Are you gonna bark all day little doggie... or are you going to build a Keezer?

Hey all,

Been slowly day by day completing my Keezer with much help from people here. It is amazing what you can learn by reading through the FAQs and old threads. Since I'm about 95% completed, exterior just about 100% completed, I thought I would finally post some pics.

To give you an idea, this is what I started with:




This is the final result:




I must show off the counter-top that I made pretty much from scratch:




Inside I have room for at least five cornies + 20lb CO2 Cylinder, possibly one more corney.




I've posted a tonne more step-by-step photos and comments on my Picasa Album.

Let me know what y'all think.

what a difference! nice looking keezer.

Excellent.......

Nice work gunts!

Looks great!

Nice work! do yourself a favor and stick the 20# co2 tank on the outside of the keezer. it'll free up more room.

Wow, those are Keezer equivalents of Charles Atlas before and after pics.

Wow...that's excellent...gives me a lot of hope for my 1980's Kenmore freezer.

Very nicely done! Good work, now relax and have some homebrew.

Thanks for all the compliments everyone. I owe it all to the help and advice from this forum.

MMTG said:

Nice work! do yourself a favor and stick the 20# co2 tank on the outside of the keezer. it'll free up more room.

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That is an option down the road, but since I only have two kegs at the moment I think I'm ok for now. Unless you're offering to give me four cornies???

Guess I missed the dog.

Great Keezer and equally great Reservoir Dogs reference!

Awesome job! Reminds me of an episode of junkyard wars. Making something amazing from nothing at all.

P.S. - Reservoir Dogs was a GREAT movie.

When does it transform in to a robot and piss beer in to my cup?

Truly an excellent job of building that keezer man. Impressed.

Very Nice Result!!

Mirage said:

Great Keezer and equally great Reservoir Dogs reference!

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Thanks! Glad someone got it. I actually saw it originally in the theater.

Beernip said:

When does it transform in to a robot and piss beer in to my cup?

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That's been pushed out to Phase 2 of the project due to budgeting constraints during first quarter of 2010.

That is cool you saw it in theater! It is one of my fav movies. Have the big "Let's go to work" poster hanging on the wall actually.

looks stellar, nice work! is that a transformers bottle opener?

android said:

looks stellar, nice work! is that a transformers bottle opener?

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Just an Autobot emblem I bought on eBay to cover the holes left behind from the original name plate, but making one out of steel set up to pry bottle caps off between the "nose" and "mouth" would be cool.

Wow! Very Nice. I like the side-by-side comparison of before and after...

Tripod said:

Wow! Very Nice. I like the side-by-side comparison of before and after...

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Thanks. It was a lot of work. Looking back though, cleaning up and painting the freezer was the cheap and easy part.

I am another step closer today. I picked up the CO2 cylinder today, kegged my first batch of beer and have it force carbing as I type.

Guntr said:

Let me know what y'all think.

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Thats a beautiful project! I wish i could have started home-brewing back in the States--would have saved a lot of money!

What material is the top-surface? Looks like granite but I'm fairly certain you didn't use actual granite.

Suggestion: If you raise up the whole project (up on cinderblocks like a car?) and reinstall the casters about 2" closer to the center, they won't even show from the front.

Beautiful!

What did you use for the black paint, and how did you apply it? I used the black spray appliance epoxy stuff...it worked okay, but it sure wasn't shiny like yours!

Nice build, but why no forward sealing faucets??

NewBrewB said:

Thats a beautiful project! I wish i could have started home-brewing back in the States--would have saved a lot of money!

What material is the top-surface? Looks like granite but I'm fairly certain you didn't use actual granite.

Suggestion: If you raise up the whole project (up on cinderblocks like a car?) and reinstall the casters about 2" closer to the center, they won't even show from the front.

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Thanks! Granite would have been nice, but beyond my budget and pretty heavy for the freezer lid. I used a spray called "Make It Stone!" from Krylon, the lots of clear-coat with light sanding in between.



If you check out my Picassa Web Album it shows step by step of the process.

ScubaSteve said:

Beautiful!

What did you use for the black paint, and how did you apply it? I used the black spray appliance epoxy stuff...it worked okay, but it sure wasn't shiny like yours!

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I actually just used a quart of glossy Tremclad Black Rust Paint and a brush. Only a few spots required a second coat. Turned out nicer than I thought it would.

wildwest450 said:

Nice build, but why no forward sealing faucets??

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When I ordered my kit I didn't realize that Keg Connection would customize their kits and their default options did not include forward sealing faucets without CO2 cylinder and being in Canada I wasn't sure if the CO2 would be legal to fill here. Plus the 5lb would cost just as much as a 20lb to fill locally.

We'll see how these do. Being my first build I'm happy for now.

I put together the "fan box" this morning. We'll see if this Dollar Store box works, I still might have to make one out of wood. The "flex" conduit is not as flexible as I had hoped. I may end up buying an elbow or two to make routing it inside the freezer easier. I'm also going to buy some velcro to hold down the box.

We followed your lead, and made a similar keezer: http://ovalbrewing.com/category/keezer/

Guntr said:

I put together the "fan box" this morning. We'll see if this Dollar Store box works, I still might have to make one out of wood. The "flex" conduit is not as flexible as I had hoped. I may end up buying an elbow or two to make routing it inside the freezer easier. I'm also going to buy some velcro to hold down the box.

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How is your fan box working... I think we will have to rig something up to cool the tower.

I haven't seen very many freezers with a tower on top, why is that?

Do you have any pictures of the thermostat that you installed?

smmcdermott said:

I haven't seen very many freezers with a tower on top, why is that?

Do you have any pictures of the thermostat that you installed?

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Because you have to lift the lid, and move it away from the wall... risking damage to the tower. Also the tower costs a lot more than putting a collar on it.

redbenn said:

How is your fan box working... I think we will have to rig something up to cool the tower.

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Sorry for the late reply. It's working great. The flex pipe isn't as flexible as I had hoped so it's kind of awkwardly hanging down into the freezer and moves a lot when I open the lid. Might install an elbow and fix the pipe down the back of the freezer. If anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate it them.

smmcdermott said:

I haven't seen very many freezers with a tower on top, why is that?

Do you have any pictures of the thermostat that you installed?

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There are some pics at the Picasa web album linked to in my first post. It's nothing special, just the analog one sold by kegconnection.com. Working great so far.

redbenn said:

Because you have to lift the lid, and move it away from the wall... risking damage to the tower. Also the tower costs a lot more than putting a collar on it.

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Right on the money there. It's a bigger hassle than I thought, especially since even the big 4" castsers roll akwardly on the ceramic tile.

Still, once you get over showing all your friends the inside it will only be opened for changing kegs, so not a big deal. Once it's all said and done I am glad I went with a tower. I think the look and functionality are worth it.

Hey all, I finally got around to detailing my kegerator / keezer build on my blog at: http://mykegerator.blogspot.com/.

I look forward to your comments and feedback and I hope it helps any of you about to start building your own.

Great build - that autobot emblem is sick!

Where did you get the Autobot emblem from?

How big of a chest freezer is that? I would love to move up to a larger kegerator.

Eric_Leifermann said:

Where did you get the Autobot emblem from?

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eBay. I think it cost me about $5 including shipping from Hong Kong. I was honestly surprised at how nice it looked.

jackers252 said:

How big of a chest freezer is that? I would love to move up to a larger kegerator.

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It's about 11.7 cuft. I can fit five corny kegs on the floor and the CO2 cylinder. Could fit a sixth keg if I moved the CO2 outside the freezer. I could also fit a Sanke keg and one Corny or the CO2 cylinder.

Part of the reason I used this old freezer instead of buying a new one was the depth. This thing is 18" deep so it will hold a Sanke (if I ever decide to). All new freezers I've looked at under 8 cuft are only 15" deep and won't fit a Sanke which are 16 1/8" in diameter. If anyone has found a brand of freezers in the 5-8 cuft range that are big enough for a Sanke let me know, I'm feeling the itch to build another.