Kegerator Convertion

[Wingnutt73]

Okay fellas, I have been looking into getting a Kegerator convertion kit and wanted your thought and or your own personal Experience with it. I have found what seems to be a great kit from Kegco and was wondering how the pros/cons of Kegging vs Bottling aside from the simple stuff like I can take a sixer to my buddys house.

Also how easy is it to convert an actual fridge to a kegerator? (Again I know you are out there.) I have a spare fridge in the basement and even since I have gotten into Home Brewing I have been eyeballing it for the day I can turn it into the Beer Chest it wants to be.

One last thing. I have seen a lot of talk basically using the Kegerator as somewhat of a secondary fermentor. How does this process work? Can I still dry hop it add indgridents? What about the priming sugar? ( I am assuming carbanation is given through the Co2 tanks).

I'm sure I'll have more questions but can not think of any right now.

Thanks again Guys!!

 

[jonlovesbeer1203]

I love kegging! i bought a fridge off of amazon for about 130 bucks. It's a Danby. You have to be sure to get one that doesn't have coolant or powerlines in the top of it. It fits 2 kegs and a 5lb bottle in side no problem. The actual tap kit i got is http://stores.kegconnection.com/Detail.bok?no=590 as for an actual fridge, it's pretty easiy to convert. just drill your holes and you're good to go!

For the actual kegging, i still secondary rack to clear my beer up even more before i keg, usually about two weeks. you can dry hop or add late ingredients there. You could do it in the keg, but you don't want to clog your lines. You can naturally carb your kegs using sugar, but most guys just force carbonate. I like to set my beer to serving pressure and in about 5 days it's good to go. Once beer gets below 40 degrees it can absorb the CO2. A 5 gallon tank carb's and serves abotu 7 kegs.

 

[Wingnutt73]

The fridge I'm thinking about converting is just a normal old fridge. Has a freezer on top. I was thinking about either putting the Tap on the side or in the actual door. That way I can still use the freezer for my hops and what not.

So as far as using a secondary you still do? Didn't think about clogging the lines thats a good point. Now what exactly do you mean by force carbonate. That is from the CO2? And in this case either one would work correct not both sugar and CO2?

 

[Pratzie]

I was gonna go conversion route but found a great edgestar dual tap kegerator online with great reviews for only 608 with free shipping and a dual guage regulator. Check out nextag if ur interested in it, it might cost a bit more but not a whole heck of a lot more especially when u have to buy the tank, lines, couplers, faucet tower and faucets.

I don't think the conversion itself was hard, i just wanted to put more time into by brewing hardware so i went with spending alittle more and getting the straight kegerator. Im told the conversion kits on the market today are excellent quality and take little to no effort to complete. detailed instructions, not to mention alot of advice/help from the forum should be able to get u up and running in no time.

As far as the secondary fermetor, if u go with a keezer/full fridge conversion, u'll be able to use it as a lager/fermentation chamber. My kegerator CAN fit my carboy but only if im using a slim sixtel or have nothing inside. Just something to keep in mind if ur shopping around for vessels. If you want to go that route of kegerator/fermentor, i'd def go with a nice sized chest freezer (maybe 7cu feet) or full fridge. Either way, look at the big picture, what kind of beers are you going to be brewing, and how often. That will help give u an idea of how many taps but also how much room you may or may not want for lagering/temp controlled fermenting.

 

[jonlovesbeer1203]

Instead of "naturally carb" the beer with priming sugar, you force the CO2 into the beer. If you use beer smith it will give you a good idea how much psi to carb. There's also graphs all over the web for beer style and psi.

 

[rklinck]

The biggest con of kegging is the price. I would estimate that more than half the money I have spent since I started brewing has been dedicated to my kegging set up (5 corny kegs, 3 CO2 tanks, a double regulator, a single regulator, gas distribution hardware, a commercial kegerator that I converted to hold 3 kegs with a 3 tap tower). I also bought a tool to fill bottles from the kegs once the beer is carbed up (so I can still take a sixer to a friends house if I want).

I think the conversion of a normal fridge is pretty easy, but you might want to search the DIY forum.

I have seen ads for a metal cylinder that you can insert into the keg to dry hop with if you want. I don't dry hop too often so this is not a big issue for me (and I would not want to give up the space in the keg). I think the best way to do it is to take the same approach with fermenting the beer that you already use, just replace the bottling phase with kegging.

There are many ways to force carb. You can "set it and forget it" for 2 weeks. This is the safest approach and has the lowest risk of overcarbonating the beer. It also forces you to wait 2 weeks, which will give the beer time to drop completely clear. The most aggressive approach is the "shake and role method." This involves setting the pressure regulator to 30 or 35 psi and shaking/rolling the keg to get Co2 into suspension. You do this for a couple/few minutes, periodically pulling some beer to see how carbonated it is. When the beer is close to fully carbed, you reset the pressure regulator to serving pressure and release the excess pressure from the keg. The beer will usually be carbed up by the following day. It won't be clear and will need some time for the carbonation to really settle in perfectly, but it will be drinkable the next day. There are middle of the road approaches where you don't shake or roll the keg but you set it to a higher pressure and let it sit for a period of time then reduce the pressure to serving pressure. I've seen people say that you can get a reliable carb within about a week this way.

 

[Wingnutt73]

Great sounds easy enough! Drill a hole and brew basically as I have been. I can't wait to get this started.