New beer fridge in progress

[tekknoschtev]

I've been a member here for a while, but mostly a lurker largely due to the facet that college, graduation, and work had gotten in the way of me brewing. Before recent history, I'd only brewed two batches of beer over the course of 4 years. Recently, a buddy of mine and I dug out my carboys, the racking canes, burner, etc, and made up two batches. His was bottled last weekend, and mine is still absorbing the vanilla bean flavor in secondary.

At any rate, this reignited my interest, and I've learned its easy to say "yeah I should brew again" but hard to actually do it so we worked out a plan to brew roughly every month, and better yet, my brother is in on the plan as well. So what to do with all that beer? Bottles are an option, but our our pantry/brew closet can only hold so many bottles, so we hunted down this $25 fridge:

And just yesterday, I ordered the 4-keg kit from Midwest Supplies. By far, they were the best price for the supplies, though I have read questionable reviews of the regulators included in the Brew Logic kits. I tried spec'ing out the parts myself, and couldn't even come close, even using parts I found on Craigslist. I'm now neurotically checking my email and order status for a FedEx tracking number, which I'll then proceed to neurotically track until it arrives on my doorstep.

First beer in the keg, you ask? A vanilla porter I brewed up over a month ago. Its smelling delicious in secondary, and I can't wait until its chilled and ready to consume!

I blame this all on you, and my friend Matt who got me started with this hobby. Were it not for forums like this demystifying the kegging process, I'd probably still be thinking that it was far too complicated, expensive and didn't have enough utility to warrant. Instead, we'll have a 4-beer setup, and eventually have the shanks and faucets to bring the beer through the door.

 

[tekknoschtev]

The kit from Midwest supplies are out for delivery as of 24 minutes ago

Unfortunately, my first beer in the keg might be ruined/sour. Sometime between Thursdays evening look at the beer and Friday's "after work" look at the beer, it developed a white film on it, and the sweet vanilla smell has disappeared

In doing some reading on the subject late last night I've decided not to toss the whole batch. I'm going to keg it up and hope for the best as soon as the supplies get here and I sanitize them. I'm slightly less excited now that the beer is potentially sour, however in a couple of weeks, we're going to brew 2 more batches of beer, so it won't be long before things are in full swing.

 

[tekknoschtev]

Here's a mockup photo I took moments after receiving the kit this past saturday:

That's roughly how things will wind up, but I need to get some material to build shelves. As of now, we only have one keg in there with beer because the glass over the drawers flexes too much otherwise.

Interestingly (to me at least) there were two plastic plugs in the rear of the fridge, which looked like they were designed to hold the plastic inner shell to the foam insulation. Those popped out easily enough, and the manifold holes lined up perfectly. I've gotta believe that this was not by accident, but who knows - either way, the manifold mounted up nicely.

I did have one sad moment as I exchanged my nice, shiny new CO2 tank for a used one at the local pet shop of all places. I'm big into marine aquariums, and I know this shop also exchanged CO2 tanks usually used for reactors to dissolve carbonate in the water. Turns out the CO2 tanks are rarely used for that from this shop; the one employee said a lot of people use them for growing "herbs".

The freezer is large enough to lay two kegs down sideways for quick chilling if we need, though I don't believe we'll be doing this often, but its nice to know. Right now we have a few mugs up there. This is probably something you all already knew, but coming home from work, grabbing a frosty mug and pouring myself a beer is an amazing experience - something I never really thought I'd ever be able to do.

So now, I move forward with the shelves so I can have all four kegs going at once should I choose, and figure out a method to move the shelf bracket over for the fridge's original shelves so I can cut those down and still have some shelf space.

 

[akthor]

Looks like you could fit at least one more keg in there.

 

[CollinsBrew]

Should be able to fit two more in there. I've got six in mine. It's a little tight but hey, 30 gallons of kegged beer is better than 20.

 

[tekknoschtev]

If I found a good way to mount the CO2 tank in the door, I could definitely fit 6 corny kegs in there. 30 gallons of homebrew is definitely superiod to 20, however at this point I think I'm sticking with 20 only so I can still have some shelves to the right of the kegs for non-homebrew beer, mixers, soda, etc. The bottom drawer of the fridge also serves as a veggie drawer for my iguana and my brother's bearded dragon. So this fridge is definitely a multi-purpose fridge.

I put the shanks and faucets on my Christmas wish-list, though I suspect I won't get them (which is fine, I'm finding I want for less and less these days). If I don't though, I'll probably spring for it myself in a few months. This whole business of having to open the fridge for beer is kind of a pain. Actually, scratch that, its just trying to keep the hoses for the picnic taps organized that's a pain - and they drip a lot.

I am going to work on acquiring a few more corny kegs though. It'll be nice to keep a few on hand for when we empty a keg.

In the near future, we'll be brewing up an Imperial Stout, something akin to Rogue's Dead Guy Ale, and something akin to Fat Tire's Amber Ale.

 

[akthor]

I fridge that fits 6 kegs is awesome. I would much rather do that than get a freezer and build a collar.

If you aren't looking for perlicks beveragefactory on eBay has faucet shank combos with tailpieces for like $22 each I got 3 for $78 shipped.

 

[rrittenhouse]

Are you using a temp controller for this at all? Is it very important to do so? I'm curious what the temp swings are inside of here (not that its a huge deal?) Keeping them closed would help as well.

 

[tekknoschtev]

akthor, thanks for the heads up on beveragefactory.com on Ebay. They have 2-packs for about $52 shipped, so I could do my 4-tap setup for just over $100. That'd be perfect, and even if the faucets are junk, the cost isnt much more than the shank and tail piece at the home brew shops around here so I still would come out ahead.

The fridge would fit 6 kegs nicely. In that, I mean that there would be room to actually work in there hooking lines up and not having to completely tear everything out to change one keg. The total inside width is 28.5" and front to back I have 20" to work with. The only difficulty having 6-kegs would be positioning the CO2 tank. I think I could swing it in the door with a couple of straps, but at this point I don't have desires to have 6 kegs in the fridge at once. It'll be nice to have some shelf space for bottles of beer (homebrew or otherwise), mixers, and sodas. I missed a killer deal at a pawn shop recently which included two bar guns with 5 or 6 options each. It would have been sweet to dispense mixers and soda from those!

rrittenhouse, the only temperature controller I have is the one built into the fridge and freezer. I didn't temperature control the other fridges we stored bottled beer in, so I don't see the point for this. If I ever got to the point I wanted to lager something or ferment in a controlled environment I'd definitely use a dedicated setup. For this, I like the set it and forget it mentality. Is the beer cold? Yes? Then drink up! Need it colder? Dial the temp down. The thermal mass of 5-gallons of beer helps keep things in the fridge stable already, and once I have 4 kegs worth, opening the door to dispense beer or pull some mixers out won't even be a blip on the radar. Having the taps through the door is more of a convenience and novelty for me. Not having to open the fridge, pull the picnic taps out of the box we use to collect drips, pour, shake the faucet off to decrease drips, and then put it back in the box would be nice. That, and it'll reduce confusion once we have more kegs in there - right now we only have one so its obvious which tap goes to which keg. Once we have more, it'll be a rats nest of hoses in there.

 

[CollinsBrew]

The reason I suggested 6 is because it's exactly what I did. My CO2 tank is outside the fridge since it's a 20lb'er. My manifold is mounted on the inside wall of the fridge so the only hole is the one I drilled to run the main line from the tank through. Hopefully, next month I'll be removing the shelving from inside the fridge door and just mounting a flat panel. It will create a couple more inches of space.

Kegerator with tank outside

Closer view

Six plumbed and ready

Closer view of the gas lines

The Manifold...I plan on putting 2 more regulators in there at some point so I can keep different styles at different psi's.

 

[akthor]

You beat me to it I was gonna suggest mounting the CO2 tank outside as well. I do that with mine.

Beveragewarehouse Ebay actually sells their faucets cheaper on ebay than on their own website LOL. They adjust the shipping when you order multiple items. If you BIN on two pairs the shipping is only like $1 more than on one pair.

As far as temp control. A fridge already has a thermostat so I don't know why you would need to add another one.

I use a cup of water with a digital thermometer in it to measure the temp and once I got the thermostat dial to where it kept the temp where I want it (38F) the fridge holds that temp. I checked it every morning for 2 weeks and now I check it every couple of days and it stays spot on. If I put a new warm keg in the fridge it bumps the temp up a degree or so for a couple days until the kegs equalizes in temp and then it stays spot on again. Perhaps if your fridge's thermostat is bad you would need another one like they use on keezers but if it hold temp as is you are fine.

 

[tekknoschtev]

It's been long enough, eh? My brother and parents stepped up the seriousness of this fridge for Christmas and bought me four shanks with tailpieces and four faucets. That meant I had to go out and buy a 1" hole saw and some hose clamps but in the end, we're nearly done!

I think we're about to kick our first CO2 tank, which is sad, but we've force carbonated 3 kegs, and have had at least four hooked up for quite a while now. I'm contemplating finding a 10-20lb tank and going through the side as recommended. Just have to find a way to locate cooling lines.

The only other thing we need to purchase for this beast is a drip tray. We moved a rug underneath the taps, but in the end having the drip tray will be a lot nicer. If I recall correctly I saw some for sale on Craigslist locally. Other than that though, the fridge is done! Only about $500 worth of parts and fridge involved. So much for building it cheaply.

One of my friends added a kegging setup to his Christmas list after seeing it

 

[tekknoschtev]

And now, other than some minor tweaks to the shelf setup inside the fridge to maximize bottle storage, yeast storage, and having some space for hops and yeast packets, etc. we can call the fridge done!

Right now, on tap we've got a Breakfast Stout, an Irish Red and an American Ale. Three are also fermenting so hopefully the 4th spot will be full again soon.

 

[krazydave]

Looks good! Very similar to the one I built except my fridge won't fit more than 4 cornies in there.
Careful if you ever put longer handles on your taps also. It only takes one eeediot to open your freezer and start draining four kegs at once! I decided to strap the two doors together on mine if I put larger handles on.

 

[tekknoschtev]

Looks good! Very similar to the one I built except my fridge won't fit more than 4 cornies in there.
Careful if you ever put longer handles on your taps also. It only takes one eeediot to open your freezer and start draining four kegs at once! I decided to strap the two doors together on mine if I put larger handles on.

Thanks for the compliment, and the warning! Next time I place an order from one of the shops online, I'll be getting some tap inserts to make my own taps, which will definitely be bigger, so we'll be strapping the doors together. The changes of one of those idiots being one of the people who lives in this house is non-zero so.... I don't want to be responsible for that mess.

I'm hoping to reorganize things, and eventually get the CO2 tank mounted outside of the fridge, which would give us room for 6 kegs. Get a distributor and a dual regulator so we can do soda/force carbing/chilling of the extra kegs.

 

[krazydave]

Thanks for the compliment, and the warning! Next time I place an order from one of the shops online, I'll be getting some tap inserts to make my own taps, which will definitely be bigger, so we'll be strapping the doors together. The changes of one of those idiots being one of the people who lives in this house is non-zero so.... I don't want to be responsible for that mess.

I'm hoping to reorganize things, and eventually get the CO2 tank mounted outside of the fridge, which would give us room for 6 kegs. Get a distributor and a dual regulator so we can do soda/force carbing/chilling of the extra kegs.

I found one of those pre-drilled 1" metal plates that you can find at home depot next to the corner braces, works well for bolting the two doors together. Plus if you use screws to mount it, it's easy to take off if you decide you don't need it at any point.

I would for sure put the co2 outside too. When the tank is chilled you lose a lot of your useful pressure and your tank gauge become even more useless than it already is. I managed to get four secondary regs inside of mine also, so I can run different pressures to each keg. I found them on eBay ($60 for all four) and they've worked great for the force carbing, etc.

 

[tekknoschtev]

The scary part is the drilling through the fridge part. The front was fine, because its just insulation, plastic and metal. I'd hate to screw up and nick a coolant line destroying the whole thing. Once I figure out where the lines are I'll get the hole drilled and move the CO2 - then check into those regulators.

 

[krazydave]

Look for the manual or schematic sheet either on the fridge or online. The manual on mine had a digram that showed where the lines were. All of the lines on mine were on the back, fortunately.