JonyMac's Brewery Keezer and Freezer Build

[JonyMac]

My brewery has a keezer (Whirlpool 14.8 Cu Ft http://www.whirlpool.com/-[EH155FXBQ]-1021418/EH155FXBQ/) that holds 8 kegs to serve my 8 taps, 1 keg that holds cleaner/sanitizer used to clean out the lines and taps, 1 keg that holds 3 aquarium pumps to cool my three conical fermenters, 1 reservoir that contains a glycol mix that runs out of the keezer into the freezer (GE 7 Cu Ft http://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-specs/FCM7SHWW) through the tap and back to the reservoir, and 1 10lb nitrogen tank to feed my stout tap. I keep a scuba sized CO2 tank under my bar and the high pressure feed runs through the wall into the brewery. I used Micromatic's 8 line trunk line to run from the keezer to the taps, stripped off the insulation and ran them inside the keezer. They are all color coded. I placed beer shutoff valves inside the keezer to make it easier to change kegs without spilling beer in the keezer, to have a place to add flow meters for my RaspberryPints app, and to be able to shutoff beer to the taps and then lock the keezer cuz I have a 15 year old...



I built collars for both the keezer and the freezer out of 1x stock - 1x6 for the keezer and 1x4 for the freezer to run my tubing through. I filled the gap between the 1x with expanding foam and capped it with a thin strip of 1x and then primed and painted it white to match the keezer and freezer. I secured the collars to the keezer and freezer using silicone adhesive caulk. For the Keezer, I used Micromatic quad CO2 distribution panels and built a CO2 distribution board external to the keezer to be able to easily view, shutoff and distribute CO2 to clear kegs and to push beer from the conicals to kegs. I have enough room in the keezer for a pail of DampRid, and a layer of growlers on top of the kegs. My fermentation refrigeration controller controls the temp of the keezer and keeps it between 33º and 34º. I added a plug in moisture absorber that I pull out of the keezer and plug in to dry out every month or so - this results in very little condensation in the keezer.



In the freezer I have 50' of 3/8" copper coil that sits on the bottom of the freezer kept at 10º. I use the freezer for hops, ice, moonshine and a cold coil for the tap pump that keeps the taps at 39º. If I am lagering a beer in the fermentation tank, I put the aquarium pump in the tap reservoir and can get the fermenter below 53º. Below are pics of the setups:



FREEZER:



IMG_8896 by jonymac, on Flickr

Freezer collar being clamped.



IMG_8897 by jonymac, on Flickr

Version 1 of the copper coil in the freezer - I had to upgrade from 1/4" tubing to 3/8" tubing to get the glycol to flow better, instead of bending it all around the interior (pain in the ass) I left it coiled in the bottom.



IMG_8905 by jonymac, on Flickr

I built a separator out of 1x2 and cut up a bit of an old dog kennel to use as the screen to hold all the hops on 1 side of the freezer.



IMG_8906 by jonymac, on Flickr

Freezer collar installed, primed and painted.



IMG_8907 by jonymac, on Flickr

Detail of copper tubing going through freezer collar.



IMG_0161 by jonymac, on Flickr

Freezer with 3/8" tubing, full of hops, moonshine and showing temperature sensor coming through collar.



KEEZER:



keezercollar by jonymac, on Flickr

Keezer collar partially filled with expanding foam.



IMG_8855 by jonymac, on Flickr

Clamping collar to keezer using silicone adhesive.



IMG_8856 by jonymac, on Flickr

Micromatic quad distribution panels for controlling CO2 individually for each keg.



IMG_0164 by jonymac, on Flickr

Keezer view of CO2 valves and beer distribution lines.



IMG_8887 by jonymac, on Flickr

CO2 valves left side.



IMG_8886 by jonymac, on Flickr

CO2 valves right side.



IMG_8888 by jonymac, on Flickr

Beer shutoff valves for each keg.



IMG_8891 by jonymac, on Flickr

Mating beer lines with trunk line and cooling lines with freezer coil.



IMG_0162 by jonymac, on Flickr

Vinyl lines coming from cooling keg aquarium pumps to three fermenters.



IMG_8869 by jonymac, on Flickr

CO2 distribution board prior to being painted.



IMG_0159 by jonymac, on Flickr

Freezer, keezer, distribution panel and fermenters in place being controlled by my fermentation refrigeration controller.



JonyMac

 

[BrooklynTom]

Well done. I would never have the ability to be so organized.:rockin:

 

[jinjorge]

Very nice!!!

 

[JonyMac]

Well done. I would never have the ability to be so organized.:rockin:

Organization prevents chaos.

 

[kal]

Organization prevents chaos.

+1

Short term pain for long term gain.

Kal

 

[SevenOaks]

Organization prevents chaos.

"Out of chaos, comes order."

 

[jcav]

Unreal, very nice job!

 

[jschein]

You Rock

 

[ChapBrewer]

Really cool setup! congratulations

 

[brew703]

WOW. That is one sweet setup. Gives me something to look forward to.

 

[JonyMac]

Thanks guys!

 

[jmcd105]

That is amazing, couple pennies spent on that set up for sure!

 

[JonyMac]

A couple - still think it was worth it - I just love using this setup. Fun to putter around in the brewery and tweak stuff.

 

[wyowolf]

Very nice... how long is the trunk line? sorry I didn't see it listed if I missed it.

Also you said you put the regulators external to the keezer, but in the pic its inside??

"For the Keezer, I used Micromatic quad CO2 distribution panels and built a CO2 distribution board external to the keezer to be able to easily view, shutoff and distribute CO2 to clear kegs and to push beer from the conicals to kegs."

 

[JonyMac]

WYOWolf - see the last two pictures in my post. I made a CO2 distribution board and mounted external to the keezer - you can see it in the last picture hanging above the keezer. The CO2 regulators are in the keezer mounted to the collar as seen in the previous pictures. The trunkline is roughly 10' in length.

 

[wyowolf]

WYOWolf - see the last two pictures in my post. I made a CO2 distribution board and mounted external to the keezer - you can see it in the last picture hanging above the keezer. The CO2 regulators are in the keezer mounted to the collar as seen in the previous pictures. The trunkline is roughly 10' in length.

Oh ok, I see it now, sorry. Wow, you spent some money on regulators. Very nice setup... I didnt realize you had some outside the keezer as well. I just saw the ones inside.

If you dont mind me asking, a little bit about the glycol setup you have, you just use aq pump for it? I will being doing something similar in the future for my basement.. does it keep the trunk line cool enough?

 

[JonyMac]

Yes, was tired of replacing cheap regulators in my older setup. Decided with this build, no CO2 leaks - new kegs and regulators - no problems in 2 years.

I have an interesting glycol setup - i have a reservoir in the keezer with glycol/water mixture and the temp set at 37º with an aquarium pump that runs the liquid though a 50' copper coil in the bottom of the freezer - set to 16º - next to the keezer. It then runs to the tap tower and back to the reservoir in the keezer. This results in beer being poured from the taps at 39º - my preferred temp. I have a temp probe in the tap tower tied to a controller that turns on and off the aquarium pump as the temp reaches 42. It doesn't run that often and when it does - only about 10 seconds or so.

I also have a keg in the keezer with water/glycol/starsan mixture that holds 3 aquarium pumps - one running to each fermenter with their own controllers. I can ferment three beers at different temps using this setup. I am brewing a lager tonight and an ale over the weekend, so it is useful. Check out my other threads in my signature for more info on those.

 

[kal]

Yes, was tired of replacing cheap regulators in my older setup. Decided with this build, no CO2 leaks - new kegs and regulators - no problems in 2 years.

+1 to this. There's so much cheap junk on the gas/serving side of beer it's not even funny. If you want good stuff that'll last a lifetime, look at what bars use.

Kal

 

[JonyMac]

Kal - brewing your Munich Helles tonight again - love that beer - grinding the grain now with my new dust free grinding system!

 

[kal]

Nice! I do something similar (albeit less fancy!) in that my mill sits directly on top of my bucket and there's no gaps or spaces for dust to get out. A video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDtnszMIKl2/?taken-by=theelectricbrewery

Good luck with the Helles! (I need to make that one again - it's been too long)

Kal

 

[phendog]

All I can say is,.. holy ****. Well Done!

 

[wyowolf]

I clicked on your link... WOW.. thats all I can really say... just WOW.

Yes, was tired of replacing cheap regulators in my older setup. Decided with this build, no CO2 leaks - new kegs and regulators - no problems in 2 years.

I have an interesting glycol setup - i have a reservoir in the keezer with glycol/water mixture and the temp set at 37º with an aquarium pump that runs the liquid though a 50' copper coil in the bottom of the freezer - set to 16º - next to the keezer. It then runs to the tap tower and back to the reservoir in the keezer. This results in beer being poured from the taps at 39º - my preferred temp. I have a temp probe in the tap tower tied to a controller that turns on and off the aquarium pump as the temp reaches 42. It doesn't run that often and when it does - only about 10 seconds or so.

I also have a keg in the keezer with water/glycol/starsan mixture that holds 3 aquarium pumps - one running to each fermenter with their own controllers. I can ferment three beers at different temps using this setup. I am brewing a lager tonight and an ale over the weekend, so it is useful. Check out my other threads in my signature for more info on those.

 

[Ruvort]

Yes, was tired of replacing cheap regulators in my older setup. Decided with this build, no CO2 leaks - new kegs and regulators - no problems in 2 years.

I have an interesting glycol setup - i have a reservoir in the keezer with glycol/water mixture and the temp set at 37º with an aquarium pump that runs the liquid though a 50' copper coil in the bottom of the freezer - set to 16º - next to the keezer. It then runs to the tap tower and back to the reservoir in the keezer. This results in beer being poured from the taps at 39º - my preferred temp. I have a temp probe in the tap tower tied to a controller that turns on and off the aquarium pump as the temp reaches 42. It doesn't run that often and when it does - only about 10 seconds or so.

I also have a keg in the keezer with water/glycol/starsan mixture that holds 3 aquarium pumps - one running to each fermenter with their own controllers. I can ferment three beers at different temps using this setup. I am brewing a lager tonight and an ale over the weekend, so it is useful. Check out my other threads in my signature for more info on those.

I am looking to do the same with cooling a tower. Would you be willing to share what temperature probe you used and how you set it up?

Thank you

 

[JonyMac]

Sure - I use Love controllers - TS3s - I have 4 of them and use them for all my refrigeration - keezer, freezer, conditioning cooler and tap pump. I ran the probe inside the insulation wrapping my lines going to my taps and pushed the probe as far up into the tap housing as possible. I then set the temp on the love controller to maintain 39º at the tap. I set the high side temp to 42º at which time the pump kicks on and drops the temp to 36º and then kicks off. it then floats up to 42º - so the average tap pour comes out at 39º. when i put a temp probe in my beer after a pour it reads 39º or so.

In the background of post 19 on page 2 you can see the control box I built - on the left bottom is 4 love controllers - the tap pump controller is on the bottom right and is reading 38.9º in the pic.

 

[JonyMac]

Fixed broken pic links