Apartment Based Kegging

I would reccomend a keezer build. You can buy smaller chest freezer for fairly cheap ($200 new) and most can accomadate 3 taps (I would guess). So start with one tap and work your way up??

Inkbird temp controller on Amazon for 35$.

You can find tap/shank deals online if you don't wanna spring for the fancy faucets.


It's certainly not a cheap investment but it is a great investment.


As far as the Significant other.....cover the Keezer in chalkboard paint and appoint her/him to chalk design duty to make her/him feel important.

 

Here's the setup in my guest bedroom/home office (I work from home). Fortunately, it's a decent size room for the city (14'x12'). Unfortunately, that fridge is also my temp controlled fermentation chamber and obviously I can only store one keg. I'll brew a saison or something I can ferment at room temp and would rather bottle while the keg is occupying the fridge with an IPA or something more drinkable (drinkable as in I'll have 3-4 pints at a time). Once the keg kicks, I'll brew whatever I need to ferment in the fridge and drink the bottled saison. Its far from ideal, but its what I have to work with.

 

If space is your concern, I'm not going to lie to you. Keg beer has a way of taking over available space. The kegerator itself is a pretty big appliance. Throw in a few kegs, plus the BLC. Then you eventually get a second CO2 tank. And of course you'll be brewing so figure on having more grain. And carboys. You know.

Next thing you know you have dedicated a dozen square feet. Which may or may not be a big deal but if it is going to be crammed into a small living space you are definitely going to notice. She will anyway. But remember, a closet full of empty bottles, gone.

OTOH nobody on the face of the earth ever once said "I should have stuck with bottling my beer". You really want a kegerator. Work on it. Get a bigger place.
Cheers.

 

You definitely could do this on a decent budget. Be on the lookout on Craigslist and get a small chest freezer. Or you could get a small apartment refrigerator to use as a kegerator. There are options available here. You just have to sit down with your spouse and agree on how much space you want dedicated for it. My chest freezer is in my garage so it's not in the one. However I do have a small basic igloo kegerator that does not take up much room at all.

 

Not sure about the apartment, but I recommend that when you move, you look for a place that has a cellar. Preferably a dank, unfinished cellar. Some place you can claim as your space that holds little appeal to your significant other, especially after you decide not to fight over who gets the larger closet. Then secretly go about building your man-fortress of solitude.

 

This can be done on the cheap for around $200 I have a nearly identical set up to KCUnited . I got a used mini fridge for $50. I modified it to used as a fermentation chamber, and added a tower on top with a faucet. If you are trying to pinch pennies, you could go with a picnic tap instead of a faucet. You want a fridge of no smaller than 5 cubic foot. I wired my own thermo control unit from an STC-1000 they run $10-15. A box to enclose it will cost $5-10, and the hardware to wire it will cost about $5. I used a soldering iron to wire it. It was cheaper for me to buy a co2 tank online from adventures in home brewing ($60) and exchange for a full one from a local welding shop, than it was for me to buy a full tank from my welding shop. So ask around you local welding shops for the cost of buying in / exchanges, and some places will just refill. Some fire extinguisher places will refill. If you get a used corney keg ($50-60), make sure it comes with, or you get replacement o-rings. I prefer ball fitting, some prefer pin-lock. Just pick one, and stick with it. If you are in a big city, keep an eye on craigslist people are often upgrading, moving, giving up the hobby, need cash. homebrewtalk forum has a for sale sub-forum. Other thoughts: If you have the room for a chest freezer: do it. But if you are in an apartment, that may not be an option. You can probably get some of these things cheaper on craigslist than what I'm quoting. Looking to the future: you could use the mini fridge to lager, or ferment some beer that needs a particular temp.

 

Definitely craigslist. I just gave a friend my old kegerator setup and replaced it with a fridge freezer combo that's bigger. Got it for free and had to put in the taps but now I have a two tap system for 100~
Bottom line is people are always changing setups so you can get stuff cheap.

 

My wife was pretty agreeable to a kegerator, but it helped that I made it look nice. I bought this fridge:

http://www.costco.ca/Danby-4.4-cu.f...mpact-All-Refrigerator.product.100216623.html

And put a two tap tower through the top. It was in our living room by necessity in our last place. Pretty small footprint. Here it is before I got a drip tray:

http://imgur.com/a/TOevm

 

i just finished my setup! My GF started objecting to me continuously buying more and more brew equipment but I wanted to start kegging so had to work something out. I agreed to completely clean out our two closets and throw a lot of crap away and also agreed i could put it in our laundry room. I was able to make it work with the small amount of space I had to work with. Got a mini fridge, 2.5G slimline keg, 5# co2 tank, taprite regulator and pinic tap all in there. Keg is currently full of peach berliner weiss!

https://i.imgur.com/YSgkKJt.jpg