Kegorator

[JohnnyRobbo]

Hi everyone,

I've been brewing nearly 2 years now and as predicted by a few of you, I have got addicted and bought more and more gear and yes I have turned to kegging. My question is now do I buy or make a kegorator, I really really like the look of the 3 tap kegland ones but I have seen half the ones u guys have made I'm not sure if I fancy that challenge as they also look superb. Anything beats using my 1 keg fridge with a party tap.

Any advice or tips or even banter would be much appreciated.

Thank you
Robbo

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

There is no challenge to building your own. I am hopeless at DIY and I put together a 4 keg kegerator in under an hour and at a fraction of the cost. I still need to tidy my beer lines inside but I have up to 4 beers perfectly carbonated on tap + a spare gas line should I need to bottle any etc.

 

[JohnnyRobbo]

That looks amazing pal, do you know the actual make and model of the fridge you have?

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

Yes. It's an Indesit SI61WUK. It will fit 4 kegs with no modifications apart from taking out the removable shelves in the door

 

[xozzx]

Have a look at keezers as well. I bought an old chest freezer, spray painted it black, added a wooden collar between the freezer and lid and drilled holes in this for the taps and CO2 lines. Later I added the individual secondary regulators and hide the CO2 cylinder behind the wooden shelf. The drip tray is held on with some strong magnets.

 

[acreid]

I made my kegerator last April and haven’t looked back!

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I painted mine with a sponge roller and some semi gloss paint, scored the fridge which takes 8 kegs for 25 pounds equivalent.
Commercial fridge so no coolant lines in the side so easy to drill the holes in it. I have 6 on tap and 2 conditioning.
Get shanks that are long enough, position your taps above the tops of kegs, mine were just a bit tight for my top layer of kegs.
Next project is a small bar to attach the beer engines to and install Raspberry pints so I can keep a little better track of the beers.
Plus a bit of artwork to go on the inside of the glass to hide the extra insulation and the kegs.


If you haven't come across this it's useful when designing / planning your kegerator.

http://www.mikesoltys.com/2012/09/17/determining-proper-hose-length-for-your-kegerator/
I also put a spur on my gas lines so that I could read the pressure beyond my regulator and non return valves without opening the kegerator and a broken STC 1000 displays the temperature, I have an ispindel inside the fridge as well which alerts me to any temperature changes ie if the door popped open.

 

[Thebiggestal]

I built one last year. I can only be described as special needs when it comes to DIY. I had to borrow a drill from my Mum! Took about an hour to put it together. You may spend longer trying to find gas in your area!

 

[xozzx]

Or you could spend six days building one with one tap like this engineer did and make it into the Sun! Engineer installs beer tap on his fridge for the perfect lockdown pint

 

[user 4749]

Hi
I made my own too its very easy to do only thing I would say double check exactly what you want and where its going .
I built mine with a tower on top but in hindsight I should have built it with taps on the door as I could have stacked mine on top of my fermentation fridge and save space in the garage

 

[JohnnyRobbo]

Thank you all for these replies, all look absolute tops and twisted my arm quite easily to have a go myself. I will have to go down the fridge route as that the perfect space I have without having to rip a bar out I fitted last year.

 

[MickDundee]

I’m completely inept when it comes to DIY and I found it pretty easy building my kegerator.

2nd hand tall fridge £20
2 keg kegerator kit from BKT £240
Drip Tray from AliExpress £20

All in £280 for a 2 tap kegerator, compared to £680 for the 3 tap Kegland Kegerator excluding the price of the kegs. So more like £800 with 2 kegs.

It’s a no brainer IMO.

I changed the handles last year

This is what it looked like when it was first built:

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

There is a really good video Malt Miller have done on putting together a kegerator. I followed that pretty much when I built mine.

If you decide to go down the new fridge route, I recommend elekdirect. They sell ao.com seconds. I can't recall what I paid for mine but it was at least half price because the sides were dented.

And you can't go wrong with the starter kits from BKT.

 

[MickDundee]

There is a really good video Malt Miller have done on putting together a kegerator. I followed that pretty much when I built mine.

I second this video - very useful and it’s what gave me the idea to insert a length of 3/16 into my gas line so it would fit through the fridge drainage hole.

 

[YeastFace]

There is a really good video Malt Miller have done on putting together a kegerator. I followed that pretty much when I built mine.

If you decide to go down the new fridge route, I recommend elekdirect. They sell ao.com seconds. I can't recall what I paid for mine but it was at least half price because the sides were dented.

And you can't go wrong with the starter kits from BKT.

Thanks for the heads-up, was looking for a fermentation fridge. Not a massive discount, but still cheapest I've seen a fridge of that size. Now, to hide it from my partner somewhere... It would fit under the stairs, but no power in there - and with a 1 year old I don't really fancy trailing cables. Maybe if I just put it next to my keezer she won't notice

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I fitted the internal gas line to these two components so I can detach the cylinder easily on the outside.

https://www.brewshop.co.nz/ball-lock-post-with-1-4-bulkhead.html
and then used an appropriate sized

https://www.johnguest.com/product/b...e-dispense/brass-female-connector-ffl-thread/

 

[JohnnyRobbo]

Hi again, so I've managed to score myself a nearly new hotpoint larder fridge and I'm almost ready to start my conversion. A quick question though, I'm going to set up for 4 kegs, probably only run 3 but one will need to be for a stout. How would anyone go about the "gas in" for this, 4 separate secondaries or a manifold and 1 secondary?

 

[RoomWithABrew]

My setup I use Duotight T instead of manifolds then I can add as needed.
Regulator has gas into keg fridge via Ball lock connector above and set for 30 psi, first spur goes to a fizzy water. Then t piece going to inline set to 20 psi for saison and wheat beer. Further down the line is final inline reg set to 12 psi for the other beers and lager.
I also have a T with a spur to a gauge on the outside of the fridge that displays the " main beers " pressure as a safety net.
All my gas connectors are ball locks with non return and also non return on the ball lock going to the bulkhead connector on the fridge.

The non return valves do knock back about a psi hence my slightly higher pressures for the system.

If you do use the T connectors make sure they all lay out nice and straight no severe bends after the connections. I cable tied mine onto a bit of that flute board.
As always check for leaks after assembly, I tested mine with immersion in water where possible, also turn gas on then off and watch for drops in pressure before kegs are connected.

Losing a cylinder of gas is frustrating, wrecking a regulator or at least having to take it apart and clean it after a flowback also frustrating.

 

[Sym]

Some great pics above, thanks guys.

Has anyone an example of physically fitting a hand pump to a keezer/kegerator. I am thinking of converting an old chest freezer and would want to attach a hand pump as well as some taps. (Not talking about attaching to the corny, but physical attachment of the hand pull to the keezer/kegerator)

 

[Eskimo John]

My project for this year is to create a hand pump dispenser from a keg.
I already have a 4 tap keezer and will be adding another gas line from its supply to demand fill the keg with co2 when the hand pump is used.
The hand pump itself will be mounted separately frome the keezer and I hope to be able to serve from either a cold keg in the keezer or a room temperature keg outside the keezer as I like good old british warm beer
Have you read this thread?
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...e-ale-out-of-a-keg-cornie-the-treatise.97545/