If you like the idea of enjoying cold draft beer in the ease of your own home, but buying a new kegerator is not in your budget, don't despair. For a fraction of the cost of a new kegerator, you can build your own. Construction your own kegerator can be ended some with basic household tools, and just a minor estimate of do-it-yourself skills. On a do-it-yourself strangeness scale of 1 to 10, this job is about a 2. Your homemade kegerator can as a matter of fact be completed in about an hour.
The first thing you need to do is get a refrigerator. Used refrigerators can often be found for minuscule or no cost. Depending upon how much room you have for your kegerator, and how much beer you'd like it to hold, you could whether go with an upright (kitchen style) refrigerator, or a mini fridge. Obviously, an upright will furnish you more space for beer, other drinks, mixers, food, and ice. The benefits of the mini fridge style are space savings and vigor savings. If you select to go with a mini fridge, portion the interior dimensions of the unit to make sure it is big sufficient to hold a keg with a coupler on top of it, and a 5 or 10lb Co2 bottle with pressure regulator. Some mini fridges are too small to be used as kegerators. Below are the dimensions of commonly used kegs:
2 Door Compact Refrigerator
Beverage, or Cornelius Keg: (popular among home brewers) 25" tall, 8.5" diameter - holds 53 12oz servings of beer
1/6 Barrel: 23.3" tall, 9.25" diameter - holds 55 servings
1/4 Barrel, or pony keg: (comes in two sizes) Short measures 14.8" tall by 17" diameter. Slim measures 23.3" tall by 11". - Both hold 82 beers.
1/2 Barrel: 23.3" tall, 17" diameter - serves 165 12oz beers.
Once you've prime the appropriate refrigerator, you'll need to select your kegerator kit. All of the parts included in these kits can be purchased separately, but we highly propose using a kegerator kit, rather than buying individual parts. First of all, the kits commonly save you a few dollars, and secondly you'll have everything you need, and it will all be compatible. As an extra bonus, most kits come with detailed instructions definite to Construction a kegerator using the parts enclosed, as well as any primary specialty tools. When choosing your kegerator kit, you'll need to resolve how many taps you want (i.e. How many distinct types of beer you want to serve at once) and if you want a basic kit, or one with more bells and whistles.
Next, assemble the tools primary to build your kegerator. Even though the kegerator kits typically consist of any specialty tools that are needed, you will need a few basic household tools. You'll need the following tools to perfect the job:
Electric Drill
1/8" drill bit
1", 2" and 3" hole saws
Flat and Philips head screwdrivers
Needle nose pliers
Adjustable wrench
Level
Now that you have everything you need for your home made kegerator, it's time to get to work. Take off all of the shelves from the refrigerator and fully clean the inside. Check the floor of the refrigerator for level. If it is not, you need to build up the floor to make it flat and level. This can as a matter of fact be done with some plywood, 2x2s, and a few shims.
Drilling a hole for the tap
If you are Construction a mini fridge style of kegerator, you need to resolve if you're going to have a top mounted, tower style tap, or are you going to mount the tap in the door. If you're Construction a top mounted tap, you should Take off the interior plastic top panel to expose all of the coolant lines. You need to be very specific not to damage to refrigerator's coolant lines, or you will have to start over with a new fridge. If you are Construction an upright style of kegerator, the tap will be drilled through the door, which has no coolant lines, so this is not a concern.
If you're Construction an upright kegerator conversion, mark a point (or points) on the surface of the door where you would like to place the tap(s). Make sure that the spigots will be elevated sufficient to clear the keg and coupler, and that they are centered. Drill a 1/8" pilot hole for the shank holes. Make sure that this hole goes all the way through the door. Once you have your pilot hole, drill a 1" shank hole in the surface of the door for the faucet, using your drill and the 1" hole saw. Drill a larger 2" or 3" hole on the inside of the door, using one of the larger-bore hole saws. Fit your shank into the door with the flange against the outside, and the nut tightened onto the inside of the outer panel of the door. (The larger hole on the inside allows way so you can tighten the shank nut.) If you're Construction a mini fridge kegerator, do the same thing to the top of the unit, being very specific not to damage the coolant lines.
Assembly
Installing a drip tray in whether kegerator style is simple. For a regular size kegerator, use the drip-tray mounting bracket to mark out the mounting holes and drill them in the door. For a tower style mini-fridge, we propose a self-contained spill tray that is manually emptied.
We propose that you buy a beer line cleaning kit, and fully clean all the beer lines before hooking them up. Then hook up the beer and gas lines, flush them and sanitize them again. Prior to pressurizing the system, make sure that all hose clamps are tightened, that the Co2 tank is secured, and the temperature in your kegerator is between 33 and 38 degrees. After you have hooked up your keg and pressurized the system, start out at 13psi as a pressure setting, and adjust from there to achieve allowable carbonation level for your beer. If the beer pours with too much head, lower the pressure. If it comes out of the tap slowly, or appears flat, raise the pressure.
The final step is to relax with a fresh draft beer, and think about all the money you saved by Construction your own kegerator.
How to Build Your Own Kegerator
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