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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Finish collar assembly. Attach the distributer to the inside of the collar, the faucets, and the freezer lid.
- 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.
- 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!
