How To Convert A Chest Freezer

[mark.farrell1]

Good evening again fellow brewers

thanks for the info about my ****** fridge. So after careful thought I have decided to purchase a chest freezer in the near future for my kegging needs. I have just a few questions for anyone interested. (some of them very amature )

1. Do chest freezers come with temp control or do they just go straight to freeze mode.
2. Does it only freeze the compartment from the bottom. ie for drilling holes everywhere.
3. How do you stop your beer from freezing.
4. If you have this setup, how well does it work and is it easy.
5. What other pieces of equipment will i need besides fonts, beer lines etc etc

I only plan of having 3-4 kegs max at a time in the freezer what sizes freezer do you recommend ?

Thanks AHBwers

I look foward to your help as it is allways on the money.

 

[kabooby]

Hey Mark,

You will need one of these

Link

and a computer fan is good aswell to keep an even temp through the freezer

Also have a bit of a search on here. There are heaps of threads were people have converted chest freezers to hold kegs.

Kabooby

Do you happen to play golf at Antill?

 

[bugwan]

Good evening again fellow brewers

thanks for the info about my ****** fridge. So after careful thought I have decided to purchase a chest freezer in the near future for my kegging needs. I have just a few questions for anyone interested. (some of them very amature )

1. Do chest freezers come with temp control or do they just go straight to freeze mode.
2. Does it only freeze the compartment from the bottom. ie for drilling holes everywhere.
3. How do you stop your beer from freezing.
4. If you have this setup, how well does it work and is it easy.
5. What other pieces of equipment will i need besides fonts, beer lines etc etc

I only plan of having 3-4 kegs max at a time in the freezer what sizes freezer do you recommend ?

Thanks AHBwers

I look foward to your help as it is allways on the money.

Hi Mark, Kabooby pretty much covered it - there's plenty of threads around with freezer conversion info here. But to answer your questions;

1. Chest freezers don't have any sort of temp control (other than the factory settings - 'fairly frozen' and 'really frozen'). You'll need to get a Fridge Controller from one of the AHB sponsors. They just switch the freezer off and on to keep the temp at your choice (somewhere between 3 and 10 degrees, depending on preference);
Craftbrewer's fridge controller
MashMaster's fridge controller

2. Chest freezers tend to have cooling elements in the walls too - have a search around before drilling holes. You'll kill your freezer if you hit a cooling line. Drilling through the lid is generally safe though (unless there's indicator/light wiring). Many people add a collar (made from wood) that not only allows extra storage inside the freezer, but a safe place to drill holes to feed gas and to mount taps (if you're not using a font).

3. Beer won't freeze if you use a temp controller (see 1.)

4. There are many self-confessed 'tool tards' on this forum who have managed to put together amazing freezer set ups. Have a look at the link below for page after page of examples;
[topic="235"]Kegging setups[/topic]

5. Equipment is a personal thing, have a browse through the link above for ideas. You don't need everything at once. I started with a pluto gun, then added a tap, with a couple more to come soon. A 150 litre chest freezer will fit at least two kegs without modification, if you add a collar you will probably fit four kegs plus room for yeast, the gas bottle (if you want it inside) etc.

Enjoy reading those threads and links, they're how most of us got started...!

 

[turto77]

Hi Mark,
as for the size, i have a F&P 160 Litre and it fits 4 kegs comfortably with a collar. doesn't leave any room for much else though.

 

[KGB]

Like bugwan said, a pluto gun is also a decent option - with a chesty the cold air doesn't rush out like it does when you are continually opening the door on a fridge. Search here, google and google images and you will be overloaded with info.