New to the forum and looking for advice (I've lurked for a while). Recently I blew the compressor on my cheap kegerator (right after bringing home a fresh keg). It always had trouble working just right so I decided to put the tap on the freezer side of the side-by-side that is in the garage. I put the keg in there (freezer and turned it down/warm) yesterday morning. When I got home from work I installed the faucet and shank and all was good in the world. However, before I called it a night I went to check on it's temp. and I noticed the lines were starting to freeze. I turn the freezer temp. control all the down (warmest) and the fridge to 1. This morning the lines are still frozen (the keg isn't, I can hear beer slushing around in there and the ice cream is soft (not hard frozen). Do you have any tips/recommendations for dealing with this? I don't think my wife will let me put the keg in the fridge side, but I haven't asked. We do use it a lot though. Would drilling a few holes in the partition help by increasing ventilation to the fridge side when the compressor is running? Is there insulation for the lines I could use that would keep the lines from freezing? Does my freezer simply run too cold?
Is your freezer currently running too cold? The answer is pretty much an obvious yes. If I were you, my first order of business would be to unplug the unit and open the door for as long as it takes to thaw the lines. Oh yeah, I’d move the ice cream to another freezer as well. Once all has thawed and beer is flowing freely, I would keep it at the warmest setting (make sure ‘1’ isn’t coldest) and then see what happens.
Well one of my concerns being that it is a side by side is that I may need to set the freezer and fridge to the warmest settings. I'm thinking that even if the freezer is on the warmest setting that the fridge is still kicking on the compressor and blowing in the freezer. If that is the case I might just have to talk the wife into letting me put the tap on the fridge side.
For all intents and purposes this isn't going to work. Minimum temp on the freezer side with a stock thermostat will just about always be below freezing. It might take several days for the keg to freeze . . . but freeze it will. There have been some claims of making a side-by-side fridge workable for a serving keg and normal chill'ed food, but I've never really seen anything close to making that work. Of course putting the keg on the chill'ed food side will solve the problem. I find it's not too hard to find a homeless fridge that's just begging for a loving home that serves keg beer. That's what I recommend . . . with any decent external controller you can nail the beer temp (and usually have some room left over for other morsels).
In my experience, and I can speak on this for most everyone else around here as well, the temperature target for draft beer is fixed. That means you really do need to have the correct temperature set and maintained to within a degree or two of what is required. It is going to be 38 or so and it depends on how you are balancing your system, but it needs to be steady and known. The t-stat on your fridge is going to have a cut in/cut out of maybe 7 degrees. The dial might have numbers 1 through 10. Your produce might be 44 and fine. The freezer might be 10 and ok. Your beer must be 38 to 40 and not too much more. And it must be steady. If you want to use this fridge for beer you will need to invest in a temp control. Inkbird. Ranco. My favorite is a mechanical Johnson Controls because they don't need any programming and never break. Screwing with the fridge T-stat is frustraing and your shooting in the dark. Cheers.
Thanks for that @billandsuz I've ordered an inkbird and did switch it to the fridge side. Asked for forgiveness rather than permission. The fridge side seems to be holding a steady 'just under 40' on the thermometer in a cup of water in the middle of the fridge. The Inkbird will be delivered today. I'll get that setup on the fridge side and set it for 37 with +/- 3* and probably an 8 minute delay. So far my pours are foamy, but it was in the freezer with frozen lines Monday night. I took it out of the freezer around 330 (so that the keg wouldn't freeze) and put it in the fridge around 6pm. However we lost power around 5pm and it didn't come back on till 7pm. I tried to pour at 9pm and it was still foamy. Wed. am around 6am temps looked good, but I did a test pour and it was more foamy than I expected. I'll see tonight when I actually try to pour and drink. At this point I think the keg has had too many swings and adjustments (started with a broken kegerator on Sunday afternoon) and needs to just settle down. I'll drink it till it's gone, but I have a feeling that I might be loosing a fair bit of this keg to foam. Hopefully the next one flows proper.
Temperature swings in the beer will make the dissolved CO2 change, so it can take some time for things to get back to normal. 45 degree beer will hold less gas than 37 degree beer causing gas to go into the headspace, effecting the regulator. Then when the beer gets colder it will reabsorb the gas. Until it freezes. Frozen beer will push out all the gas. Even if it is just slushy it wont hold much CO2 at all. Add to that if you have been adjusting the pressure (because it is usually the first thing people do when they get foam. Though it seems to be 50/50 adding pressure or reducing pressure). So let it ride. Say nice things to your S.O. 37 degrees +/- 3 degrees is where I often keep my basement keezer. Get a good thermometer. Liquid temp is what you need to know. A good digital thermometer is handy to have around anyway. Cheers.
I use a Thermapen for BBQing... I have only adjusted the pressure from 10 to 9 cause I didn't want to disturb it too much. How long do you suspect it'll take to 'stablize'? Overnight? Couple of days? A week? Before I left the house this morning I cranked up the freezer and fridge to the highest (coldest) settings so it would run at it's coldest and get the keg back to where it wants to be. It'll be 24 hours in the fridge by this evening and 12 hours at the coldest the fridge runs at. I'll see what the Inkbird says.
It's probably too late to cancel your order, but if you put your keg on the chill'ed food side you won't need an external controller. This side of the fridge is specifically made to keep beer (or milk or Pepsi or Heinz 57™ ketsup ) in the 38 - 39 degree range. Spend a few days adjusting your settings (1 -10) and measure the temp of a large container of water (I use a 500ml beer bottle) and your keg will follow right along. In all cases give it overnight to stabilize.
You’re probably right, but the Inkbird came and I set it up. The keg is on the bottom of the fridge (took out the drawers). It pours smoothly now. Things seem to be stabilized. I’m gonna keep the inkbird simply due to the fact that I feel like the fridge T-Stat will have too big of a +/- range. It’s an old fridge so I put the delay on 8 minutes so it doesn’t kick on and off too much. The fact that it is an old unit is the only reason my wife gave me the okay. Gotta milk it for what it’s worth now.
Now you’ve got to understand balance. 9-10psi is going to be too low in the long run, but with this keg you might be better served just leaving it along. Most beers at 38 degrees will be looking for 12-14psi.
That is the next step I'm going to work on with this setup. However this isn't my first rodeo. I ran a cheap kegerator (with tower) for 3 and a half years and learned a lot about balancing a system and working with the limitations of a cheap kegerator. I swapped out the beer lines when I switched to the garage fridge. The old kegerator had 9' of lines. I know not optimum, but I had to increase the resistance to run at 12 psi--I have good flow rate and minimal foam with this (and a tower cooler fan). I assumed with all the line in the cold and most of the shank (now in the fridge) I could go back to 5' of beer line. I'm now thinking that I might need to go up to 7' to increase the resistance a bit. However, I'm not going to do that right away. I want this keg to show me it's stabilized before I start tweaking other things. In fact, I might not even make this change with this keg, or at all. If when things are all back to normal we'll see if I can get closer to 12psi. I'm thinking though already that my flow rate is a little fast at 9/10psi.
Just to update the fine folks who helped: I put in an inkbird and it’s running fine at 35*. I also swapped in 10’ of beer line and am pouring fine at 12psi. The first keg of DBA (Firestone) blew. I lost about a 1/3 to foam with these issues, but I just tapped an Alesmith .394 Pale and all of the first 5 pours have been perfect. I probably could trim the beer line down to 7-8’, but it’s not pouring too slow. Couple extra seconds at the faucet are no big deal. Thanks
