My Keezer Build

Now I'll say that right now I do not brew my own beer. I hope that will change here in the near future. As soon as I finish the many projects that I have started right now. At least thats what I'm told. I do however enjoy beer very much. One of my current projects conveniently helped me convince the wife to convert the garage into a man cave. Moving our bar from inside the house to the garage to keep it away from the little one was an idea of mine. I host poker night at our house once a month or so also and so last year I decided to build a couple poker tables that I was dismantling and reassembling once a month. So now that I have taken over the garage I will keep them up all the time.

I also started to think that it would be cool to have a kegerator in there too. I started doing research and started looking for a mini fridge to convert. I figured converting one myself would be cheaper than buying one of the nice new fancy ones. Well my research sot me going and then led me to converting a chest freezer. I thought this would be great because then I could have mutiple beers on tap. Well I started thinking I would do two towers with double taps on them. I had all the equipment picked out and I just kept holding off on hitting complete order. I was glad that I waited because as I kept looking for ideas I fell upon the Jester Keezer. I started looking at everyone elses variations and decided thats what I was going to do. I started trying to figure out how I would complete the build to incorporate some of the things that I was hoping to do with my original idea. I decided to pull the trigger and ordered the parts. I got lucky and the same day I ordered the parts I was looking on Craigslist for the freezer and came across a 23 cu ft freezer. I had been looking and looking waiting for a larger one to pop up at a reasonable price. I jumped on it at once.



Works good, no rust it's a little older so I am hoping it doesn't crap out on me as soon as I get it finished like I've seen others say. I wasn't sure where to start. I had 30" of clearance inside the freezer so I wasn't going to need a collar. I thought about adding one anyways just in case for future expansion. I was looking at the hinges and realized that they were different than any of the pictures I had seen on here. They are pretty heavy duty bar they comes out of the wall of the freezer runs through the lid and goes back int the wall of the freezer on the other end. So I decided to not even mess with it. I Built a base with wheels and the lower skirting first.



I haven't attached the skirting to the base yet. I'll have space at the bottom, top and a 2 inch gap between the freezer and skirting. Hopefully this will help keep some air flow. If not I'll add the fan.



I started on the top next. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do, because I knew I wanted to have a door on the top that opened so that I could keep cold glasses and some bottled beer inside and be able to access it easily enough. I also didn't want the coffin to look weird and be off center. So I decided that part of the top would have stone and the other side would be wood so that the coffin would be centered in the stone and the access door would be cut out of the wood half.



I decided that I would go with 5 taps even though I am only plumbing 4 currently (You never know when your going to want more and I wanted it to look right from the start). I am hoping that I will actually be able to brew my own and thats when I will expand to that 5th tap. I went with the Perlick 525 SS after looking around a little. I had a hard time deciding whether to just go with a 4 - way manifold or spend the money and do the 4 - way secondary regulator. I bit the bullet and went with the regulator since I'll have a variety of beer on tap and would like them all to come out right. May not be necessary but I did it anyways.



Unfortunately I have been limited to working on it a little at a time with work and being gone on the weekends. Also waiting for the drip tray so I could start making the cuts. Since it was supposed to be on the first order but they forgot to ship it. Hopefully things will start to move faster. I can hardly wait til it is done and I get to pull that first draft. I'll update as I progress.

I noticed that you have 4 sanke couplers. Just FYI, most homebrewers keg in cornelious soda kegs for convenience - they are easy to fill and easy to clean.

You CAN keg homebrew in a sanke keg, but they are a bit more work (I would say PITA) to fill and clean. Once you start homebrewing, you may want to look into grabbing some corny kegs and couplers, but keep the sanke couplers for your commercial kegs.

The build looks great! I want to pull the trigger on a keezer. I'm very handy, and could definitely pull off most of the build, but I'm am very shaky on my woodworking skills, which is the only thing stopping me.

Yeah I would be switching a couple taps when the time comes. Depends on how much time I get to spend on my hobbies.

I don't have much in the way of woodworking skills but it hasn't stopped me yet. Just makes it slow going. This is only the third woodworking project I have taken on. The first two being poker tables that turned out fairly well so I haope the finished product will be good. The staining and finishing is what gets me.

Gorgeous!

Nice work so far! I'm looking forward to following your build. The skirt looks fantastic.....can't wait to see the coffin and rest of the top come together. I love the split to idea! Have you thought much about how you are going to cool the coffin to keep the beer lines and tap shanks cold? If not, I can offer some suggestions. Good luck!

Yeah I have definately been looking at the options and thinking about how I want to cool the coffin. Right now I am thinking of insulating the whole thing and seeing how that works and then maybe add a fan from there. I am still a little undecided.

I went the same route as you. I built a keezer with the hope of brewing eventually. I went with a four tap sanke system with quick disconnects so I can switch to ball lock when the time comes. I actually got the keezer idea from this website, and also got the bug to brew form here. I am brewing my first beer tomorrow.

Nice. I currently have a 16 cuft keezer with a simple collar, 4 taps. I plan on remodelling it ala Jester but until I finish the basement can't be bothered to put the effort into something that is basically just hidden away. I too plan on an access door for bottles so will be interested in seeing how you finish this off.

Yeah I was definitely content to just go the commercial route with all of the great local beers around me but when I found this site it definitely made me want to give brewing a shot. Hopefully it won't be to long before I give it a go. But it would be nice to at least finish the keezer first for serving.

As for the trap door I want to put in the top I have run a few ideas past people in order to come up with the best sealed solution. I think the one I have settled on right now will definitely work. I need to draw it up and look at it to make sure, because it all works in theory. Once I have the drawing I'll post it to give some ideas.

So I spent the weekend with the family in the mountains and made a little time to work on my keezer when I got home. I started working on the coffin and I just have to make to hide the secondary regulator. Here are the progress pics.









Its finally starting to move along, not fast enough though.

Just gives you plenty of time to start reading on here and learning about homebrewing.

looks good! Do you have pics of how you've incorporated the access door for cold glasses? I've fiddling with the idea of incorporating something like that into my own keezer.

What is the benefit of running a primary regulator into a LP secondary bank? Why not just link together a few HP to LP and be able to remove one regulator from the equation completely?

Here is the rough drawings I have made to show how I plan on building the door and making sure it is insulated and sealed. I hope to start on this tonight so hopefully I can get some pictures to see if it will actually work out.

As for having a primary and a secondary I don't know of any specific benefit to doing it this way. I didn't have much knowledge on how to get what I wanted. I just knew I would have a variety of beer on tap and wanted to make sure they would all come out right so I knew I wanted seperate control and this was the way I came up with from seeing some different zeezers builds. I then incorporated having the secondary up top into the design so I had somewhere to mount it since I didn't put a collar on and I didn't want to drill into the freezer. It's probably a little excessive but that is pretty much how I do everything. Example being the giant keezer in my garage.

So I have the door for the top access roughed in. Yes my woodworking may look really rough during the process and maybe a little bizarre but the finished product should look pretty nice. It'll definately need a good sanding here soon.



This picture sort of shows how the door is supported in the hole. I will be putting weather proofing on the ledge to help keep the cold air in the keezer.



The handle and the hinges should arrive in the next couple days so I can see if the final product will be what I am hoping for.

really good looking work, like the trap door

keep up the good work. can't wait to see how this one turns out

Here is what I came up with for door design on the coffin. I think I am mostly done with the woodwork. As soon as I get the hinges for the hatch I'll be able to be able to stain and finish the wood and start installing all the beer parts.

I LOVEthe the trap door idea! I have a 20 cu ft freezer that is waaaay too big for what I need right now. This trap door filled with cold glasses is a perfect idea to fill up some of the unused real estate I have in my freezer. Please post pics when you get the hinges on with it open. I would like to see how your rigged it up.

Great idea!

Here are the hinges for the trap door. They are Soss invisible hinges and they are kind of a pain to install. Maybe easier if you have the guide but I did not so they are a little rough. Some more putty I am thinking. I am planning on covering the foam with some of the plywood that I used on the skirting. I hope to be staining by this weekend.

Man. This is a great looking keezer. Keep up the great work, I cant wait to see how it turns out.

Really like this build. Great work.

So I got the coffin set for the Perlicks last night. I realized last week that the way it was set up I was going to have to put some sort of spacer behind the taps because of the overhang on the top was going to be in the way of the taps going back. I thought about getting the angled piece so they would not hit but ended up going this way.

Incredible craftsmanship! I'm jealous of what u have going there. I just picked up a chest freezer myself, but will be using it as a ferm chamber so swmbo can have a closet back. Again, excellent work you have done.

josh79 said:

Here are the hinges for the trap door. They are Soss invisible hinges and they are kind of a pain to install. Maybe easier if you have the guide but I did not so they are a little rough. Some more putty I am thinking. I am planning on covering the foam with some of the plywood that I used on the skirting. I hope to be staining by this weekend.

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Is your freezer currently on? I wonder how much cold air you lose from this trap door. I really want to make this happen on mine but I'm afraid insulating it enough to keep the cold air in would be an issue.

Beautiful man!

No I turned off the power once I started to cut into the lid. I am a little concerned over cold air loss but I used 2 inch rigid insulation compared to the 2 inches of fiberglass insulation that was in the lid before. Without trying to sound like I have any true understanding of heat exchange, the R value of the door should be higher than the section of door that I removed. As for how much air I will lose around the door that will be interesting to find out. I think that my idea of the weather stripping should work. The door is pretty tight overall but we'll see. I am thinking of like some sort of rubber mat to lay over the door overnight or when I just won't be around using it. I hope to know here in the next few days as I applied the first coat of stain last night and hope that the staining and finishing will go fast.

I got the top of the keezer finished and the secondary regulator installed and the lines run.





Then I installed the trap door and realized that somewhere along the way the staining went awry.



So I spent last night stripping the finish, sanding, and restaining the top so that I can match the trap door a little closer. The door is more of the color that I was expecting. Since I cut the door out of the top and used the same piec I figure that it should stain the same. This is the part of the whole project that I hate. I am definately not very good at the finishing. Hopefully things go right from here because I want to have beer in the keezer by this weekend.

Wow man.... just wow. I love the look of the whole thing!

So I picked up my freezer on New Years Day. Two full months later its finally a keezer. Put the last of the kegs in last night. It seems to be working good. It is quite the undertaking in a cramped garage but it is finally done. Just in time for my poker party on Saturday. I am not sure how good it is but it runs for about 8 minutes and then off for 25 min. That was while it was getting the first two kegs down to temperature. Hopefully once they are all cool then it will run even less.





The color of the top turned out a lot better after re - finishing.



The tap height could have probably been a little lower but that is just one of the things I'll nit pick for a while.

That is very nice. What kind of wood did you use?

Dude! WOW... very nice job.

Red Oak boards. The big panels were 1/4" Oak Plywood.

josh79 said:

Red Oak boards. The big panels were 1/4" Oak Plywood.

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Thanks. That is what I'm thinking of going with.

What is the measurement from the lid to where you put your taps?

I'm late to this thread... but wow... great job. I was looking for ideas for a trap door on top of the keezer, and MAN you really aced that. Soss hinges. Hadn't thought of that.

josh79 said:

Yeah I would be switching a couple taps when the time comes. Depends on how much time I get to spend on my hobbies.

I don't have much in the way of woodworking skills but it hasn't stopped me yet. Just makes it slow going. This is only the third woodworking project I have taken on. The first two being poker tables that turned out fairly well so I haope the finished product will be good. The staining and finishing is what gets me.

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It may make it easier later on, when I built my kegerator, I used all ball lock connectors but then I got a conversion kit to change my Sanke D to have ball locks too.

This way, it didn't matter what I was hooking up to, everything was using ball lock. Makes it super easy because I don't have to change anything out depending on the keg I use.

And seriously, beautiful build. Very well done.

Wow... of all of the keezer builds I've seen, yours is right at the top in my opinion. Great job!!!

JUST WOW!! Amazing Carpentry skills man!!! one of the most beautiful i have seen!

My only questions / comment is it seems like its going to be a HUGE pain in the ass to change out a keg through that little opening. Seems like you might have to take out most of the kegs to change one depending on which is empty or am i just not thinking about it right???

frettfreak said:

JUST

My only questions / comment is it seems like its going to be a HUGE pain in the ass to change out a keg through that little opening. Seems like you might have to take out most of the kegs to change one depending on which is empty or am i just not thinking about it right???

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I'm pretty sure the whole thing tips open for keg changes. Just added the small opening for glasses and beer without having to open the whole thing. I just got a 6.9 cu. ft. and would like to do something similar.