KISS keezer (with high quality parts)

[BILTIT]

Finally getting my keezer together.

Fridgidaire 8.8cuft freezer with cedar 2x6 spacer.

1- 5valve manifold inside freezer for serving and 1-4 valve manifold outside for carbing.

Dual product co2 reg.

110v minifan and colored dessicant (reusable) for airflow and condensation reduction.

4-Perlick 630ss taps and one intertap SS FC tap.

Tweaked onboard tstat for ~+4C temps



A few pics, more to come.

Force carbing now and hope to pull my first fully carbed drink out of it soon!

Have the following drinks on tap:

1) "cider house select" cherry cider
2) ale yeast cider
3) mangrove jack yeast apple cider/wine
4) pappys apple wine (pub cider)
5) carbonated water

 

[friarsmith]

Very nice! You might consider buying a pack of disposable square foil pie tins to set under each keg. That will catch any drippings as you connect/remove the beer lines. I only say this because I have a similar setup and occasionally connect a picnic line (not part of the tap collar) to test beers before they get connected to the collar taps.

Good on ya for having a keg of carb'd water too. Try 8-12 oz of lemon/lime concentrate in your next seltzer keg. Delicious. And it is a good refreshing and lo-cal option when you're hot and thirsty but don't really need to drink beer.

 

[tzaccario]

Looking Good!! How much CO2 do you feed to the water keg? I have wanted to do that, but never really read up on how people do it.

 

[friarsmith]

For seltzer water, I hit the keg with 20-25 psi for 2-3 days, turn gas off, then let the keg sit for 2-3 days in the keezer.

Then dispense with 10-15 psi. It's good & fizzy but doesn't hold a head like beer.

 

[BILTIT]

The water was the girlfriends idea lol but it is a good one!

Good idea about foil tins, thx.

I am currently trying to force carb these very quickly as i leave for mexico on thursday am so i have about 40 psi on them for a day or two and will try. Otherwise i will back the pressure down when i leave and they should be good to go when i get back!

 

[RichPetersen]

I have a keg of water on tap at all times for my wife mostly, although I like it too. My keezer can hold 5 kegs so I have 4 on tap (3 beer 1 water) and 1 water keg on backup at all times pressurizing at about 20psi. As soon as the one we are drinking empties I swap it for the backup and refill the empty.

 

[BILTIT]

Still a bit messy with the hoses etc but its coming along.

 

[crane]

As with others here I keep a keg of soda water on tap for the misses. We find it too flat when served at normal beer carbonation levels. I serve mine at 30psi. To avoid a crap ton of hose length to balance the line, I put a couple epoxy mixer inserts in the liquid out dip tube of the keg. This adds enough resistance to in the path to slow down the flow so you can get a non violent pour.

The link below shows what I am talking about. The white insert can be easily removed from the nozzle. Throw the nozzle away and put the white insert in the keg's dip tube. 2-3 should do the trick.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JFR386C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_jrIKybE8EVQ78

 

[BILTIT]

Good to know about the 30psi serving pressure. I wonder if a flow control tap will accomplish the same thing?

 

[friarsmith]

For the seltzer keg, I just keep a cobra/picnic tap with 10 feet of line and a liquid disconnect coiled up inside my keezer and fill a growler or two every few days. The "water" line rarely warrants tap space. When it comes time to fill a growler, assuming the keg is charged at 20+psi, I set the CO2 to 20-25 psi and fill some bottles for the fridge in our house. Since water doesn't hold head like beer, you can fill directly into a growler with virtually no overflow.

 

[nasty_rabbit]

What do you use the 4 way block on the out side for?

 

[BILTIT]

Carbing. I am using the inside one right now to carb only because this is my first set of kegs. I want to have some carbing and ready to go when one kicks off so i can just swap it out, wait to cool and have at it. I bought two extra kegs for this purpose.

 

[Tommydee]

Glad to stumble on this today, planning very similar build, we have similar goals. I also need taps for SWMBO, but for cider and kombucha rather than water. Good thing is I like both of these! A few questions BILTIT, that will save me hours of research.

Why the need for 4 ports on the outside? I couldn't imagine ever carbing more than 1 or 2 kegs at once.
What length lines? Seems I should go 10 ft, as my current 1 keg picnic tap setup has way too much serving pressure at 10 psi w/ 5 ft line.
Is having the flow control worth it? I was also considering 1 intertap flow control, the others perlick.
Where did you buy everything? (PM if you'd prefer)

Thanks for the awesome pics! I'll definitely go cedar!

 

[BILTIT]

I bought the 4 way outside manifold for the possibility of needed to carb alot at once, probably overkill though.

I have yet to really use the setup, just got back from mexico so they should be ready to try out now though.

6ft bev lines, only because thats what came with the keg kit from obk. I will let you know if its enough or not once i get some run time.

Havent tried the flow control yet, bought one out of my 5 taps just to try it, was cheaper than perlicks too.

Downside i see of it is you cannot use a shutoff return spring like i put into all the others taps.

I am in canada so i ordered most the stuff from obk (ontariobeerkegs).

I found the kegs at a different store (canuck homebrew supplies) turns out they are owned by obk lol. The dufferent stores carry different things.

 

[BILTIT]

Also a side tidbit, every manifold i have seen can have one more port added as the end connection is plugged. Thats how i put 5 ports on my 4way inside the freezer. Can save you a few bucks or save your bacon when you choose to add another keg.

 

[BILTIT]

If i was to do it again i would check into pricing, its very easy to build your own manifold out of pipe fittings and you can but just the valves from suppliers.

 

[BILTIT]

And another thing, i am very happy with just tweaking the factory tstat so far. Sitting at +5C, might drop it a degree or two.

Also prefer the 110v minifan i found on amazon vs the comp fans some use which require a different power source.

I put my fan on a manual adjust light timer, alternates on for 60mins/off for 60 mins. I can probably reduce run time as i have zero cobdensation so far.

 

[Tommydee]

Thanks biltit...sounds like you need to brew some beer and get that beauty pouring! How else can you ease the adjustment from Mexico to Canada in February?

 

[BILTIT]

Ya, the kegs are full so i just need to start pouring and finw tune my carbonation and pour pressures.

I was lucky, only went from +30c to -7c. It was -28c at home last week, glad i missed out on that lol.