If You Have To Build A Kegerator All Over Again

What would you do differently? I'm speaking specifically about chest freezer conversions ... it's my assumption that the majority of people who have built kegerators have only built one, so if you could do another, what would you do differently?

The largest issue I would like to fix is that absolute boondoggle of air & beer lines ... it makes installing / removing kegs very uncomfortable ... does anyone have good ideas / pictures of keeping this neat & clean?

I have a 7 cu ft chest freezer I converted but unfortunately it can only hold my corny kegs and 1/6 kegs of commercial beers ...

For my 2nd kegerator, I'm planning on going much, much bigger ( I have the space in my basement ) ... 20+ cu ft ... I want to be able to put anything I want in there, not just 1/6 kegs ...

 

I am going to do this when I free up some funds for it.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/yuris-keezer-design-127726/

 

About the only thing I might change would be to make the cabinet wider than the freezer, and put the CO2 and regulators in the extra space. Also, I would not skimp on the wood - last time I used poplar, but I should have gone with cherry from the start.

 

I would make my collar from 2x6 instead of 1x3 to add cold air duct to an adjacent fermentation chamber. I am also going to add a computer fan inside the freezer to circulate air and balance temps between floor and lines

 

One way to keep them tidy is to mount your regulator bank or manifold on a collar, and carefully route the gas lines to reach only what they need to. For the beverage tubing, coiling the excess and strapping it out of the way with just the length needed to reach the kegs, and labeling each line makes a big difference. I'm about 1/2 way to tidy, but I have no collar (towers) so nowhere to attach the manifold except the inside of the lid. I do use a small blower to cool the towers and it makes a big difference for both keeping the beer lines and faucets cold, as well as circulating air in the freezer.

 

From the Monsterator thread I thought this image was super sexy:



I was never a huge fan of mounting the collar to the lid, but it seems that's the best way to keep things tidy ...

Coupled with mounting my regulator to the collar ( that image shows 2x4's I think, I'll be doing 2x6 for sure ) as mentioned above I should be in a lot better shape

 

Using the smallest ones of these:

and a bunch of these:


I have my 10' lines for my kegs, my reg setup, and my CO2 lines all zip tied neatly to the lid of the keez. Everything swings up and away with the lid, so it's easy to change kegs.

The beer line and the gas line are also zip tied together and numbered, so it's easy to tell which set of lines feeds which tap.

When I add the other 3 taps, I'll be mounting the CO2 and the Nitro tanks outside the keezer. I'll use QD's through the wall of the collar. I'm adding a fan to equalize temp and control some of the moisture inside.

Once The guest is out of the spare room and I can pull the keez out I'll take a pic of how it is now.

B

 

I would mount my taps to the collar and not let swmbo know about the tap box idea. I do think the tapbox looks nicer, but is more of a pain than just opening the freezer lid as it was designed.

 

Heh... at first glance, I thought those were ant traps.

 

I dunno that I would do it over again differently.. Bought a used Danby kegerator after ditching the loud energy draining commercial monster, tapped it with 3 taps and put it in the kitchen. Made 3 brews the wife didnt want to drink and told her we should put a keezer in the garage for the "other brews".. Worked out in the end, now I have a keezer in the garage and a nice stainless 3 tap in the kitchen.

 

If I had to build my keezer again I'd add a rolling base on casters. I did this recently and it makes moving it around much easier!

 

I have a plan to do a bigger and better kegerator someday, but that someday will be when I have a bigger and better house. The vision is to build a cold box seamlessly into the counter space and have access from both front and top. Front to make loading and unloading easy, top to make running the lines easy as I imagine one day I will get old and lifting kegs from the top will be hard on the back and reaching into the back of a front loader to straighten out the lines will be hard on the body as well.

 

If I had it to do over, I'd use an upright freezer. It kills my back to lift kegs in and out of my chest freezer. And it's a PITA to clean.

 

Just pulled the trigger on a 25 cu ft chest freezer ... will try to document this build

 

Sweet!

:rockin:

 

not a god damn thing!!!!! ilove my keezer

CHeck out my pics in the link below