Building a Keezer. Any tips??

Sounds like a solid plan. Keep in mind that you'll need some more equipment to do nitro (cylinder, regulator, not just a different stout/nitro faucet), so you'll need some room for them.

 

My build has three secondaries (each with a wye), so I can have three different pressures to six different kegs. Pleased with the results, I burned the receipts so the pain of the expense is long gone.

Other considerations: It's never too early to start looking for CO2 tanks. Find out if you'll be refilling or exchanging, makes a world of difference of what you buy. I planned on a nitro tap until I researched the availability of beer gas in my area . . . not meant to be discouraging, but was a show stopper for me. Give some thought to layout, instead of the hump being wasted space, you might want to get a couple of 2.5 or 3 gallon kegs. With six kegs (four on the floor, two on the hump) I found that I'm normally pouring 3 or 4 beers (the others are conditioning). Usually some good keezer tidbits if you hang around the Home Bar forum.

 

You can buy a distributor with multiple regulators on it if you want. Otherwise, it sounds good to me. I have a kegerator and keezer, but keep it simple by just using picnic taps instead of shanks and taps...came in handy recently when our fridge stopped working so I used the keezer as a fridge until it was repaired.

 

Pat:

Please note that I'm relatively happy with my keezer. It took me some time to get there.

I used 1/2" oak. It wasn't thick enough. The thickness of the wood insulates the collar and prevents you from having to spray the inside with Great Stuff later. If you need to, Great Stuff is fun to play with and has a noticeable positive insulating quality on your collar. God help me if I ever have to break it down or have a leak. It's like 2" of melted packing peanuts on the inside of my collar. 2x4 sounds like it might get the job done for you. Others may chime in on hanging sheets of insulation

Fuck pretty miter corners. Seriously! Just go with a 90 degree cut and put some wood screws into your ends of your collar and be done with it. Use L brackets on the inside of the collar, where you can't see them, to beef it up. They're worth a few bucks. The worst day of my keezer life was finding out that the Liquid Nails wasn't holding up and the back end collapsed. Brackets fixed this problem.

After you get the collar in place, check for gaps and leaks with a flashlight inside your keezer. Turn the light on, drop it in, and shut the lid. If you see any light from the outside with the lid shut, you know you have an air leak. You can buy some thin insulating strips to seal the gaps. I can't emphasize this step enough.

I ran into an issue with over insulating with my Great Stuff. I went too high up on the collar. I put a 50 pound work out weight on top of the lid to pancake the foam into place. It worked well. <--- Of course I would have used a sack of grain, but they were all open. You could probably do the same with insulation strips if you end up going too thick. Just make sure everything is sealed tight. Leaks lead to more mold due to condensation.


I used to think I wanted 2 or 3 different pressures on my beers. I was wrong. It's a lot of balancing I don't want to do. I have 8' lengths of bev line 3/16 ID running at 40F. The taps run at about the same height as the top of my ball lock kegs.

If you want different CO2 volumes, you will likely look into buying multiple lengths of bev line connected to dedicated bev connections. It's a good way to end up with a dozen connections of different lengths sitting in your basement or garage. If that's something you want to do, more power to you. Me, I'm lazy and want to set it and forget it. I run all my beers at 2-and-some-change CO2 level and move on. I do have a second regulator. I have a 4 way and a 3. I color code them with colored electrical tape.

Edit: The 4 way and 3 way are distributers. One regulator runs to the 4 way split. One runs to the 3 way split. (A little tipsy).

Long story short, I'll probably run both of my distributors through one regulator and trace back to the regulator with my 10' gas line. I'll make that one a work horse line for pressurizing kegs, shake and bakes, and purging fermenters. It's worth having a second line. Crank up the pressure for those odd end tasks. Multiple CO2 levels aren't for me.

Enough jaw jackin` for now. Let us know if you have more questions. I know I've got pics and I know @VikeMan and others have pics too.

Prost!

 

Oh, and as mentioned above, you get to decide if you want 2 extra kegs to sit on the motor hump. You'll want a step ladder and a strong back if you want to throw kegs over a 2x8 collar.

 

Yeah. Eff 'em! Oh, wait.

 

when you buy nitro, it is usually sold by volume. keep this in mind there is not a 1 to 1 exchange for a 5# cylinder. the closest size to the 5# CO2 cylinder in beer gas is 30 Liters I believe. it is slightly larger.

you want 75% Nitro and 25% CO2. blends vary, but 70/30 is about the lowest you can use, 80/20 or 90/10 are not for you.

you must have a dedicated regulator for nitro beers.

you can dispense all of your beer with beer gas, but you absolutely should not. not unless you like to burn money and understand how to balance complex beer systems. just use the beer gas for the Guinness and regular CO2 for everything else.

now, the real important thing. beer gas goes very fast, so get the biggest bottle you can fit or afford. there is no liquid CO2 gas in there. in other words it is nearly empty even when new. not a huge problem for the home kegerator operator but you will go through it much faster than regular CO2. it will be empty right before the big game, you don't have spares around. the supplier might not either. just be prepared.

we have built way too many kegerators, and everyone has pretty much said what needs to be said.

Cheers.

 

we use these fairly frequently lately. it allows very fast beer line changes; if you need to swap out for different length or if you find you have 3 corneys and 1 sankey this week, but 2 and 2 next week, just install the right coupler from stock. im lazy myself,and don't like to remove bev line if i don't have to.

line cleaning with hot water is also really easy.


yes, quick disconnects, but made for beverage dispense. 316 ss springs, NSF, maybe $15 retail for the male female combo.
Cheers.

 

throw some edge rail on those butt end joints. it looks intentional, not corner cutting. and sharp too. sometimes it looks good around the top of the collar, and it's very easy.
works with pine and oak. some customers ask for maple, and that pisses me off because i'm never going to be a trim carpenter. apparently.

 

This was the approach I took as well, but used 2x6s. My keezer is in the garage, I don't really care what it looks like

With that said, spend a little time finding the straightest pieces of lumber you can find, it is really hard to get a good seal if there is a curve in one of the sticks.

I also did a dual hinge lid that I saw somewhere online. The freezer hinges were removed from the lid and attached to the collar, this helps gets the hoses out of the way when I add/remove a keg. I used basic door hinges to attach the lid to the collar, that way I can easily reach in and grab a bottle off of the hump. I used weather stripping between the collar and the body of the freezer and I should have let the stripping compress a little before attaching the hinges.

 

These also work for your gas lines. My CO2 tank is outside the keezer, gas line to interior is QD'ed with these guys . . . worth their weight in gold.

 

how about skipping the chest freezer, buying an upright and getting 8 kegs in it?

Then, add on a widescreen monitor and raspberry pints.......

 

Lots of good advice so far. One thing I'll add -

When I built my first big one with a collar, I installed my faucets on the front (7 of them when all was said and done, though I originally started w 4). Given the placement in my garage at that time, having them evenly spaced across the front made sense for people walking up to it getting a beer - but it had one major flaw that didn't really occur to me until after I'd built it:

it made loading kegs, pulling empties, or doing anything that involved reaching into the freezer a pain in the ass (gut, really) and it was all too easy to accidentally snag a tap handle, pull it open and dump beer on my shoes. Happened more than a couple times, despite my efforts to be careful.

When that freezer eventually quit working, I replaced it with a slightly smaller one - so I had to build a new collar. Took the opportunity to relocate the whole setup so it's right inside the side entrance to my detached garage - and I mounted the faucets (only 6 this time for a reason I'll explain in a second) on the side. Doing that left the whole front side free & clear AND it moved the faucets closer to one another. Why 6? Because I finally sprung for a stainless drip tray. With the old setup, I could never find one long enough to span all of the taps. Not so with 6 on the side. Picked one that has a tall backsplash drilled for 6 shanks (and it mounts directly to them, not the collar or the fridge. It wasn't cheap, but I love it.