Kegerator Build - User Builds Discussions on Home Brew Forums

BenS

I built my kegerator a couple years ago and thought I would start a build thread for anyone interested.

The first thing I did was bend down the freezer shelf to allow room for the kegs height. I did this so long ago that I can't remember exactly, but I believe all you have to do is gently bend it down so the freezing shelf is facing the fridge chamber against the back wall. One very important part of this process is to make sure everything is thawed and at room temperature. I let the fridge sit un-plugged for a day. I don't have any pictures of the final bend because I didn't feel like taking everything out of the fridge.

Next I removed the door from the front and cut off the plastic molding that covered the inside of the door.

I built a wood collar out of an 8 ft piece of 2"x12" lumber. As you can see, all I did was glue and nail it together to form a large rectangle.

I attached the collar with 4 steel brackets. 2 on the top of the fridge, 2 on the bottom of the collar. I did this knowing that my fridge did not have any coolant coils running through the ceiling or floor of the fridge. To check on your fridge, simply turn it to it's coldest setting, and find which sides get hot to the touch.

I then mounted the door, using the original hardware, to the front of the collar. Be aware that there is a mounting bracket on the bottom of the door as well.

I applied as much spray insulating foam as I could, to every crack I could find on the inside of the frame.

BenS

I made the tower and coffin out of an 8 ft piece of 1"x4" lumber and pretty much just made a 12" tall square for the tower and a 10" long square box for the coffin. I didn't write anything down, just kind of improvised. As seen in the previous post, I installed a 3 way gas manifold to the front of the inside of the fridge so I could easily control the gas to each keg.

To run the beer lines through the tower, I ran the lines through copper tubes in the tower. To install the tower, I used wood glue and long wood screws coming from the inside of the fridge, up through the bottom of the tower. The coffin was installed the same way on top of the tower. Then I just drilled some holes for the taps, installed the shanks(get the shortest tap shank that you can find) and connected the beer lines.

I don't know if the packing peanuts help insulate the coffin or not. I never did nail down the top piece of the coffin so I could get into it easily to replace lines, clean shanks, etc.

BenS

The finished kegerator fits 3 ball lock kegs plus a few bottles with the 12" collar added. I added the collar because the fridge originally could only hold 1 keg and that wasn't nearly enough for me. I stained the collar, tower, and coffin before putting the whole thing together.

BenS

If anyone has questions or would like additional clarification, I am more than happy to help out or post additional pictures. One more note, the top and door are painted with chalkboard paint. It's pretty handy for people to know what's on tap. The current beer in there is a saison and a vienna lager carbonating(which is why it's not written down or hooked to a tap yet). I made the tap handles out of some wood scraps in my backyard by widdling the bark off, lightly sanding, staining, and installing a tap handle insert. I found the inserts at my local hardware store. They were called 3/8" wood inserts I believe.

BenS

Now it's time for a beer.