A Keezer is born!

Well here goes the story of my new keezer:

Upon graduation I landed a job just outside of Baltimore and made the move from Minneapolis just a few weeks ago. The majority of my brewing equipment made the move with me but my old kegerator was staying put at college. Getting away from the college life style I no longer required a kegerator to hold 1/2 bbls of Keystone Light and the like so I decided to build a keezer dedicated to homebrew.

I checked out the keezer sizing thread and was originally going to go with the 7.2 cu.ft. Magic Chef from Home Depot but I really wanted the ability to hold 5 kegs and SWMBO wanted to keep the size down as much as possible. We settled on a 9.0 cu.ft. Frigidaire from Lowes for around $260. I made some very rough estimates at the store and determined I 'should' be able to squeeze 5 kegs in the lower portion and keep my CO2 and Nitro tank on the hump.

Turns out that my measurements were so close that 1/8ths of an inch mattered. I had to shave off the rubbers ridges from the tops and bottoms of my kegs.




I currently only have three kegs but I have moved them around and 5 should fit extremely tightly.


I made a collar for the freezer using 5/4" x 4" sanded and primed pine from Home Depot, using a good old mitre box and hand saw.



I have a 10lb CO2 tank (red gas lines) and a ~5lb Nitrogen tank (blue gas line) inside on the hump. The CO2 primary line feeds my 4 secondaries. I am waiting on the gauge and shutoff valve for one of them. I used power wire and some washers to mount the secondaries so that they could move around when kegs needed to be swapped out. Everything that touches the beer is stainless, and hopefully with the Perlicks there will be no more sticky faucets.





I placed a piece of plexiglass in between two runners on the top of the freezer lid so I could insert the names of each item on tap.



In addition to the secondary gauge and shutoff valve I am waiting on a fourth Perlick faucet, some fittings, 5 black pub handles, and two more kegs... then the Keezer will be finished.

I am still debating how to mount the temperature probe and what to do with the drain on the wall mount drip tray. I think for the drain I will just plug it for now and figure that out later.

Well there it is my new keezer which at the moment sits empty but will be full as soon as I can keg the beers that traveled with me and brew a couple new ones.

If anyone wants a parts list let me know... I try not to look at the total cost and there is no way in hell SWMBO will ever know the real cost of this thing.

 

Very nice! Great pictorial too. Parts list will be great, we'll figure out the pricing.

 

Sweet Build!!!

 

Parts list will have to wait until Monday, parts list is on my work computer . No I didn't shop for beer equipment on company time if anyone is wondering...

 

You didn't? pffft... what did you waste your company time doing, work?!?

 

There are only so many PPT presentations and HR training programs you can take part in one day before going insane, building a Keezer was the perfect way to keep my sanity. But now that it is built I have to determine the next project to occupy my mind.

Oh and I forgot that I mounted a Ranco ETC on the back of the collar along with a velco'd faucet wrench.

 

Nice looking job, but you're wrong on one thing:

Keezers aren't born... they're MADE.

Take credit for your efforts!!

 

Nice clean install.

 

Very nice work.

 

Thanks everyone. Yesterday I managed to brew three batches of beer back to back so hopefully in the not too distant future I will be able to fill up all those taps. The temp controller is working like a charm and the compressor barely runs.

 

I don't know. For some folks, they seem to go through enough pain in the building process to make it seem like they're giving birth to them.

 

nice clean build!

 

100% true statement.

 

Well its a couple days later than I expected but I have uploaded my parts list, here, which is 90-95% accurate. The nitro system is not included as I kept it from my previous kegerator, same for the secondary regulators. Grand total is near $1200...

From the list you can see in red that I am waiting on equipment from KegKits.com which may be a lost cause, I am going to initiate a credit charge back tomorrow or Friday as Tom is not responsive. I wish I would have read this thread earlier, but I have had good experiences with Tom in the past and I didn't think anything of it.

(UPDATE: I actually got a hold the Tom on the phone after this posting and he claims that the order should ship tonight, so taking that with a grain of salt the build might be complete early next week! Use caution when buying from him as he does not work quickly and is nearly impossible to get ahold of!!!)

Tap handles and the fourth Perlick faucet arrived today so the keezer is basically finished except for one of the secondary regulators, which is not critical at this point.

Help me decide which tap handle setup looks better, all 5 being short pub handles:



Or the 4 Perlicks with pub handles and the stout faucet with a smaller handle:


The extra height of the stout faucet is the only thing that has me debating. Finally I forgot to mention that in the planning process I built the majority of the components in 3D CAD to evaluate how everything would come together... here is a screenshot of the model:



That is it for this build, brewed 15 gals of beer this past weekend in attempt to get the keezer filled up ASAP.

 

I personally like the uniform look of all the pub handles

 

At the bottom of the screw where the handle is there is an adjustment knob so you can tighten down the handle and have it face the right way if it has a label. Move that knob up a bit on the non stouts and you might get a more uniform look.

 

Thanks for the tip but the stout is quite a bit out of line, I think I am going to keep them all as the pub style. They look great.

 

I like the look of the stout handle being shorter. It differentiates itself in a way that makes it look right, rather than looking like you messed up the measurement when drilling the hole.

 

My keezer is also a very tight fit with the kegs. What I found was that the rubber portions of the Firestone kegs were ever-so-slightly smaller in diameter that the Cornelius ones.

 

Hey FlyingBeer, I was looking through your parts list and didn't see the secondary regulators listed. Where did you find them without a gauge and shut-off? The ones I saw on micro-matic came pre-assembled with gauge and shut-off, but the shut-off didn't have a check valve (which I would consider important). Thanks, and really nice build by the way!

 

The secondary regulator bodies are old Perlicks and I purchased them from American Science & Surplus : Items Just Off the Truck a few years ago for a steal. Something like $4 each! I just added check valves, gauges, and the connecting hardware to each.

 

I think I'll do the same with my faucet wrench ... as soon as I find it.

 

Can I get copies of your models? I am at that stage right now.