My Keezer build; Am I missing anything?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Willsellout

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2006
Messages
913
Reaction score
0
Location
Oregon coast
So I recently scored a 25$ 12 cu foot freezer that can fit probably 4 cornies. The freezer itself is a little beat up with some rust, but I plugged it in today and it works perfect so far. I was initially going to build a collar but the hinges on this one or located on the inside and they are big metal hooks that go from the inside of the freezer to the inside of the lid so I decided to go with a tower setup.
I went to Kegconnection.com for my buildup and went with the 3 tap tower setup with upgraded Perlick faucets and a triple body regulator, and 3 kegs. I'm getting the 10# Co2 tank locally for 120.00 as well.

Since the freezer is a bit beat up, I'm going to do some refinishing work on the inside and refinish some areas with some appliance paint. Then I plan on roughing up the outside and painting it all black. No drip tray as of yet, I plan on using a bar towel for now.
I just bought a pre-wired ranco controller because I don't have any electrical experience...none:D

I also just bought two brews which will be on tap first, one being Hobgoblin clone from AHB and the other being the AHB's Coffee stout. The third tap will be some Apfelwein.

So am I missing anything so far that will keep me from being fully operational in a month?

I'll post some pics of the progress when i get a chance as there is a lot of work to do yet:D


Dan
 
a 12cu/ft will fit more than 4 kegs. I've got a 7cu/ft and can fit 4 5gal and 1 2.5gal on the hump. There was talk on the board somewhere about hindges on the inside. Not sure where, but it may be worth a search. Also don't recall if a way of doing a collar was figured out.

$120 on a 10# tank sounds high. Even if it's full. I think I ordered one new online for no more than $80 shipped. Cost to get it filled is about $15. I say search around on that and save some bucks.

Also, I'd ditch the triple body regulator, get a single, a three way manifold and save $50.

I'm all about saving money if you couldn't tell.
 
Make sure you seal up all the seams on the inside of the freezer with some silicone calk or it will rust right back up again.
 
a 12cu/ft will fit more than 4 kegs. I've got a 7cu/ft and can fit 4 5gal and 1 2.5gal on the hump. There was talk on the board somewhere about hindges on the inside. Not sure where, but it may be worth a search. Also don't recall if a way of doing a collar was figured out.
Yeah i tried searching but either I wasn't smart enough to figure out a good search term, or I missed it. Either way I'm fine with a tower setup. I'm not worried about returning this freezer to normal freezer operations.

$120 on a 10# tank sounds high. Even if it's full. I think I ordered one new online for no more than $80 shipped. Cost to get it filled is about $15. I say search around on that and save some bucks.
It might be a bit more expensive but it's easier for me to just go down and get one and not have to worry about any kind of faulty cylinder or any of that other business. I'm fine with an extra 20 bucks if it means I can get it locally.

Also, I'd ditch the triple body regulator, get a single, a three way manifold and save $50.
I wanted different pressures in my beers, would the manifold do that? There was so much research I did going into this I kind of got tired and went with what they had.

I'm all about saving money if you couldn't tell.
Yeah, I am too but I saved a bunch on the freezer so I was allright with it so far. It's cheaper than I thought it was going to be so I'm happy.

Make sure you seal up all the seams on the inside of the freezer with some silicone calk or it will rust right back up again.

Yeah I am going to grind out the entire floor and up the walls about an inch or so as well as hit any other random spots. Then I plan on putting down an rust inhibitor and refinishing. It's going to be a bit more work than I thought but it should last quite a while.
I also built a dolley for it last week so now it's on wheels. I fired it up for the past 3 days and it gets cold and stays there so I'm pretty stoked.


Dan
 
One thing that I was thinking about is condensation. I also just got a chest freezer and am in the process of reconditioning the inside with some sandpaper and silicone caulk on the joints. The tower that I have is insulated but I was worried about condensation rotting out the gasket where the tower sits over the drilled hole, any thoughts.
 
One thing that I was thinking about is condensation. I also just got a chest freezer and am in the process of reconditioning the inside with some sandpaper and silicone caulk on the joints. The tower that I have is insulated but I was worried about condensation rotting out the gasket where the tower sits over the drilled hole, any thoughts.

I would think as long as you put some kind of seal protectant/silicone, it shouldn't be a problem right? Even if it does rot out over time it wouldn't be too expensive to replace it.

Dan
 
OK so here are some pics of the freezer in question. I haven't done anything to it yet.
l_d62c951867981684bc6f24090146feaa.jpg

l_e3466742fa3b294f515712cd4e8fa128.jpg

l_5271396618cf4fbc4af2dffeca8d08b3.jpg

l_dd862219f296f83f3903836a26c57611.jpg


Dan
 
I'm wondering if at this point I want to put all this work into the inside of the keezer. If I was to do it right I'd need to strip the entire floor of it and repaint everything. Of course I will probably still get rust even if I do that. I'm thinking I might just do a touch up of the bad spots on the floor and hope it lasts for a while. I just don't have faith that a full refinish inside will last any better. I would hate to do all this work and have the freezer crap out on me...which it might do, you never know, it's pretty old.

What do you think? Full refinish or just spot refinish the deck and get the Keezer built? I have everything waiting, including beer, I just need to put the keezer together.


Dan
 
Allrighty folks, so I just got finished with the build. Here are some pictures of the finished product. I need two things to be completely done; I need that blue goop to put the thermostat in for the temp controller, and I need beer to put into the kegs:D. I have one beer just about ready but it's been so windy here that I haven't been able to brew. It's been blowing 30 knots for the past week and it's starting to piss me off. Anyway, here she is.

Here she is painted, sorry for the glare. I had just drilled the hole in the top.
l_b5280220970e4015a5811aea26bb6936.jpg


I repainted the bottom of the interior but I didn't really care to do to great of a job so I put down some heavy rubber matting to limit the chipping. We'll see how it works. Right now there are 3 kegs and a 10# tank. I could definitely fit one more in there with the possibility to add a 5th....maybe.
l_975223089c1e1684ffccc2db6ce3f76c.jpg


l_6629c0af4a21a5ad1e31ac79f6ac767f.jpg





Dan
 
l_ed2da50b182a92a7df19cb01c59d102f.jpg


And here's the happy camper, glad that he's done.
l_376ccc8060c6e4b5c64cc1b529c41d30.jpg


and that's it. It was fun but I'm looking forward to the payoff!


Dan
 
very nice job
if u dont mind me asking, how much did all the equipment cost?

I used most of the equipment to sand and drill from my work so that didn't cost me anything. I also had spare rubber mats from our gym at work so I took 1 square of that to put into the freezer. The spray paint was 4 bucks a can and I used 3 cans. I also spent a few bucks on respirator masks. It cost me about 60 bucks in wood and castors for the dolly. So all in all I got the freezer and all materials for less than 150.00 or so.



Dan
 
OK so it is officially set up and running. I went and got some of that ice pack goop and threw it into a yeast vial, drilled a hole in the top and slid the sensor in. Everything is working fine right now and I'm excited. I do have a few questions though about my first keggin experience, happening this weekend. I'm planning on letting it carbonate all on it's own under pressure for a couple weeks. So do I just set it at the pressure for the volume of carbonation I want and wait, and then lower to serving pressure, or just set it to serving pressure and let it sit?
Second, sanitization: This is a used/cleaned keg from kegconnection.com, should I take the whole thing apart and sanitize everything or can I get by by just throwing some sanitizer in there and giving it a good shake for a couple minutes?

Final question; I've read that people purge the air from the keg by spraying some Co2 in there. How exactly do you do that? Hook the gas line up and turn it on or is there another way?

Thanks!

Dan
 
OK so it is officially set up and running. I went and got some of that ice pack goop and threw it into a yeast vial, drilled a hole in the top and slid the sensor in. Everything is working fine right now and I'm excited. I do have a few questions though about my first keggin experience, happening this weekend. I'm planning on letting it carbonate all on it's own under pressure for a couple weeks. So do I just set it at the pressure for the volume of carbonation I want and wait, and then lower to serving pressure, or just set it to serving pressure and let it sit?
Second, sanitization: This is a used/cleaned keg from kegconnection.com, should I take the whole thing apart and sanitize everything or can I get by by just throwing some sanitizer in there and giving it a good shake for a couple minutes?

Final question; I've read that people purge the air from the keg by spraying some Co2 in there. How exactly do you do that? Hook the gas line up and turn it on or is there another way?

Thanks!

Dan

You can carb and then lower to serving pressure but as the beer sit's at the lower pressure your carb vol's will drop.
If you setup your beer lines at the right length then you can leave it at the carbing pressure and serve it there without any problems.


If the keg is clean just dump in some starsan and shake it up.



yes that way will work just fine to purge the air out.
I don't do it though. I just fill and cap then put it under pressure and over the next hour I will purge it 3 or 4 times.
 
You can carb and then lower to serving pressure but as the beer sit's at the lower pressure your carb vol's will drop.
If you setup your beer lines at the right length then you can leave it at the carbing pressure and serve it there without any problems.


I would server it at the same pressure I carbonated it. If you have it at a lower pressure than your carbonation pressure some carbonation will leave your beer to equalize the pressure in the keg and you will have less carbonated beer than you started with.
 
I would server it at the same pressure I carbonated it. If you have it at a lower pressure than your carbonation pressure some carbonation will leave your beer to equalize the pressure in the keg and you will have less carbonated beer than you started with.

yeah that's what I said.
 
Back
Top