Mini fridge fermentation chamber/kegerator

[btienk]

Here's my idea, I would love input from everyone with a little more know-how than me. I want to take my old mini fridge and build a kegerator and a fermentation chamber from it. My idea so far is to build the chamber on it like a lot of fermentation chamber builds that are on here, but divide it up into two chambers. The front part will be the kegerator. I want to do two kegs in there. The co2 doesn't have to be inside if I don't have the room, but I read more about people having the co2 cooled along with the beer. On top of that I want to build a wooden Draft tower for my two faucets. I saw a build maybe on here that looked easy, and the guy used I believe a poly sealant on it to make it waterproof and a little more weatherproof. I'd have a fan blowing up to keep the lines cool, too. Then if possible I want to seal off an area big enough for at least one carboy that I will have more temperature control over than just a Swamp cooler. I would hook up a fan to push cold air in. With that, I don't know if I would need a return air fan or just a vent of some sort. This project won't be getting done for at least a year because of my wedding and kids. But I put a ton of research in before I even got my equipment to start brewing so thought I would do the same with this. Thank you to everyone in advance.

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[OneImpBrewery]

Research is always a great place to start. Most keggerators that are made for home brewing require extra tubing to slow down the beer coming out of the tap to prevent pouring a glass of foam. My tower is not cooled and I have not had an issue with the 2' of tubing thats in the draft tower overly warming my beer. I used 10' in the fridge itself to slow everything down.
There was a nice wooden draft tower in the last edition of BYO for another resource. On the fridge I use I put a temp controller on it at first then realized that on setting one it stayed constant at 37degrees. Took of the temp controller, adjusted co2 and there it sits. I have a second one for fermentation though. Lots of good builds on here good luck.

 

[jgarretson]

I'm not sure how you make two chambers in a mini fridge that will fit two corny legs plus ferment? You planning to do this simultaneously? That's a huge mini fridge...

I built a ferm chamber with a tiny mini fridge by taking the door off and building a cabinet from rigid insulation that the fridge opens in to. I added the STC1000 for hot/cold control.

I had a separate Danby fridge that I built a cabinet around and built a coffin box on that with the drafts. I drilled a hole in the top of the fridge, ran some 1/2" copper pipe up out of the fridge and have no foaming issues with 10' of liquid line in the fridge. But I can only fit two cornies and my CO2 bottle in there.

Got a photo of what you're thinking about?


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[bberg]

I'm not sure how you make two chambers in a mini fridge that will fit two corny legs plus ferment? You planning to do this simultaneously? That's a huge mini fridge...

I built a ferm chamber with a tiny mini fridge by taking the door off and building a cabinet from rigid insulation that the fridge opens in to. I added the STC1000 for hot/cold control.

I had a separate Danby fridge that I built a cabinet around and built a coffin box on that with the drafts. I drilled a hole in the top of the fridge, ran some 1/2" copper pipe up out of the fridge and have no foaming issues with 10' of liquid line in the fridge. But I can only fit two cornies and my CO2 bottle in there.

Got a photo of what you're thinking about?


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Think we could see your setup ?

 

[jgarretson]

Yeah when I get home I'll snap some pics and try to upload them.


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[btienk]

I don't know how efficient it would be having the mini fridge cool all that room. It's a dorm room size mini fridge. I've seen builds where people fit two corny kegs with co2 tank in the mini fridge, so I figured I'd be able to build a chamber off of it big enough to fit the kegs and the co2 tank. I don't think it would fit in my fridge without some major modifications to the fridge itself. I can find a picture of the basic build, but I haven't seen one with the second chamber in it. That's why I'm asking if it's even feasible. I'm not sure how efficient the fridge will be at cooling all that extra space.

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