My custom tower, tap and kegerator build

[EastsideWABrewer]

Long time lurker, first post - I've stolen so many good ideas for kegerators, tap towers, tap handles etc. from you all over the last several months, I wanted to share my own custom build.

For a quick background, I'm a new'ish brewer and also sport triathlon as a hobby. Because of the tri habit, I had a few spare bike parts I originally planned on using for a custom tap handle. However, from the original idea for a tap handle I quickly expanded to a full custom tap tower, all bike themed. Here's the details. Hope you enjoy.

• Kegerator: Igloo 4.6 CU FT fridge
• Tap tower: Supposed to look like a carbon fiber bike down tube with a water bottle (ss) attached for the faucet
• Tower cooling: Passive copper piping
• Tap handle: Bike aerobars with bar end shifters as the top

More pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/106856273@N04/10527398034/

 

[Pappers_]

great idea!

 

[Cyclman]

Love the personalization! If only breweries were as creative with their tap handles.

 

[EastsideWABrewer]

Thanks! It was one of the more fun projects I've taken on (how could it not be, beer magically flows out of this thing). Much of the construction was simplified through the great info in this DIY section, I mostly spent time finding items that looked appropriate to the theme. Finding that vinyl for example. Who knew they made fake carbon fiber ...

I've also built my own temp controller and water bath fermentation chamber from the DIYs here. Harder to make those bike themed

 

[baulz]

Looks good, nice work!

What did you use to connect the aerobars to the faucet? A nut glued inside? I'm a mountain biker and have thought about making similar tap handles with old bars and maybe a crankarm or pedal.

 

[EastsideWABrewer]

Looks good, nice work!

What did you use to connect the aerobars to the faucet? A nut glued inside? I'm a mountain biker and have thought about making similar tap handles with old bars and maybe a crankarm or pedal.

Yup, exactly that. I think it's a 3/8" - 16 nut. I had to cut the bars way down to size the properly but after that pretty much everything fell right into place.

The aerobar ID is almost exactly 1/2", just a little wider than the OD of the nut itself. I glued a piece of left over 1/2" Cu tubing to the inside. This keeps the nut from sliding deeper into the bars since now the bars are too narrow for the nut to slide into, also leaves plenty of room for the faucet end to screw in. I then carefully epoxied the nut to the sides of the bar to hold it from sliding out or spinning.

I plan on using the elbow rests as a dry erase/chalk board to indicate what each tap holds. Just need to figure out exactly how to do that and where to mount them.