a bit longer but do whatever works for you.
Now you'll feed the ends through the holes previously drilled through the back of the collar, this picture shows only the female end fed through, and just looped up and sitting on top:
I then ran both wires through my junction box ($1 at Home Depot) along with the temperature probe. I'll later seal everything up to eliminate any condensation my dehumidifier may miss.
As for the wiring, I've tried to explain it as simple as possible. You'll need to understand a couple basic things. First, don't plug the cord into the wall while you are working on it, it will end badly.
The black wire is the "hot" wire, consider it the wire that actually has power and will run the device, or shock you if you aren't paying attention.
The white wire is the "neutral" wire.
The green wire is the "ground" wire. You will simply be wire nutting these two together, nothing more.
The black (hot) wire coming in from the male end (the wall) will be spliced so it can power two things at once. Cut some extra wire, wire nut the two pieces onto the one and inset one to power the temperature controller, the other feeds the "cooling" circuit.
The neutral (white) wire will again wire nut together just like the ground, but you'll add one extra piece to go to the other side of the power circuit on the controller. You can see in the picture.
The black (hot) wire going to the female end (where you'll plug in your freezer) will then hook up to the other side of the "cooling" circuit. When the temperature reaches "too warm" the circuit will close, sending power from the feed (the wall) to the female end (your freezer). Everything is wired up here, minus the hot wire going to the freezer. You can see where it will go indicated by the arrow.
In this picture the terminals on the left of the controller just power the controller (so you can see the display etc). The wires going to the right side are where it passes power through to the freezer when the contact closes. Again any questions just let me know.
Now that its all finished up, verify everything, make sure you triple check it. You don't want to go burning your house down. Here it is finished up on the front side:
On to the final stages!
Next I needed to 'finish it up'. So I covered the top of the collar with liquid nails construction adhesive in a nice bead all the way around, I then placed the top on and put a couple hundred pounds of weight on it. This stuff is incredibly strong, but just to be safe I used some L brackets with a couple screws to help hold it down. Once dry I flipped it over and went to work on the insulation. I could have easily bought pre-made foam board insulation but why spend the money of stuff I was about to throw away?? The freezer came in a huge box with a ton of foam board. Some of it thicker than others but it was more than enough to do a plenty good job insulating an area nobody will ever see. Basically just put it together piece by piece with some liquid nails holding it in. Once I was done I took an extra step and silicone caulked all the joints. All I can tell you is this lid is FAR more insulated than the original freezer lid, which uses a very cheap .75-1" piece of fiberglass.
You'll notice the electrical box on the left here being black rather than the blue one shown before. The blue one was a "shallow" box, and was just a bit too tight so I swapped it out for a standard depth box. Again made sure to seal it all up nice. I'll more than likely throw some insulation around the shanks shown here, but getting everything on nice and tight was far more of a priority.
Used about 10x more silicone than I needed to for sealing up the box. Note both 'incoming' and 'outgoing' power, and the sensor come from the same hole.
One of the things that had been bugging me over the last week while thinking about the build was how to attach the CO2 distribution manifold yet still be able to insulate the back of the collar. Clearly you cant snug a collar up to foam very well, it will just crush it. So the way I did it was to take a basic 'BIC' pen, pull the pen part out and cut the pen to the same depth as the foam. Pushed it through the foam so it hit the collar behind it and ran my screws through the inside of the pen. That way when it tightened up it put the pressure on the body of the pen as opposed to the foam. Didn't do much picture taking of the process but hopefully it is rather self explanatory?
Now that the top was all finished up I set it on the freezer, screwed the factory hinges into the collar with simple wood screws and plugged in the power. In this picture you can see the "male" end of the extension cord going off to the left and plugged into the wall, it then goes into the freezer, is hooked into the controller as shown above and the female side comes out below it from the controller. This dangles down to the hole in the back of the freezer. You then plug your freezer into it like normal, and turn the freezer to its coldest setting. The goal here is that anytime the controller sends power to the freezer it will turn on, if you hadn't set it to "super cold" there is a chance the freezer may not actually "turn on".
She is up and running now and seems to work well. Tonight I'll pick up a keg on the way home so I can actually cool the thing down and give it a shot. I'll get some interior pictures up too. If you guys have anything in specific you need more detail or better pictures just let me know. I know the build can seem daunting to most at first but it truly isn't all that hard. You just have to get yourself going!
Here she is!
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