It's Finally Done: My 10-tap Keezer!

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thadius856

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Started brewing 18 months ago. From that first (disgusting) batch til now, my skills have grown. As they have, I've picked up a larger appreciation for good beer. And now that I can make it, I've found I want a large variety on-hand.

Around my 6 month mark, I built a 7 cu ft freezer that held 5 kegs, served with 4 faucets, and had two CO2 pressures on a 5# supply. Today, at my 18 month mark, I've expanded to a 15 cu ft freezer that holds 10 kegs, 10 faucets, and has 11 CO2 pressures on a 20# supply.

I present to you, my 10-tap keezer:

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This is as big as I can get with the current house, so since I'm no where near done paying this one off, this is the size it will remain for quite some time.

Willing to answer any questions or comments, either about this build or kegging in general.
 
That is a great build! What is the total cost? What would have done differently on this build if you started over now?:tank:

Total cost? Who knows. Easily in the thousands. Lets try though...

Freezer - $400 minus scratch and dent / military discounts.
Collar - $50 in wood, $8 in door hinges, $10 in foam weather stripping
Base - $8 in wood, $60 in casters
Faucets (525SS) - $33 ea * 10
Shanks (Stainless 4-1/8") - $25 ea * 10
Primary - $150 or so for a dual Taprite
Secondaries - $50-60 per (I got a deal -- $426 for all 10)
Beer line - $40/100 ft. I used 10x 20' lines, plus a few shorter line sets. Figured 300'.
Gas line - $22 for 50 ft.
Kegs - $50 ea (10 fit inside, total 24 owned)
QDs - $6 ea, 2 per keg = 20 + 1 on force carb line
Misc pieces (string, nails, etc) - Probably $50

Tips:

Start large on the freezer. It's easier to seek SWMBO forgiveness once than twice. Also, you can use the spare space to store other things anyway. Also, plan to serve things other than beer. It will help appease her.

Other than that, I've already fixed all of my rookie mistakes. Notably:

Don't recirculate with a 120V pancake fan. It reverberated against the freezer and make an audible humm at all times. Use a 5V USB-powered desk fan, like the 120mm Thermaltake pictured, instead.

Don't bother with BevLex 5/16" gas hose. It's massively overkill. The pictured pink tubing is 1/4" OD, much more flexible, and about the same price per cost. I can easily bend it to the diameter of a nickel at keezer temps and hide the excess between the kegs.

2Q3YXMS.jpg


Skip vinyl hose. Go straight for the BevSeal Ultra.

Don't both with barbs, swivel nuts, beer nuts, nor tailpieces. Use John Guest fittings and MFL/FFL connections all around. The cost is pretty comparable, and much easier/quicker to assemble.
 
So I just took a look at your freezer spec sheets holy cow you put a lot of work into this area. You should see if the AHA publications will make it into a book. I know at least three other home brewers that would buy it.
 
Very impressive!

Thanks for sharing and something to look forward to building, someday.

I like the skinny pink gas hose. What brand/type is that?
How long are your BevSeal Ultra lines? They looks short. Aren't they hard to coil and tuck away, since they needs quite a radius?
 
So I just took a look at your freezer spec sheets holy cow you put a lot of work into this area. You should see if the AHA publications will make it into a book. I know at least three other home brewers that would buy it.

Thanks! I try.

I want my work to stay free, so I'm not considering publishing.
 
Very impressive!

Thanks for sharing and something to look forward to building, someday.

I like the skinny pink gas hose. What brand/type is that?
How long are your BevSeal Ultra lines? They looks short. Aren't they hard to coil and tuck away, since they needs quite a radius?

The hose is McMaster Carr 1/4" OD Polyethylene. It comes in 6 opaque colors and 5 clear-tinted colors. I chose clear/red tinted, which came out looking more pink than I expected. Maybe clear/blue tinted if I had to do it again. I like the transparency so I can ensure my check valves are functioning properly.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#catalog/119/136/=pxc7kt

At 44 cents/ft, it's about the same price as the BevLex everybody else is using.

As for the BevSeal, those are all 20 ft lines. I have some shorter lines laying around too, that I may start using for the items I'll be keeping at 5 PSI (namely, juices and wines and teas). I coiled them around the outside of a corny keg, then zip tied them tightly to hold that radius. They are a bit stiff, but really, that's the price you pay for the best beer line in production.
 
Did you use a john guest connector from gas line to regulator? I use them on my liquid side, never thought using 1/4 line and push connectors on my gas side. Would clean things up and make more room
 
Wow, nice looking keezer! Is your fan on a piece of PVC pipe or something?

Sure is. That's a 2' piece of Class 200 PVC, 5" diameter. It's held 3-5" off the keezer floor by simply squeezing it between the adjacent kegs. I also have a rheostat for speed control on it, and it gets power from USB cord plugged into a knockoff iPhone charging cube. There's a standard power strip mounted to the back of the collar, where everything plugs into (including the controller). This allows for a one-button kill switch, in case I want to open the lid for extended periods (put kegs in) or wheel it around a bit (5' cord).

The stuff you normally see in the hardware store is smaller and Schedule 40, which can sustain quite a bit more pressure and is more expensive. Doesn't really matter though, since there's no pressurized water running through it. :)
 
Did you use a john guest connector from gas line to regulator? I use them on my liquid side, never thought using 1/4 line and push connectors on my gas side. Would clean things up and make more room

Yep, sure did. Every connection in this keezer is MFL with FFL John Guest fittings.

Gas side:
Primary reg output is 1/4" MFL. 1/4" FFL John Guest screws on.
Secondary regs input is 1/4" MFL. 1/4" FFL John Guest screws on.
Secondary regs output is 1/4" MFL. 1/4" FFL John Guest screws on.
Gas QD is 1/4" MFL. 1/4" FFL John Guest screws on.

Beer side:
Liquid QD is 1/4" MFL. 1/4" FFL John Guest screws on.
Beer shank is... who knows? 5/8" BSSP John Guest screws on.

On the gas side of the house, you need to add a reducer stem in order to use 1/4" OD tubing. You can skip the reducer stem if you use 5/16" or 3/8" tubing, but then you lose some line flexibility due to thicker walls.

Edit: Removed incorrect info
 
Yep, sure did. Every connection in this keezer is MFL with FFL John Guest fittings.

Gas side:
Primary reg output is 1/4" MFL. 1/4" FFL John Guest screws on.
Secondary regs input is 1/4" MFL. 1/4" FFL John Guest screws on.
Secondary regs output is 1/4" MFL. 1/4" FFL John Guest screws on.
Gas QD is 1/4" MFL. 1/4" FFL John Guest screws on.

Beer side:
Liquid QD is 1/4" MFL. 1/4" FFL John Guest screws on.
Beer shank is... who knows? 5/8" BSSP John Guest screws on.

On the gas side of the house, you need to add a reducer stem in order to use 1/4" OD tubing. You can skip the reducer stem if you use 5/16", 3/8" or 1/2" tubing, but then you lose some line flexibility due to thicker walls.

Thanks, might have to swap out my 1/2 gas lines soon. Why the stem if you use 1/4 push connects with 1/4 line?
 
Thanks, might have to swap out my 1/2 gas lines soon. Why the stem if you use 1/4 push connects with 1/4 line?

Check out their catalog:

http://www.johnguest.com/Home/literature-downloads/US-Literature/US_FluidCat.aspx

Jump to page 10. At the top center of the page, look at Female Flare Connector (FFL Thread) section. Notice that 1/4" FFL fittings are only made for tubing with OD of 5/16" or 3/8".

So I use the 5/16" OD fitting (PM4508F4S) with a reducer stem (PI061008S) to get down to the 1/4" OD tubing size. The shank connector is directly below it in the catalog (PI451015FS).

Like I said before, you can skip the reducer if you use 5/16" OD or 3/8" OD tubing, but then you lose most of the flexibility and ease of tucking extra line between kegs.

Note, for comparison purposes, the OD of that BevLex is closer to 9/16". That's quite a difference.
 
I like those tap handles, what kind are they?

White Labs yeast vials. With CNC machine adapters I found for sale on this site ($1.25 ea?).

Well, kinda. I don't buy a lot of liquid yeast, and when I do, it's usually Wyeast since it's $1.50 cheaper at my LHBS.

I bought the same thing White Labs uses, 2L soda bottle preforms ("baby soda bottles", "giant test tubes"). Got 5 dozen from Steve Spangler science:

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/baby-soda-bottles-giant-test-tubes.html

Note that the caps I received didn't work well because they had a ridge in them like Pepsi caps in my area. I had to scrounge up My Coke Rewards from a recycling bin because they didn't have that ridge.
 
Nice selection of brews you got there! Curious how you fastened the tap handles.

A while back, there was a guy here selling tap handle adapters. He was a CNC machinist and making them at work. I quickly snapped up a dozen at something ridiculously low like $2 per. He said he could make them with like 8 seconds of labor time on his part.

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I'm guessing he got shut down. The thread is missing from 'My Replies' and comes up with a permissions error when I tracked down the old URL. See this thread for the guy's old contact details:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/what-do-empty-yeast-vials-435487/

And here's how other people have done it:

http://www.bertusbrewery.com/2012/01/diy-tap-handles.html
 
Wow. Nice work and color me damn jealous. I'm lucky to have a 2 tap.

The key is getting SWMBO buy-in. Once she knew she was getting at least a punch/tea faucet (so she didn't have to make it 1 gal at a time and clog up the fridge) and a wine faucet (so she didn't have to chill, uncork, pour, etc), it became much easier to justify.
 
Hi thadius856,

First off, thanks for your great work on the keezer front! I've referenced your posts numerous times during my current build.

Have you had any issues with using John Guest fittings on the gas side? The only other posts I've found about it are from people who are thinking about doing it, but never do (or never post again). People who reply to these posts all seem to be wary of using JG fittings for gas, as well.

Thanks for the help!
 
The key is getting SWMBO buy-in. Once she knew she was getting at least a punch/tea faucet (so she didn't have to make it 1 gal at a time and clog up the fridge) and a wine faucet (so she didn't have to chill, uncork, pour, etc), it became much easier to justify.

You just buying 5gal of wine at a time?
 
thank you so much for doing this...my wife thought I was crazy (i built a 4 tap and already had 2 tap kegerator), now all I gotta do is show her this thread. :D
That is an awesome thing you have created, good job!
 
I think I found a solution to the gas side tubing problem (reducing). I found a 1/4 ffl with 1/4 od tube on freshwatersystems site, part # U0420476, http://www.freshwatersystems.com/sh...ame=female-flare-connector-14-tube-x-14-flare. I'm planning on screwing these into the discharge side of my secondary regulators and then run the mcmaster carr tubing to my pin lock gas flare fitting. My problem is my cheap 3 way manifold. The outlet fittings on the ball/check valves are 5/8 barb. I dont want to spend another $45 changing out these low end valves. Does anyone know if you can replace the barb fitting that has the check valve inside with an mfl fitting with check valve? I'm wondering if I can just pull the check valve out. I dont know what type it is though. They have an o-ring on the barb fitting that goes into a recessed area on the valve.
 
I'm doubtful you can transfer the check valve, if that's what you're asking. There are several John Guest in-line check valves, but I doubt they're rated for gas applications. And I don't think they're in the Acetal Inch line, only the Speedfit line.

That John Guest fitting makes me uneasy. I don't like the idea of plastic-to-metal in that interface. Seems awfully prone to leaking.

It's $45 if you buy them from NB. I have ChiCompany locally and can pick them up for ~$8 ea. I could probably but a new 3-way manifold with these pre-installed for less than $45.

Your choice. Replacing the shutoffs is a little more expensive, but IMO, it's the right way to do it.
 
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