My kind of a bar thread

[Solidsnake]

This is my thread on my kind of a bar that my wife wants to do. She recently bought a bunch of new decorations and tore the house apart redecorating and opened up some space in our dinning room for my keezer.

She is painting the two cabinets on the right with a white chalk pant and I will hang two floating shelves to make it look like on solid unit.

The collar is just a rough place holder for now I will end up redoing it and having two faucets and maybe my temp controller inlaid in the collar. I will be using some barn wood from Lowes and put a shroud around the front with a herringbone pattern and using marble contact paper for the lid to make it look like a marble slab. If the contact paper doesn't work I will end up making a cap for the lid.

Since I rent and move every 2 to 3 years I don't get to have a permanent installation but this beats walking into the garage every time I want a beer.

And I have the obligatory beer that I have on tap which is just an ESB from my LHBS.

Because my daughter loves and I don't see the emoji used enough.

 

[Solidsnake]

Ok so there has been a major update to the design of the two books shelves next to the keezer. They are going away after spending all day getting the chalk paint to stick to the laminate wood my wife doesn't like the yellow tint the paint takes on next to the bright white keezer. So those are now going to be replaced with custom built shelves made out of wood with iron pipe as the sides. This is now making me look at changing from a collar mounted faucet to an iron pipe tower setup much like Littlestan is making.

Eventually I will update the picture to show a rough sketch of the design plans

 

[Solidsnake]

Ok update number two brings another design change. Iron pipe is super expensive so we have two shelves on the way from ikea that we will have next to the keezer. I built a coffin for the keezer and the collar is going to be made from 2x10 to allow glasses under the faucet. Ignore the current collar that is on it that is just a place holder to allow me to serve my beer while this whole project was completed. My wife came up with the design for the coffin and I just made the cuts and nailed it all together. I used 1x6 for the design and used a 2x4 frame to give it some stability. My wife came up with the idea to custom cut a hole to allow for the decorative grate so the freezer doesn't over heat. I pulled a lot of my ideas from other members of this forum and would like to thank everyone that posted build threads of their own. It will get stained so it isn't the raw wood and matches the rest of our furniture.

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While it isn't perfect this is our first major woodworking project and we are pleased with how well it came out.

 

[Gonefishing]

You should be pleased with it...it looks great!

 

[crane]

The only problem I see is that it needs at least 3 more taps.

 

[Solidsnake]

I actually have two intertap flow control faucets coming with a plan for two more in the future. But since I only have two kegs and the keezer doubles as my fermentation chamber two works perfectly for right now. Until I convince my wife I need a second chest freezer just to ferment in.

 

[Solidsnake]

So more progress has been made on the overall look of the area of the room the keezer is going to be at. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1499484632.653847.jpg

 

[Solidsnake]

So my wife finally decided how she wanted to stain it. In her defense I did tell her that she could take as long as she wanted to figure out how she wanted to stain it. We made a sign to go over the top of it. Eventually the lid that comes with the freezer will be replaced with a custom made one that will have an inlay that will match the pattern on the front. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1500262808.694950.jpg

 

[Gonefishing]

How do you ferment in a keezer? I would think you're either serving some terribly warm beer or your fermentation takes a very long time.
Your keezer is looking really nice!

 

[Solidsnake]

Since I only make 5 gallons at time right now and only brew when I run out, I just change the temps between fermentation and serving. Eventually I will make a separate fermentation chamber but that will be once I retire and stop moving ever couple of years. I do have a plan for how to have more than one batch fermenting which really just involves me brewing two weekends in a row. And coincidentally the one beer I have on tap right now is an ESB which tastes great at 55 so not too far off from fermentation temps.

 

[Solidsnake]

We have finally finished the combination coffin/collared keezer. The sign was made with wood letters from walmart glued to a piece of tin roof I bought at lowes and cut to size. The tin got glued and screwed to a 1x6 board so it could be hung. The two shelves are from ikea and will eventually be painted black and I will cut wood to add on top of the existing shelves. The very top shelves will be joined by one long piece of wood with some decorations to pull it all together. Eventually we will make a custom lid to replace the actual freezer lid. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1500428017.803547.jpg

 

[Clef051]

Looks great