6 Guys Brewing

Once you get serious enough about home-brewing and you decide you want to start kegging your beer instead of bottle conditioning, it’s natural to start thinking about kegerators. I know James has already done a post about his build, but unlike James’, mine is large enough to hold 3 cornelius kegs, and has 2 faucets. I also avoided making any irreversible changes to the actual refrigeration unit.

Materials:

• (1) 7 cubic feet chest freezer
• (1) Johnson external refrigerator thermostat
• (2) Wood 2x6s
• (2) Faucet Kits
• (1) 3-way CO2 distributer
• (2) MFL Liquid Disconnects + 1/4″ FFL Fittings/Barbs
• (3) MFL Gas Disconnects + 5/16″ FFL Fittings/Barbs
• (9) feet of 5/16″ CO2 line
• (6) feet of 1/4″ diameter beer line
• (10) 1/4″ diameter hose clamps
• (1) Keg kit (includes at least 1 keg, 5lb CO2 tank + regulator)
• Silicon Caulk
• Screws

The basic premise here is that we take a standard chest freezer and plug it into an external thermostat control to keep it at the desired (non-freezing) beer temperature. We then build a wooden collar that we drill holes in for CO2 lines and beer faucets. It’s easier to drill through the wood, and it’s not destructive to the chest freezer itself this way.

1. Start by building the ‘Collar’.  This is built using 2x6s; this is important, it has to be 6″ tall or else you won’t have room to attach the hinges for the freezer lid. However you want to build the collar frame is fine (I used square steel angle brackets on the inside to keep it looking nice) , just try to keep it as square and level as possible.
2. Drill holes. Get a good feeling about how you are going to lay-out the internals before drilling. You’ll need one 9/16″ hole for the CO2 line, and two 1″ holes for the faucets.
3. Finish collar assembly. Attach the distributer to the inside of the collar, the faucets, and the freezer lid.
4. Attach hoses. Rest the collar onto the freezer and start attaching all the hosing. I ended up making each length about 3′, but you could probably get away with less, it depends on the size of the freezer. If you are having trouble getting the hose to slide over the barbs, let the end of the hose rest in hot water for a few minutes. This will expand the hosing and make it a little more pliable. Tighten the hosing down on the barbs with the hose clamps.
5. Fix collar in place and seal. I used a bead of silicon caulking around the top of the freezer to fix the collar in place. You could use something like liquid nails if you wanted, but the caulk seems to hold well and it’s a little less permanent if I decide I ever want to turn the freezer back into a freezer. I put another bead of caulk around the edges on the inside to seal it up to help make cooling a little more efficient.

And that’s pretty much all there is to it. At the end of the day it cost me about $500 and took 2-3 hours to put it together (not including the trips to Lowes).  A possible future improvement I might make is to build a more permanent drip tray that ‘hangs’ from the collar. I’m really pleased with the results, and having my own beer on tap in my own house is pretty awesome! Cheers!

The very first beer I ever made came out great. It was a Honey Porter from morebeer.com. CO2 levels were perfect, it had a great flavor and awesome body. 5 gallons lasted 3 hours. I thought I knew everything about brewing. The second brew was pretty good too, though certainly not of the same caliber as the first. I think I got a little lazy and wasn’t as careful with all the instructions the second time around. The third beer was horrible, or so I thought. The flavor was pretty good, but I could not get the stupid thing to carbonate.

I have always forced carbonated in a keg. I think it’s easier, more consistent and faster. Kegging also requires a lot fewer bottles to clean, and the one thing I hate about brewing is cleaning, so kegging just makes sense. I read a bunch of different things on the best way to force carbonate a beer and believed that setting the CO2 to 12psi for a couple weeks would get the job done (and it usually does). However, this can take a long, long time. You see, in order to effectively carbonate a beer, you have to expose as much of the beer to the CO2 as possible so that it can be absorbed into the beer. Think of it this way: if you want to mop up a spill on the floor, it works most effectively if you use the entire towel versus just a small portion. Sure, the liquid will eventually migrate to cover the entire toweling, but it might take a long, long time.

The first thing you should do when carbonating a beer is to purge the air out of the keg. To do this, set the pressure to about 30 psi, fill the keg. Wait til it is done filling, turn off the CO2 and pull the bleeder valve. Repeat this step 3 times, and all that should be left in the keg is CO2 and beer. To get the CO2 into solution, hook up the CO2 at 30 psi to the OUTPUT of the keg. The pin lock quick connects are different sizes for input and output on the keg, but you might be able to get the gray quick connect to fit on the output. I dedicated a black quick connect (output sized) for the CO2 and use that for carbonation. Turn the CO2 and you’ll hear the CO2 working it’s way through the beer and up to the top. Wait for the bubbling to stop and the pressure to equalize in the keg. Disconnect the CO2 and find a towel to put on your lap (the beer is cold) and a place to sit. Put the keg on your knees and roll it around until you can no longer hear the beer sloshing around. While you are doing this, make sure you have nothing attached to the keg. If you do, you’ll end up with beer in places that it shouldn’t be. Take a bleeder valve (available from Northern Brewer) and measure the pressure in the keg (on the input side of the keg). It should be around 10-12 psi. I like my beer around 12 psi, but the carbonation chart will give you an idea of what your pressure should read depending on the serving temperature of your beer. If your beer is not at the desired pressure after your first roll in your lap, reconnect the 30psi CO2 to the output and put just a little bit more CO2 into the beer. Roll it around in your lap again (this time, it may not stop sloshing). Remeasure the CO2 with the bleeder valve. When it gets to the desired pressure, you’re ready to serve!

It has been my experience that this method works equally well for cold and warm beer in the keg. However, cold beer does tend to carbonate faster and will be a little less rolling around in your lap. Either way though, using this method, your beer can go from the carboy to read-to-serve in about 15 minutes.

It has been approximately one week since my first brew, and it is about time to share what I learned on my first brew day and post the results of my kegerator experiment.

When you get a couple guys together who like beer (Bill, Jeremy, Travis and I), give them a place to hang out (around the beer kettle), give them something to talk about (beer), give them something tasty to drink (Rohrboch’s Scotch Ale), and food (Papa John’s… hey they delivered), you have a pretty good recipe for a fun time hanging out. All in all,  I will count the beer brewing process as a success even if it ends up tasting like butt, because I learned a lot and had a great time.

The things I learned:

• You can’t tell how cold it is out, when sitting next to a propane burner
• Apparently I need to listen to more country
• Brewing beer is a lot like making tea, and then letting it ferment
• Jeremy and Travis have fun toys for brewing
• Brewing beer is a slow process
• The grains are rather bland tasting after being boiled
• Cleaning all the equipment is a form of hazing
• Travis gets rather annoyed if you accidentally shoot dirty water at him while cleaning

Thanks Bill, Travis, and Jeremy for helping me brew my first batch it was fun.

The morning after brew day, I worked on finishing up my kegerator.  When I first decided to get involved in brewing, bottling was my first choice.  After doing some legwork, finding out I had an extra mini-fridge, and realizing the convenience of kegging, I decided to convert said mini fridge into a kegerator.  What surprised me was how simple it was.

Step one:  Remove the shelving on the door. The shelving on the door takes up a decent amount of room in the fridge, so to fit a keg inside it has to go.  There is no real need for it in a kegerator either.

*Note: Removing the shelving on the door opens up a lot of space. I actually did just this step to my other mini fridge so we can fit more beer in it.

Step two: Bend the freezer portion of the mini-fridge upwards. In many mini-fridges there is a metal freezer portion at the top, if you don’t have one, cool. If you do have one however, it will get in the way of the keg.   You can’t remove the freezer portion completely because this is the main cooler unit for the fridge. My solution was to simply bend the bottom upwards. To do this I unplugged the fridge and let it warm up and then slowly bent it upwards. It worked like a charm.

Step Three:  This is  the fun / iffy step. At this point I had a fridge that could hold a corny keg. I decided I wanted a draft tower on top, as there would be less chance of coiling coils on the top of a front opening fridge.  Additionally, a tap handle on the door of a mini fridge would be a little awkward.  The draft tower necessitated a hole in the the top, and while chance of cooling coils in the top is small, it better safe than sorry.  I just grabbed a utility knife, and a laundry detergent cap, and made a hole. The hole I made was not very circular, but by using a utility knife I was able to probe for piping, and thus not puncture a pipe.  The fact that the whole wasn’t round would be of little consequence once the tower was on.

Step Four:  Add the draft tower. I picked mine up from http://kegworks.com, as it was the cheapest I could find, and since they are located in Buffalo, NY,  my 3 day shipping only took 1 day!  I just dropped the tubing down the hole I already cut, and screwed down the tower. My kegerator was finished.

Of course, I wanted to really finish off the kegerator, so I needed some real tap handles.  I searched high and low for good tap handles that wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg, and boy did I get a good deal. If you ever want a tap handle, and are local to Rochester, NY, hit up Kevin at The Old Toad. This was one cool experience, as I got to go into the storage room of The Old Toad, and go through all of the tap handles.  Of course, there were some restriction on what I could take; I couldn’t take something if he couldn’t easily replace it, and if he only had one of that tap handle. I was like a kid in a candy store.  After going through the massive collection, I walked away with a Stone Ruination, Sam Adams seasonal, Kronenbourg 1664, Beamish, London Porter Label (I can swap this on and off with the Magners label), and Magners tap handles. The Sam Adam’s and the Magner’s taps were particularly cool since I can easily add my own labels to the handles.  The important thing to get out of this is this: if you have a local pub that frequently switches beers out, give them a call.  The distributor likely gives them new tap handles every time they get something ‘new’ in.

To truly polish off my kegerator I need to get my brew into it.  Another 10 days, and we should be good to go.